Fiction Friday: Newlyweds

This Week’s Theme: Give a virtuous character a sordid past. "Shh!" Karly stopped in mid-moan, her breasts glistening with perspiration in the moonlight filtering through the rattan blinds. The blinds rattled a little when the ocean breeze came up, a sort of lonely sound that made it feel like we were alone in a beach hut, not on the third floor of a full service resort. So far it was a great honeymoon, and I had no interest in shushing right at this moment. "Seriously, Tom, stop." An edge I had never heard in Karly's voice before chilled me, and I stopped moving and tried to slow my breathing so I could be quiet for her. Even in the darkness of the room I could see her intense frown, a look of sheer concentration in her eyes. Her warm weight on top of me was tense, absolutely motionless. "What the..." In a swift move that only an Olympic gymnast could have managed, Karly slid off me and rolled off the bed, landing silently in a low crouch just next to the window. She glanced briefly back at me, where I lay on my back feeling pretty naked, then lifted the rattan blinds a half inch and peeked out. "Oh, shit." "What?" I whispered it, barely breathed it. Something in the way she crouched looked catlike, predatory. Something in the way she'd said "shit"--the first time I'd ever heard her curse since meeting her three years earlier--announced danger. Without answering, she stood and padded without a sound to the closet. She rummaged in my suitcase and threw my blue sweatpants and my black fleece jacket at me. "Put those on." Her voice carried to me with urgency and precision. Then she was in something black herself, and she was hissing at me to hurry as she moved to the door. I sat up and swung my feet over the edge of the bed, pulled on the sweatpants. I had heard of new brides going a little nutso on their honeymoons, but this was new. Maybe she wanted to take our lovemaking out to the beach. Maybe this was a kinky side of her I didn't know about before. Maybe this elementary school librarian had a sexual appetite she hadn't shared with me. I had to admit that I found it a bit exciting. But the way she was going about it was weird. Pop, pop-pop. A noise outside, somewhere on the resort grounds, sounded like someone had just let loose on a snare drum buried under a pile of leaves. Then there was a yell, a man's deep grunt of a syllable. And I looked at Karly. "Russian," she said. "I think it's an AK-47. That's what they'd have. Probably." She glanced at the window. "Hurry up." "What--" "Hurry the fuck up, Tom." She said it casually, like a drinking buddy eager to get out to a party and being held up by his friend combing his hair or something. She raised one eyebrow at me. I slipped the fleece over my head. "Forget shoes. Too much noise. No time." She pushed open the door to the hall and walked out. I followed, trying my best to remember how I used to pretend, when I was little, that I was an Indian and able to walk silently through the forest. I never could then, and now I found I was just as noisy in a carpeted hall. Karly made no noise whatsoever. If I didn't know she was right in front of me, I could have stumbled past and never noticed her. We took the stairs to the ground floor, then went through the deserted kitchen and out the back door of the hotel into the service parking lot. Dark trucks huddled around us, and every few steps Karly stopped to listen. I felt like a puppy on a leash, or maybe like a five-year-old following his mother. Or following a stranger after picking the wrong pair of legs in a crowd. As we hustled and paused among the trucks, then across the pool patio among the umbrellas and lounge chairs, then on into the tropical garden that bordered the jungle, I watched her. I'd known her four years. We met through one of those online dating services. She was young, only twenty three when we met, only a year out of Berkeley and newly hired as the school librarian at my nephew's school. Four years later, here we were on our honeymoon, and she was acting like some sort of soldier of fortune, leading me into the jungle, talking about foreign firearms. Suddenly she stopped and put one hand out behind her in a clear signal for me to stop and be quiet. My breath was heavy again, but not like it had been in bed just a few minutes earlier. With a glance, she indicated I should come up next to her and look at something ahead, just inside the jungle, just outside the resort compound. I looked, and at first I saw nothing. Then there was a brief flash of something in the moonlight, and my eyes found it in the darkness: A man, holding something that glinted black. He wore dark clothes, maybe even camouflaged. He moved the black thing again, and I realized he was whispering into a walkie-talkie. Karly made some hand signals that I interpreted as "stay here, don't move, don't make any noise." OK, I figured, but what are you going to... then my eyes went wide as I saw her do that gymnast thing again and slide silently between two low hedges, coming up on the man from behind, and doing something to his head or neck. He fell backwards quietly into her arms, and she lowered him gently to the ground. Within seconds she was back at my side. "Twelve others, I'm guessing. Eight inside by now, and three others stationed at the obvious watch points. I'll take care of them first. You. Do. Not. Move." Her whisper was a hiss I could not disobey even if I wanted to. But I was distracted by the pistol in her hand. I felt like my heart had stopped and my breath would never come again. Karly noticed me staring at the pistol. "Oh. Yeah." She hefted it. "Not mine. His." She jerked her head in the direction of the man she'd just apparently overcome. She grinned in the dark. "You didn't know I shoot lefty, did you?" As she sped off across the pool deck again, I observed my brain trying to grab hold of the scene. Yeah, that was her left hand. I think it was her left hand. I didn't know she shot lefty. Jesus, I didn't know she shot at all.
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Fiction Friday: Oh no, it's velcro!

This Week’s Theme: Pick an unusual phobia and explain why a character has it. It's that sound, you know? That tearing sound that makes your teeth sweat, like the sound of tendons ripping away from bone. But sounds will do that to you. I was told that smells bring back the strongest memories, but I don't believe it. Sounds, man. Think about it. Any good thriller or horror flick. What makes it scary? You know the stupid bimbo who just ran out into the deserted forest in her nightgown is about to get filleted by ten inch knife. It's the soundtrack. A good soundtrack is what makes that scary. There's no smell but popcorn in a movie theater, but you're still scared shitless. Sounds. Like the sound of a dripping faucet in the middle of the night. The drops echo, and you open your eyes to the darkness and think there's water dripping over by the TV, or in the closet. Makes you disoriented. Where the hell am I? What's that noise? You'd think I'd hate pocket knives, or sand paper. After all, that's what the sick bastard used on me. Somehow he always found me. Seemed to know, every day, where I was hiding. I had some good hiding places, too, but damn he found me every time. Every time. Scars in hidden places, patches of pinker skin where no hair grows even though I'm forty-six. Mom never realized what her "boyfriend" was doing in those hours late at night when she was off working at the hospital. Not til that night she got laid off. What could I do? I was eleven, scrawny, bookish. He spent his days tossing luggage at airplanes and his night tossing back Millers. I hid. He came after me. Always had a reason, even if he had to make it up. Maybe one night I didn't wash all the dishes, he'd say. Or I left the toilet seat up, he'd say. Anyway, I needed some discipline, and by God he was going to give it. He wore a back support harness, one of those things that looks like some freakish neo-Nazi Blade Runner fashionista interpretation of lederhosen. Black, it was. He'd wear it all day at work, throwing luggage around. Even wore it in his pickup on the way home. He'd open the door and come in, and I'd be buried in a book, maybe already hiding, and then my world would freeze and the air would turn solid in my lungs and I'd hear that ri-i-i-i-p of the industrial velcro straps being rent away from him, releasing him into the house. She came home that night. It was a Thursday. She looked sad when she walked in, then confused. She saw him over me with the pocket knife, my own cub scout knife, open and drawing a fine, crimson line down the left side of my back. My hands were held behind me, wrapped tight by a black velcro strap. I saw her eyes. He saw her eyes. He lost it, lunged at her. He knocked her down... I don't remember too much. I looked away. I was crying, I know that. He was nuts. He'd gone nuts. Lost it completely. I remember more sounds of velcro, and then Mom lay beside me, her mouth strapped shut with a thick, black velcro strap, another around her neck. Her hands were wrapped tight, and she was bent in half, unnatural. Her eyes looked scared, and she stared at me. Then I felt the knife touch my back again, this time burning and, I could tell, cutting deeper. I tried to block it all out, closed my eyes so Mom wouldn't see the pain I felt growing in my legs and back and wrists, bound too tight. When I looked again, Mom's eyes held no more fear. She still stared at me, but her gaze was vacant, her eyes glassy and unfocused. It was then I noticed she wasn't breathing.
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Fiction Friday: Three wishes...

This Week’s Theme: A character gets three wishes... Her mama called it ghost breath, this late September fog that lifted from the nearby pond and swirled slowly around Clara's ankles and calves. It was thicker over near the old, wooden bridge where the stream came down from Parker's Hill and fed the marsh that became Braden's Pond. A ghost breath night, Mama used to say, was a sure omen of death. Soon the ghost breath would swell until Clara couldn't see the stooped, stubby trees across the old gravel access road. Already the bridge had been swallowed up by the silent mist as darkness gradually defeated a reluctant twilight. Clara sat on the embankment, the train tracks a few feet behind her, and watched the pond disappear into the darkness. Gravel poked through her thin skirt, but the night was warm and she didn't mind the mist seeping through her threadbare school shirt. The moisture gathered and made the shirt cling like a second skin to her shoulders and breasts. Clara closed her eyes and imagined Mama out there gliding across the pond, floating above it in the air like a graceful dancer, pale and white and glowing. Maybe Mama was the lonely soul bringing the ghost breath with her tonight, back to visit the living. Maybe she'd come to take Clara away with her. Clara opened her eyes and was startled to see the fog glaring bright-white at her from the direction of the old bridge. The brightness was moving, slowly, creeping closer and growing. Her heart jumped and thumped as she held her breath and barely dared to think of Mama coming to her as she'd just envisioned. The feeling lasted only a moment, though, as the brightness clarified into two burning white dots ringed with rainbow coronas: headlights. And now she could feel the vibration of its motor not far off, now sense the rumble of its tires on the gravel road, coming nearer. For a moment, she hoped the car would drive on by and not see her. Her white shirt might blend in with the fog, her gray skirt with the gravel. But it was Friday night, and as the car lurched to a halt only ten yards away, Clara knew it was already too late to try to run away. She watched the driver's door open, saw Charlie step out and say something. Nick popped out from the other side, laughing with his evil-looking sneer. Finally, Bill slid out from the back, pushing his greasy, black hair back and slouching behind Charlie. The three boys sauntered toward her. Sometimes, Clara knew, her deafness could be an asset. Now she tried not to imagine all the things the boys were saying to each other. Even ten feet away the stink of bourbon flaked off them and melted into the mist swirling around them all. Maybe she could run after all. Maybe she could make it to the marsh and they'd let her go. Without hesitating more, Clara pushed off the embankment and drove hard past Charlie, straight into a pounding run aiming for the bridge. They would catch her if she didn't get a good head start into the darkness, into the ghost breath. She passed Charlie, but Bill lashed out with his foot. Pain seared into Clara's shin, and she fell, her hands ripped open by the sharp gravel of the road, her knees ground into the dirt. Then they were on top of her, before she knew what was happening, and they hit her, hard in the legs, or maybe they were kicking. The pain in her leg and now a new wet pain on the side of her head dazed her, and she was only partially aware of the skirt being torn from her amid the stench of new sweat and stale cigarettes and bourbon. She was pushed and rolled and yanked like a rag doll, and every inch of her hurt so much. Mama, she thought, Mama please come help me. Please come take me away with you. She closed her eyes and retreated inside herself, clinging to the vision of Mama gliding across the pond, a shimmering vision of death, vengeance--salvation. Unable to hear, choosing not to see, Clara shut out the outside world and ignored her body and what was being done to it. She imagined Mama coming to her, kneeling beside her, hugging her like she used to. She felt Mama's arms around her, felt Mama's heartbeat, Mama's warmth. "Mama," Clara whispered to the vision, "Mama take me with you. I wish I was dead. I wish to be with you." Her mama looked her in the eye with sad calm. "Hush, Clara. Don't say that. Why, you're just fourteen. You've got so much good ahead. Don't wish that. Wish something else." The vision embraced Clara again, this time with strength and solidity. "Then Mama," Clara whispered, "I wish Charlie would die. I wish Nick would die. And I especially with Bill would die." Mama pulled back from Clara and looked into her eyes again, sadness now mixed with that look she used to give when she was very proud of Clara. Mama nodded slowly and began drifting away, backwards so they kept looking into each other's eyes, until the bright figure merged into the mist and faded into the brightness that now was all around Clara. Later. How much later, Clara had no idea. She had fallen asleep. No, she had passed out. She knew because she felt the pain growing as she became aware, as she floated up out of the depths of unconsciousness. The pain, everywhere, so intense she could barely gasp in enough breath. Then, a familiar rumble began building in the ground under her. The gravel vibrated beneath her, and she opened her eyes. In less than a minute, the freight train would barrel past. All was darkness around her. The mist still loitered, now still as a frightened rabbit, waiting for something. The train would stir up the mist good, Clara thought. In the distance, she saw the glimmer of the train's headlamp glowing small and orange-white, a little sun in the dark mist. It was going fast tonight, Clara could feel it in the vibration of the gravel. She pulled herself to her knees, then stood up. The car was no longer next to her, but the stench of bourbon still lingered. She felt her head, found the blood still sticky in her hair. Fifteen seconds, perhaps. The train was heavy, too. It was an insistent rumble, an unstoppable determination. She looked at the tracks on top of the embankment, their rails black as onyx, almost sucking what little light there was around her. Then she saw it. The car. Parked on the tracks. She could see the boys' heads through the windows. They looked asleep, maybe. As the train bore down on the car, Clara realized it was too late to save the boys. She felt a shudder through her chest that must have been an urgent blast on the train's whistle, then a grating grinding as sparks leapt from underneath the engine. In the bright white of the train's headlamp, the car became a brilliant centerpiece in the black surroundings. Charlie in the driver's seat, asleep. Nick in the passenger seat, asleep. Bill in the back, lifting his head, his eyes growing wide as he watched his million-pound death pour down upon him at eighty miles an hour... Clara did not close her eyes at the impact. She did not flinch. She watched in vague curiosity as the car first buckled and shrank, then sprang away from the train like a bead of oil off a hot griddle, up and away, off the tracks into the night beyond. Limping, she turned to the gravel road and began slowly trudging toward the bridge where the ghost breath still lay thicker than anywhere. Away in the distance, over the pond, she thought she saw a shimmer of pale white gliding away from her and disappearing into the mist.
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Write Stuff Short Story Contest Entry

See the other entries and vote for your favorite (which would be, of course, ME) at the Write Stuff page!

What Goes Around
By Peter Dudley

"Didn't you used to work there?" Dawn's two-packs-a-day voice rasps across a wide, stainless steel counter as my knife slices, swish-click, through sausage after sausage. I enjoy her Tuesday summaries of the business section while I prep for the lunch rush in the shelter's kitchen. Dawn is surprisingly well read considering she dropped out of middle school and had to sell herself just to survive. That was ten years ago, though she looks much older than twenty-three. "Those college-ass pansies blew a hundred million bucks in two years? God damn. They could have given it to me and had lots more fun.” She sits cross-legged on the end of the counter.

I hold my tongue, which is not unusual. I'm sick of talking about my old boss David and his lying and backstabbing. Thank God he fired me before his shit really hit the fan. My friends still try to convince me it's not too late to sue for a "hostile work environment." They tell me I could get a lot of money in court. Dawn absently twists her long, wheat-colored hair, exposing a jagged scar stretched across the back of her neck. I wonder if my friends have any idea what a "hostile work environment" really is.

Dawn slides off the counter and wipes her sleeve under her nose. "That asshole boss you told me about. What’s-his-name. They gonna send him to jail, like Martha?” I’ve learned that shrugging gets Dawn moving on. As Dawn helps me haul the sausage tub across the kitchen, the first hungry people shuffle in. I admit to myself that I'd love to see David hauled off to prison.

The people file past, one by one, so lonely they aren't even acknowledged by each other. Some smell like the foul public toilet up the block. I take my place behind the counter. Today I'm slopping out mashed potatoes while Dawn delivers hunks of fresh bread.

As each blank face passes by, it’s hard to keep smiling. Most look down at their trays. One guy wearing a gray sweatshirt glances up, and when our eyes meet my blood runs cold. I want to grab the newspaper, hold up the headline for him to see. I want to point and say, "Didn't you used to work there?" But I hold my tongue. David turns away with his tray, and I turn to the old woman in line behind him. She gets double mashed potatoes because she has no teeth.

Ten on Tuesday: Fire! Fire!

[link]

10 Things I'd Save in a Fire
So I probably would only check to see that my kids and wife are safely out of the house and just say "screw it" to the rest of everything in the house. Even though some things can't be replaced (one-of-a-kind photos from the 1920s, for example), they're just not worth the risk. In the spirit of the meme, however, here are the noncritical things I would try to save:

1. The old photos. My photo albums from when I was a kid.
   
2. The other old photos. These boxes are kept in a different place from the first group and are really really old photos of my wife's extended family.
3. My writing. I have several old stories I wrote on a typewriter twenty years ago that have not moved into the electronic age. Some are even worth keeping.
   
4. My wallet.
   
5. My journals. Mostly for a few entries such as my trips to Japan and Germany and England. The rest is utterly useless.
6. My anti-Alzheimer's box, which contains random things that seem utterly useless but which tend to spark memories.
7. The kids' school boxes, which contain the artwork we didn't throw out from preschool up to today.
8. Our address book.
9. Um, the cats. Maybe. Probably.
   
10. Our "important documents" box. Deed, insurance policies, savings bonds, etc. This is last because it's actually in a fire-safe box, though it might not be locked.

This is a good time to think about preparedness and to make sure that emergency kits are up to date and that you have all the important documents and phone numbers stored off site in a safe location such as a safe deposit box. Also not a bad idea to back up photos and such to an online service, particularly one whose servers are in a completely different part of the country.

Lake Shasta

At the Sugarloaf Resort. The lake is very low, but it's still a ton of fun.

Fiction Friday: Robin Hood

This Week’s Theme: Pick a famous fictional character and give them a secret vice—at the very least it should be distasteful if not outright illegal. Now give the character’s rationale in their own words. I'm not like the brutes sent out by that bloody Sheriff. My only goal is to bring him down, and that damned Prince John with him. But I can't do it alone. I need the people behind me. Granted, the Sheriff is doing a jolly good job of turning the people against him without my help, but a little nudge here and there can't hurt, can it? Robbing the rich to feed the poor people around these communities is all well and good, but it's simply not enough. If there's to be change--real change--then we must restore the order and justice that existed while King Richard was here. He may not return from the Crusades, and in that case we have to watch out for ourselves. If he does return, we have to be prepared to receive him and fight for his rule again. How else can we do that without having the people against the prince? Like I said, I'm not like the Sheriff's brutes. They burn houses at random, just for the fun of it. When I burn a peasant's house, I am very careful to make it the right house, at the right time. The residents must be away so it's easy to blame the Sheriff, and to ensure there are no injuries. I suppose there might be other, less destructive ways to incite the people. But there's nothing like a good fire to get people really angry, is there? As a lad, I used to practice archery at night with fire-tipped arrows. Part of the thrill was in the secrecy of it. I had to sneak out of the manor house and down past the stables. One night I missed the target and nearly set the stables ablaze. My father saw from the window, and I had never seen him so angry. Later, when I first went into hiding from the Sheriff and the prince, I took every opportunity I could to learn the best ways to make a fire in all weather, from all materials. That intense study has made it relatively easy, for example, for me to burn farmer Giles' house and blame the Sheriff. After all, it happened while Giles was with me, five miles away, feeding the seven children orphaned by the last attack by the Sheriff's brutes. Like I said, I'm not like them. They burn houses for sheer enjoyment. I burn houses for a much nobler purpose.
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haiku wednesday

This week's words are:
Forgotten
Hotel
Obscure

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obscure memory
her room number forgotten
hotel matchbook lost

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obscure floor, bare feet
step--crunch--forgotten item
slimy roach hotel

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obscure hotel tryst
"I've forgotten your name, hon."
just how I want it

Ten on Tuesday: 10 things I like about my job

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10 Things I Like About My Job
Ironically, I was so busy with my work yesterday that I never had time to complete this week's Tuesday 10. But I like my job so much that I just had to do it, even if it's a day late.

1. My boss is wonderful.
   I've had a couple of good bosses and a few real stinkers. My boss now is not only a wonderful person, she's a terrific mentor and is genuinely concerned with all aspects of my career. She actively encouraged one of our coworkers to pursue additional opportunities, and even though we lost an outstanding performer when he left, her mentoring and advocacy has him on a great career path. I have learned a ton from her already.
   
2. My team mates are awesome.
   I figured working for a company with 150,000 people would be a bureaucratic nightmare. But every company is made up of individuals, and with extremely rare exceptions the people I work with are helpful, sincere, team-oriented, can-do, positive people.
   
3. Doing good in the world.
   What can I say? My job is all about helping communities improve. I build systems and run programs that make it easy for people to volunteer and donate. I've had jobs where we were making products I didn't really believe people needed. Now I'm helping make the world a better place. Cool.
   
4. Travel.
   Although it's not like my time with Geoworks and Nokia when I traveled overseas a couple times a year, I do get to travel to conferences all around the US quite often. I like it when it's not too much... a trip a month for 3-4 days is just about right.
   
5. Work-life balance.
   My boss is super supportive of a healthy work-life balance. Flexibility in my schedule allows me to head out for lunchtime pickup soccer games or take the car to the shop or volunteer at the school as a crossing guard. I make other sacrifices for this balance... my salary is way lower than my market value, but I prefer the balance to the cash.
   
6. Very cool projects and people.
   There are CEOs of large organizations who greet me by name, sometimes with a hug. I've met with White House advisors and directors of national government and nonprofit organizations. Although I wouldn't say I've had a significant impact on policy, I've had a voice that will only grow as I progress in this career.
7. Very cool and fun people.
   The people I meet when I got to conferences tend to be wonderful people--they have similar jobs trying to improve communities, so they tend to be compassionate, nice people. But I've found they also tend to be very fun. It's rare to go to one of these conferences and not find a group to go out with, whether it's the French Quarter in New Orleans or dancing at a lame club in San Antonio or just having drinks at the hotel bar. Really fun people who
   
8. Using all my skills.
   I started this job as a contractor doing simple database work. It turned into a tech-oriented job where I built one of the most successful employee giving campaign intranet sites in the world, processing over $20 million in employee gifts a year. But technology has become only a fraction of my job. I use a whole range of skills from writing to presenting to technology to diplomacy to support to strategic thinking to problem solving to... you name it, I'm probably doing it at some point during the week.
   
9. The learning never stops.
   See #8 for the job arc. I have learned a lot about technology and enterprise applications. I've learned a lot about United Way and the nonprofit community. This year I began learning a lot about economic development policy and government relations. There is so much more out there to learn, and I've got that opportunity.
10. Benefits and stability.
    If I didn't need money, I would choose not to have a job. (I would write.) But since I have to work for a living, it's better to work for a company with nearly unparalleled performance over a huge period of time, a company with stability and growth. Also, the benefits are pretty good, and there's a good 401(k) match. So that's definitely a benefit.

I could definitely see myself working in this department in this company for the rest of my career, which I expect will be another 25 or 30 years. I would recommend the company without hesitation for people seeking employment. Basically, if I have to work, this is the job I want in the company I want. This year has been too busy, but it's all good.

ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME (#2)

Something comes to mind about rats and sinking ships. I forget the exact phrase.

[link]

Fiction Friday: Western!

This Week’s Theme: Create a character in a genre you would normally avoid. I took a look at wikipedia to see what genres exist. I thought about selecting Autobiography for this prompt, but I didn't think I could create a believable character. Erotic Fiction was another one I thought about long and hard, but I have settled on Erotic Lesbian Historical Western Romance. Setting: 1844, all along the Santa Fe Trail Name: Elizabeth "Ben Walker" Davenport Age: 24 Profession: Pioneer Guide Born in Baltimore in 1820, Libby Davenport became an orphan at 14 when her parents were killed in a tragic, late-night accident involving two horse-drawn carts, an exploding gas streetlamp, thick fog, and too much alcohol. Essentially a drunk driving accident, but Libby's parents were not at fault. Even before the accident, Libby felt trapped in her normal, urban existence. Her father was a lawyer with political connections, and her mother was well respected in the Baltimore social circles. But Libby found herself enamored of stories from the western frontier and often imagined herself astride a horse on a hillside overlooking a vast prairie, a sixgun on her hip and no one telling her to sit up straight, to hold her teacup just so, to put those silly ribbons in her hair. Before she could even be put into an orphanage, Libby took what money she could find in her parents' house and purchased travel to Missouri on the pretense of going to care for her ailing aunt. Once in Missouri, she signed up with a wagon train heading west along the Santa Fe Trail, linking herself to a family who wanted an older girl to help with their two small daughters. Along the way, Libby hovered around the guides and learned to handle horses, to shoot, to hunt, and to live in the outdoors. One day, one of the men offered to take her out hunting, but when they got out of sight of the wagon train, he tried to rape her. She fought him and accidentally shot him in the head with his own gun. She thought she could not return to the wagon train, that no one would believe her, so she took all his things and the two horses and rode off into the hills. She cut her hair short and disguised herself as a boy. Through the next few years she drifted from town to town, finding odd jobs but mostly living alone or acting as a temporary guide along the trail for wagon trains... all the time disguised as a man, calling herself Ben Walker. Now it's 1844, and Libby has signed up to guide a wagon train from Dodge City to Santa Fe. The caravan consists of ten families. As they make their way along the trail, Libby falls in love with Ellen Whidby, the young, quiet wife of Charles Whidby. Description: Libby has dark brown hair and, despite her English heritage, tends to have darker complexion. She's got deep, brown eyes that have a serious. thoughtful look about them. She rarely smiles, preferring to keep her emotions internal and not show anything about herself to others. Well educated as a girl, she enjoys reading but enjoys being outdoors and living with nature more. She always wanted to be a tomboy growing up and envied the boys their rough games and horseplay, but she was never allowed to participate. Instead, she patiently accepted her lot in life and fully expected to live as her mother had lived--well married, socially respected, demure and polite and well dressed and conversant on the themes of the day. In her mind, the death of her parents was not so much a defining moment as a liberating one, a cutting of the bonds of society and permission to become who she always felt she should. She loved her parents deeply and would have done anything to please them, but when they died she came to believe that from Heaven they could see into her heart, and she felt they were telling her to be happy in her life now that they were gone. Libby is the type of person who serves others. She is highly intuitive about others' needs and often sacrifices her own convenience or comfort to provide for others. She's also keenly intelligent and observant and has an intuitive understanding of how nature works and the cycle of life. Thus, while she's more comfortable alone in nature than she would ever be in a big city, she also gets lonely because she has a need to be helping others and feeling useful. At 5'7", she's tall for a young woman but looks like a teenage boy to others. She's lean but quite strong, with a mental fortitude that helps her withstand pain and discomfort that would be difficult even for many hardy pioneer men.
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Thursday Thirteen (#16): Back to reality

It's back-to-school time, the craziest time of year for many of us. But I've discovered that back-to-school time is also back-to-everything else time as well: Back-to-soccer 1 As head coach of a U9 boys team, I've gotten back to soccer in a big way. Last weekend I got my "F" class coaching license from CYSA, and I look forward to every practice with the boys. They're great kids! The season begins September 8th. Back-to-soccer 2 This coming weekend is my over-30 men's soccer club's "Derby Day," when the four club teams all play each other and then barbecue to kick off the season. The actual season begins the first Sunday after Labor Day. Back-to-Cub Scouts The Cub Scout year aligns with the school year. Even though I'm not an official scout leader, I am backup and volunteer a lot. Both my boys love scouting, so we end up with a lot of events in September. Back-to-Campaign My job involves running the annual employee charitable giving campaign for one of the world's largest companies. We traditionally run the campaign from mid September to mid October, which means that all of July, August, and September are crazy busy for me (thus the dearth of good blog entries and the utter lack of any fiction production besides Fiction Friday). Back-to-football Go Bears! College football begins. This means much of my usable Saturday time is reserved for the much more important watching of football. Back-to-crossing guard Kids in school means kids in crosswalks. Once again I'll be out there keeping the wee ones safe on my lollipop duty while trying not to get run over. Don't laugh. I save one life a year at least and have nearly been run over (like, the kind where you actually die) twice. Back-to-darkness Now is the time of year you start to notice it getting darker during the morning commute. It sneaks up on you, but one day you realize you've had to put your headlights on a few days in a row, and it's not because of overcast skies. Back-to-grumpiness With all this work going on and everyone struggling to figure out their commute, school, and activity schedules, and with vacations being over (except for the payments on the VISA bills), people tend toward grumpiness. Maybe that's why they generally hold elections in November, so people have a whole month to build up their grumpiness. Back-to-netflix When I was a kid, I went to movies in the summer. Now, I wait until the fall and netflix them instead. I can't afford to take a family of four to all the movies I want to see during the summer. With theaters shrinking it's almost better seeing them on my big-screen TV anyway. Back-to-yardwork The summers here tend to be scorching. Now the weather begins to ease off a bit, and the weeds find this a charming time for a resurgence. Back-to-alarm clocks My 8-year-old hops out of bed every day at 6:45 a.m., all year long. My 11-year-old would sleep until 11 a.m. if he could. Every morning during the school year is a struggle to drag him out of bed and get him off to school. Back-to-memories Two years ago, my father-in-law passed away over the Labor Day weekend. We miss you, Gary. Back-to-reality Summer's a time for fun and swimming and vacations and travel and all that. September is when the harvest begins, when it's time to get serious and put away stores against the coming harsh winter. OK, maybe not in California but you get my drift. OK, everybody. Enough blogging. Back to work!

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Cal hosts Tennessee

It's that time of year again! Every year, the last few weeks of August I feel like I'm wandering back from the desert. Not only has the Premier League kicked off again and NFL preseason is in full swing, but college football looms within sight. When I open the sports page, I can finally see something other than baseball, steroids, indictments, and contract disputes. Now I can see football, baseball, steroids, convictions, and contract disputes. It's a beautiful thing.

Anyway, I digress. I have done well over six minutes of research into the media guides of both Cal and Tennessee, and I feel I have achieved expertise sufficient to prognosticate with the best of the TV talking heads. So here you are, Bear fans: My first game preview of 2007!

CAL OFFENSE
What can we say? TB Marshawn Lynch, OL Andrew Cameron, OL Erik Robertson, and FB Byron Storer all are gone from the Pac-10's most high-scoring offense of 2006 (32.8 ppg). One of the league's best quarterbacks, one of the nation's best tight ends, possibly the nation's best center, and almost certainly the nation's best corps of wide receivers return. Including Heisman Trophy candidate DeShaun Jackson. In addition to TB Justin Forsett, who has 1,600 yards and six 100-yard rushing games in his career as a backup, the offense also returns strength and size in the offensive line despite the departure of two outstanding players in Cameron and Robertson. If the offensive line plays well--and it says here they will--and if the stars and stalwarts say healthy, then this offense could be something really special. With Tedford back in charge and a few spread and shotgun wrinkles added to his playbook, I just can not wait to see the blue & gold line up for the snap.

CAL DEFENSE
The defensive line needs some rebuilding but also sees an influx of tremendous talent in players that haven't yet seen game action. Despite the linebacking corps losing Desmond Bishop and Mickey Pimentel, I think the weak link--or rather the biggest question mark--is on the line. The Bears lost two key DEs in Ma'afala and Tafisi and a real force in Brandon Mebane, and the backups coming into their roles have had injury problems and are generally lacking in the type of experience you'd like to see. Given the Bears' tendency to bend-not-break in 2006, I worry about Cal being susceptible to strong running teams. In the linebackers, the Bears lost two great players in Bishop and Pimentel, but they return two players who were both freshman All-America in 2005: Anthony Felder and Zack Follett. Follett was the only non-starter in the nation to earn all-conference honors at linebacker and is a Butkus Award and Ronnie Lott Trophy candidate this year. In addition, Greg Van Hoesen and Worrell Williams have seen plenty of game experience and round out the linebackers nicely. In the defensive backfield, you can't expect to replace a player like Daymeion Hughes, but the Bears return their other three starters and have a lot of talent with significant experience as backups.

CAL SPECIAL TEAMS
The Bears are stocked on special teams, losing only the regular kick holder, Joe Ayoob. Both punting and kicking should be solid, and with DeSean Jackson returning punts again (he shares the Pac-10 record with four TD returns in a season), the return game will also be strong.

TENNESSEE'S OFFENSE
The Volunteers come into Memorial Stadium ranked #14 preseason compared to Cal at #12. I think this is basically on the strength of returning QB Erik Ainge, who is quite good and had a 67% completion percentage in 2006. They also return all three (oops, just two... LaMarcus Coker was recently suspended for undisclosed transgressions) of their top tailbacks and a whole bevy of experienced tight ends, one of whom is a monster at 6'8". They also return three of their five starters on the offensive line including a freshman All-America center. BUT, they lost essentially their entire receiving corps and a four-year starter at fullback, Corey Anderson. The two OL they lost were true stars, Aaron Sears (an early 2nd round NFL draft pick) and David Ligon. The OL is still huge, though, averaging 305 lbs. I think any team that doesn't key on the run against the Vols until Tennessee can prove they have a passing game is insane. Cal fans are familiar with the strategy of using an entirely new receiving corps, and it usually turns out not so pretty... even with a really good QB.

TENNESSEE'S DEFENSE
The consensus of qualified experts (OK, me) is that the Vols are vulnerable in the middle. I base this on the fact that Tennessee returns to outstanding DEs but are struggling to fill the hole left by two stars at tackle. In addition, they lost their starting middle linebacker. The backup, while capable, is still entering his first year as a starter and is bound to make a few mistakes at one of the most important positions on either side of the ball. In the secondary, the Volunteers lost three starters, but the one returning is a superstar, Jonathan Hefney. Hefney took five interceptions and was second on the team with 96 tackles in 2006. All three of the other positions are to be filled by essential newcomers. The secondary will be a weakness, for sure, especially if the DL can't get solid pressure up the middle.

TENNESSEE'S SPECIAL TEAMS
Like Cal, Tennessee sports one of the nation's top punt return men in Hefney, a semifinalist for the national award for best punt returner. He was beat out by Cal's Jackson. But he is outstanding, and Tennessee also has a superb punter. Their kicking game may suffer, though, as they lost their starting placekicker and were weak on kickoff returns in 2006.

MATCHUP
At the risk of sounding like I'm woofing, I think the matchup favors Cal in this game. Not only are they at home with a hankering for revenge with something to prove on national TV, but the returning experience is more balanced than Tennessee's. I think Tedford will have an easier time building a game plan against the Vols than they will have planning against Cal. It all comes down to execution, and injuries can play a vital role in any game, so there are always tons of question marks in the first game.

Now that I'm done equivocating, I'm going to pick Cal to win this, 38-17. When the Bears have the ball, they should be able to give Longshore enough time to find his star receivers running free amid the Vols' inexperienced secondary. Hefney can play, but he can't cover all three receivers. I look for the Bears to keep the defense on their heels with a powerful running game and a couple of middle screens. When the Vols have the ball, the Bears will work to keep them one-dimensional. Cal's secondary is tall and very athletic; my worry is the creative use of the experienced tight ends and running backs against the relative inexperience of Cal's linebackers. Even so, Cal's defense is not lacking experience anywhere but the DL, and if the Volunteers are to establish any sort of passing game, that will be why. If Cal's line can't pressure and hurry Ainge, he might be able to pick out his targets. Still, I think that will be more rare than common, and Tennessee will have difficulty moving the ball with consistency against the Bears.

To win, Tennessee will have to get up early and control the tempo of the game, focus on running and a power game through Cal's line to open up some room in the passing game. On defense... well, Tennessee will need some luck, to be honest. Their best bet is to remove Longshore from the equation.

Man oh man, I wish I was able to be in Berkeley that day.

Go Bears!

Ten on Tuesday: 10 Things I don't like about my job

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10 Things I Don't Like About My Job
I've held my job now for six years (1 1/2 as a contractor, nearly 5 as FTE), and I've said right from the beginning that if I had to have a job, this would be just about the perfect one. Mostly. This week I have to stretch a lot to fill ten items. Most of these are of the "double-edged blessing" variety where really I'm looking at both sides of the same coin and choosing to tell you about the seamy underbelly. (How's that for mixed metaphors?) In reality, I love my job and hope to keep doing it until I retire in oh, say, 20 years or so... unless I win the lottery this week.

1. My boss has cancer.
   This is by far the worst thing about my job, bar none. She is the best manager I've ever had (I've had a few real stinkers, and she's totally at the other end of the scale from them), and she's a totally remarkable person that has a passion for helping people in need. Also a great mentor from whom I've already learned tons.
2. It takes time away from my writing.
   This year has been exceedingly busy. Usually I have a slow period from February through April, but my boss was diagnosed in January, and I've been doing my job and much of hers ever since.
3. It takes time away from soccer.
   I love to travel for business on short trips. For this job alone I've traveled to at least fourteen states for meetings or conferences, and every one of them was well worth the trip. But if I'm not here, it means I can't get out on the pitch and kick a ball around. When I don't get to play soccer, I get very, very cranky.
4. Too many tasks, too little time.
   This falls under the category of "we expect a lot from our small but mighty team." Shortly before my boss was diagnosed last winter, the other of our three-person team left for another job within the same company. He took with him a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge. Although he has been around to help, and although the replacement we got is a real star performer, we expect so much of ourselves that it would have been a real disappointment if we didn't do even better than our last five years, which were all better than the prior years.
   
5. I don't get paid enough.
   I took this job knowing that would be the case. I could take a programming or software product management job for probably a 70% increase in base salary, but then I wouldn't be where I am, doing what I do. Still, it's been a tough year doing two (or more, at times) jobs for less than my market value. I do believe, however, that what goes around comes around, and it will all work out for me in the end.
6. Bureaucracy.
   Most of my career has been in companies of fewer than 50 people. Now I'm in a company of more than 150,000. While this particular position in this particular company is incredibly entrepreneurial and autonomous, the company's size and bureaucracy occasionally gets in the way of good ideas. In particular, if a good project needs funding outside a budget cycle, it's very hard to find money for it, and occasionally opportunities are missed. The flip side, of course, is that many bad ideas also get stymied by The System, and often the bureaucracy will illuminate entire business units that actually can help when you thought you were on your own for a project.
   
7. Processes should serve the people, not the other way round.
   With the regulatory environment in our industry, we have to make sure we always dot our T's and cross our I's. (Wait... strike that. Reverse it.) Sometimes this leads to creation of insane processes that require several hours a month of busy work even though the resulting product--usually some plan or other--essentially gets filed away and never used.
   
8. Technology standards are not my first choice.
   I do a lot of web application development as part of my job, and my department has standardized on technology choices that aren't my preferred ones. Shrug. I told you I had to stretch to fill ten items this week.
   
9. Formal recognition doesn't come my way very often.
   I get TONS of informal recognition, and my job is one of those where even though the company is more than 150,000 people, many of the top managers and senior executives know me by first name. The people I work with are great with thank-yous and such, which is important, but a little more of the formal recognition would also be nice.
   
10. We can't do everything we want to do!
    The biggest problem is that with such a small staff, we can't accomplish everything we'd really like to do. We have so much opportunity, so far to go. There are so many ways we could make a bigger impact, but... see items #1 and #4.
    

Fiction Friday: Oblivion

This Week’s Theme: Pick an adult character and write a scene where the character demonstrates one from a selection of childlike habits. (I chose this: Must sleep with a particular stuffed animal or blanket.) "What are you doing?" Claire's voice floated to me on the chilly night air with a hollow sleepiness. I heard her yawn behind me. "It's freezing out here. Come back to bed." The lake stretching out in front of me was a vast field of black oblivion, half misted over with the reflection of silver moonlight. The hills on the far side rose up, ominous shadows against the paler blue-black of a sky littered with stars. The houses on the other shore, so lively with kids and dogs and boats during the day, were entirely invisible as if they'd just been swallowed up by the emptiness. "Couldn't sleep," I said without turning. "Want a blanket?" Maybe in the morning she'd turn out like Linda, like Sandra, like Anne, but her voice had a softness, an acceptance in it that suggested otherwise. My former girlfriends were all psychological woodpeckers, pecking and pecking away at me, never satisfied that there might be things I wasn't ready to talk about. Not yet. I heard Claire disappear into the bedroom and return, sliding the glass door shut and joining me on the balcony. She pulled a plastic patio chair across the tile floor, its legs protesting with a chucka-chucka kind of grinding noise that filled the little space around us. She didn't seem to mind the noise or care whether it might wake anyone in the other condos around us. She hadn't brought me a blanket, but she'd wrapped a thick, white, terry robe around her. I watched her lower herself into the chair, ghostly and ethereal in the moonlight. "It was a night like this my sister disappeared," she said, her voice calm and soft and shadowy as if it had come straight from the air. She stared out over the lake much as I must have been doing before she sat down. "Moonlit but dark, silent. If you listen close, it seems like even the normal night noises are gone." She paused, and we both listened. Then she turned, and I could see her smile at me. "See? There's a breeze out there on the water, you can see it in the rippling moonlight. But shouldn't we hear waves lapping on the beach, or the boat rubbing against the dock? Shouldn't we hear the trees whispering even a little?" Her voice, so beautiful and smooth, held a mystery of its own. It sounded thrilled with the eeriness of such a still, dark night. But it also sounded sad, hinting of regret. "This night has death written all over it," she whispered. I shivered, and not because of the cool breeze that snuck up my tee shirt. We sat in silence a long time after that, both of us facing the oblivion before us. I thought of how we'd made love for the first time just a few hours earlier, how I felt so close to her. But sitting here a few feet apart, both dressed, silent... it felt even more intimate. I wanted to get inside her, touch her soul. Quietly I asked her, "Do you know what happened to your sister?" Claire, staring out at the lake, didn't move as she said, "No." After a moment, she added, "I spent the last three weeks of that summer in my room upstairs in our summer house, in Wisconsin. My window looked over the back yard, which sloped down to a small dock on the lake. I spent those three weeks at the window, watching Sheriff's volunteers drag the bottom looking for her." She turned and smiled at me. "They never found her. I like to think she's out there somewhere, living life like she always meant to." I tried to smile in return. "Sixteen years ago," I said quietly, "my mother slipped out while my father and brothers were watching a football game on TV. I knew she was leaving. I was in my room, crying my eyes out into my pillow. I was fourteen. She writes me, but I haven't seen her since." My gut tightened as I fought against tears I knew I couldn't hold back. At least it was dark. At least Claire wouldn't see them. Then, her hand settled softly on my thigh and just rested there, a warm touch in the darkness without expectation, without the peck-peck-peck of unending questions. "I understand why you can't sleep," she whispered. I snorted a wet laugh through my tears. "Actually," I said, not believing I was about to tell her my most closely kept secret, "no, you don't." I felt rather than saw her straighten a bit. Maybe I'd offended her? Maybe she thought I was shutting her out, and I didn't want that. Not at all. "You see," I began to explain, "I can't sleep because... well, I guess it is because of my mom after all. When I was seven--my brother Luke was eleven, and--well, that doesn't matter, but he did something really mean to me, and my mom bought me this little, black bear, a stuffed animal. Dad didn't like her to do that, to make me feel better by buying me things, but she said this bear was our secret, that it could make me feel good no matter what happened. Hey, I was seven." I shook my head, getting lost in the memory of my mom glancing around as she paid for it, making sure Dad was still with Luke in the sporting goods store across the way. "It was a little gift shop in a Tahoe mall, and we were on vacation, and it was just a simple bear. I mean... anyway," I continued as I could feel Claire's confusion next to me, "I slept with that bear that night. And every night since. And now I can't sleep unless I have it with me." "So... you came out here in the cold because you don't have your little bear?" "No, I came out so I wouldn't wake you up. I couldn't sleep because I don't have my little bear." She laughed, a bright, soft, musical kind of sound, and I smiled at my own childishness. Her laugh faded away, and her hand, still resting on my thigh, slid over to my arm and found my hand. She clenched it in hers. "Come on," she said. "Come back to bed. We don't need to sleep tonight." I stood as she led me up out of the chair. "But next time, bring the bear with you." I figured I could wait until morning to tell her that Blacky was in my suitcase wrapped in a shirt. Like she said, we didn't need to sleep that night.
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Ten on Tuesday: 10 Interesting Web Sites

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10 Interesting Web Sites I'd Like to Share
Huh. I'm not sure I've got much here for people, but here goes. Sorry if you've seen all these before.

1. NaNoWriMo
   National Novel Writing Month. I've participated three times and may or may not participate this year. Either way, when I get my first novel published there will be an acknowledgement of NaNoWriMo for kick-starting my writing again.
2. Recent Earthquakes
   This is the USGS' real time earthquakes map. I have used the Bay Area map to get earthquake details within minutes of feeling an earthquake at home. Pretty remarkable.
   
3. Cal Insider Football Board
   This wouldn't be a "favorites" list of mine if it didn't include something about Cal sports. This board is a typical BBS in that it's got a few lucid posters with a whole bunch of airheads. But it's Cal football.
   
4. CSR Wire
   Get daily news about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from around the world.
5. Netcraft web server survey
   Some interesting stats about the Web.
6. Project Gutenberg
   This site contains a remarkable wealth of the full text of classic (and not so classic) literature.
7. Just plain fun.
8. Old-time arcade games
   My kids love this, and it's a nice trip down memory lane.
9. bartleby.com
   Whenever I need a quotation, I go here. Very useful!
10. Best. Comic strip. Ever.
    Bill, you are an unparalleled genius.
    

ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME

Good riddance.

Unrelated side note: I always thought Rove bore an unsettling resemblance to that Nazi guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark who got one side of the medallion burned into the palm of his hand.

Connecticut vacation day 9

Going back to California

Rhode Island vacation day 8

Misquamicut

Connecticut vacation day 7

Rain!