May

My goodness. I skipped a month. A whole month!

I started working at a middle school and it’s been…

Interesting?

Horrifying?

Tedious?

Yeah. The district I work for is ‘going through some stuff’. Staff changes, closing an entire school down, shuffling students, blah dee blah blah. Everyone is STRESSED. It’s very stressful to not know what the hell is going on at any given moment and yet be expected to show up for work where you’re getting paid peanuts to deal with young feral hyenas. Maybe just hyenas? Feral makes them sound interesting and middle school kids are, um, all desperately trying to be exactly like each other. Which is akin to a boring reality show focused on foot wear. Sure, there are bright moments and funny little incidents and times when you’re not watching the clock because school gets out in fifteen days or whatever the current count down is, you betcha.

Of course, at the other school I used to work at– there are racial slurs being thrown around and the fourth graders decided it was ‘r@pe week’. Kids were shouting it and saying it and generally spreadin’ it around. Not even kidding. I got this earful from the teacher in charge of Special Ed at that school. I’d already heard about the N word being dropped with a sickening casual ease but not the r@pe week reference. I just.

Yeah.

So! It’s been cold here. As in frost in the mornings kinda cold and sorta looks like it could snow skies. We did get some heavy rain and fast winds, but since Eastern Oregon/Western Idaho remains in a rain shadow despite a leftist push…sorry. Politics is cray cray, as they they say, so it permeates everything like dirty oil.

I still haven’t gotten my deposit back from the Strat. I need to call. I remember trying to deal with this at the Red Lion.

Been catching lots of mice. The birds are building nests. The four dogs are doing okay, but they are a bit touchy now and then. The cat hates the dogs, but they do chase her.

I’m barely writing. I’m just empty and exhausted and wondering if a steady paycheck and health care is worth my mental health. I’m home today because the thought of going to work had me in tears. I’m also eating way too much, which triggers blah blah.

Anyhoo. Hope all is well with the peeps that might read this and hope they are having a better spring than moi. Smooches! Might hear back from me in July, but I make no promises.

Rainy Vegas

Hey there. What month is this??

So. Went to Vegas. Again. It was rainy. Rainy and cold. You expect Sin City to be blazingly hot. When it’s not, the surrealism of that place sinks teeth through the skin of your soul and takes a giant chunk of whatever sanity you have left. Neon in drizzle is just not a good look.

Okay. Here’s where I admit my naive stupidity or, perhaps, indifference to being part of those who wish to scam me out of a large chunk o’change. Yes, got sucked into the ‘free stuff’ in exchange for a ‘half hour’ lecture on [real estate stuff]. My friend and I walked into Treasure Island, last June, and yes, signed up for three ‘free nights’ blah blah, with some ‘gifts’ attached and promises that the money we paid for deposits would be returned.

I know. I knew it was way too good to be remotely true but it’s Vegas and the entire Strip is designed to confuse and tire ya out so that slipping a twenty into a slot machine seems normal. And that’s the penny slot machines, btw. They don’t let you play a penny a turn, however. It’s thirty or eighty a turn, at the low end. So that if you want to play longer than ten seconds, you need to put that twenty in…yeppity. Same with the other denominations. Not that I have the cash to play dollar machines or would want to, because the stress of that makes me a bit sobby.

Okay, so this outfit, some offshoot of the Wynn collection of resort stuff, does not cover the taxes or such of whatever hotel you choose to stay at for ‘free’. You end up paying almost three hundred bucks, plus whatever you spent to get to Vegas in the first place. Plane tickets, driving there. It adds up quickly. But hey, have a steady paycheck right now and got my taxes done in January, so yeah and– upgraded for twenty bucks a night or so so we could have a coffee pot and fridge in our room. That’s right. Hotel rooms did not include a coffee pot or fridge unless you paid a fee or, ahem, went for the ‘upgrade’. Fuck me, is all of Vegas just a rampant scam?

Yes. Yes, it is.

I’ll make this a short post.

My friend picks me up at the airport, now called the Harry Reid Airport, instead of McCarron. I nearly lose my bag, because I have yet to find the baggage thingie it was supposed to be at. It’s at the Delta lost bags area, so yay!

Our room is basic but nice, at the Stratosphere and parking is twenty bucks a day, done right in the front through valet. Yay! Not much of a walk, either, to get to our room.

So, after signing up for that now two hour lecture time the next day, we enjoy the Strat. Go to dinner, play some slots, gab and giggle as old friends do.

Wednesday. Yikes.

It’s a harsh, high-pressure one on one type of deal, with the sales people as pushy as vultures over a fresh carcass. I just get more and more creeped out and more and more uncomfortable as I’m told how pretty I am and how being a teacher is…ugh. Ugh! Finally, after I refuse to buy a timeshare or whatever it is, and get hit with an even pushier sales demon, I snap. I just can’t take this anymore. It’s been almost THREE FUCKING HOURS of hardcore buy buy buy, one day only deal, just today, buy buy buy shit.

My friend, who is nicer than I am, endured another hour of this before they released her back into the wild. Oh and we both had ‘deals’ and were told to pretend we made so much a year and did not know each other by those signing people up for this crap.

We lost almost half a day. We went in before nine and did not leave until almost one thirty or so.

Also, the goodies? Sigh. Our coupons for food could only be used at one place and they closed at two in the afternoon. The gambling money? Was a promotional thing that could only be used at the Casino Royale, which was nowhere near the Strat. Had to find it beforehand and then drive there, but found a place to park for free that was easy to get in and out of.

Anyway!

It was an okay trip. I had fun and we got blasted the last night we were there.

And then my flight home got cancelled. I had to scramble and get a room at Circus Circus, plus taxis to and from airport. Sigh. But I got home and here I am, typing all this willy-nilly.

Okay. Checking in, it’s March now and spring break is next week. Hurray!

Might do a part two and go over some of the stuff and things we did there while in the city of sin and rain for two days straight.

Feb

Hello!

I have nothing much to report other than it’s a new month and I have yet to receive an acceptance this brand new year. Sigh.

I am working [ahem] on a new novel but my energies and depression and a host of other excuses blah dee blah.

It did stop raining here and being foggy, so that’s nice. I did run off the road into the mud and discovered my four wheel drive isn’t exactly working. Yikes! The car was fine, I was, as well, so no harm that way except some embarrassment for being tricked by pea soup fog. I thought I was still on the road and the fog was like, trick ya, ya idiot. Yep. Having conversations with fog in this latest stage of my life.

Off to work in a bit. Thought I’d stop by here and leave a sniffy, snappy note. Have a great week and write or draw, paint or compose, whatever floats that canoe.

2024!

It’s a new year.

I have no thoughts. I am full of cheese and the need to watch something familiar. It’s a dense fog sort of day.

Happy new year. That’s it. I’ll make no promises or offer any sort of wild plans.

My cat snoozes on the newly made bed. All is quiet for now.

December Haze

Howdy.

I’ve been sick. Some virus has settled in and seems to want to stay forever. I’ve been to the doctor twice. I have a shitty job but I have health insurance through it. America, I tell ya.

I have a new book out. It’s called Owyhee Days. It’s good. No monsters, no gore, no walls that scream or drip blood. Not that I ever wrote anything like that.

I really do like the direction it eventually took, as I wrote this years ago and tinkered on it up until recently. Flower is one of my favorite characters ever created. I fought myself over letting her perhaps be in love a little bit [or a lot] but the story wanted what it wanted. I just stepped aside and it flowed forth like honey from a jar. Or dirty water from a siphon tube, what do I know of love or romance.

I hope the few who bother to read this are doing well and kicking ass. Happy holidays, y’all. Hang a shining star upon the highest bough and have yourself a merry little Christmas…now. [Points if you know the song.]

Owyhee Days!

Hi. My newest book is out. Owyhee Days. No monsters. Slice of life stuff. Here we go–

November Shlamember

[[A mouse I caught in the live trap]]

Hi again, o fellow travelers of the cosmic roads that bisect the universe! Howdy.

I am sick. I have caught some kid plague and am sneezing, coughing up snot, and generally wishing for Sudafed in large doses but…sigh. The antibiotics seem to have made it angry. Whatever kid plague demon crouches in my chest does not seem to like amoxicillin. Here, have a sore throat and snot!

I did get a lot of submissions sent off today. I got that much done.

Four more days of work and then a week off. And then some horrid weeks until it’s Christmas break. And then a long slog until spring break and hey, is it summer already???

Halloween was a blur. I was at work.

Watching the Hallmark offerings and they seem lackluster and lacking in charm. Might be me but eh on this year’s offerings. I haven’t found one yet I’d want to watch five or six more times, you know? I might need some holiday cheer. I have none at present. That makes viewing holiday fare a cynical outing at best and a clenched teeth, WTF is this fuckery primal scream at worst. The dogs get startled, the neighbors tend to be too far away to hear much, and the local coyotes shake their heads and go back to hunting mice in the cut corn fields. I am looking forward to the Scottish one next week, however. Bagpipes, mom is actually a duchess, snow, Scottish stuff…could be a charm-filled wonder. Or not. Oh dear.

Anyway, happy bird day to those who do American Thanksgiving and happy day to those who do not. Or you might be serving chips and dip, I don’t know. I’d certainly be up for a feast of chips and dips. Very easy to clean up and probably a lot cheaper than the overblown dinner. I’m very much toast, candy and pretzels, like the Peanuts gang, at this point.

I have no idea what I actually sent forth this morning for submissions. Always a fun time getting those rejections for things you forgot you blasted off in a whirlwind of fever and hope.

Ghost Quest!

Hey hey.

My short story, Caesar’s Ghost Quest, in included in the October World of Myth magazine, available on line. Go and support some writers and artists. They have really great content and I am proud to be included now and then. Yay!

October breezes

October brings my favorite holiday– Halloween. Spooky and colorful and you get candy, you get to wear costumes, the weather is cooler. And the movies, of course, ranging from the truly bad to the only three have seen it cult selections. And the dreck in between!

I did go to Mountain Home. Road trip, baby! Ugh. The key kept sticking in the ignition. As in you could not turn the car off. And then it would slide to the right position so you could proceed accordingly. Not every time, of course. No! Stop it!

And then, the launch for the Whistle Pig was at the local library. I don’t Mountain Home that well, if at all, so when I found the street I knew took me past the library all torn up and cut off…ugh a bug. But hey, handy navigation on my phone. I had to go all the way back to the motel to get new directions but yeah, I got there and it was crowded as hell. My hate crowded spaces switch flipped over to GET OUT OF HERE GET OUT GET OUT. Ignoring that took a lot but I stayed, listened to the readers and got out of there and back to the motel just fine.

I got a room with a bathtub. I hurt my arm or pulled something and spent the entire night awake with pain.

And then, after leaving Mountain Home, I got pulled over for weaving a bit and not using my signal light enough. WTF? Did you see the people going a thousand miles an hour, not using any signal lights and generally driving like they were on a race track? Sigh. But no ticket.

And work is…work. I hate it with every fiber and it’s messing with my mental health. Not good.

I’m not writing. Just drained and weepy and not doing too good. It takes everything I have to get to work, survive that and get home. I’m already burned out.

Yes, am looking for new job.

Okay, October. Please let Halloween be okay. Maybe a storm? When does Hallmark start their Christmas deluge?

I’m trying not to fall apart utterly and call helplines. Yeah, it’s that bad in my head.

But hey, October. Pumpkins and witches and colder nights and candy and ghosts and spooky stories and a feeling that this year cannot end soon enough. Maybe next year will be better than the last, as Counting Crows said in their Long December song.

Invisible Greta

I will be going to Mountain Home, Idaho to participate in an artsy event. It’s the only thing I have right now to look forward to. It’s a bright spot in an otherwise grudge-tastic existence.

I booked a room, I’ve got no other plans than a hotel room and attending the launch of the Whistle Pig’s newest edition. I really liked the story I sent them and am glad those that choose the content liked it as well.

A single pumpkin survived the gopher slaughter that took out my plants. That’s something, too.

I did get some submissions sent out and already, rejections, rejections…okay.

It’s getting cooler and more-autumn like. At least at night. No storms or rain. I did hear of some snow in the mountains but it’s been early summer-like weather, with the leaves turning colors and the sky that calm blue that tells you winter is just around the corner.

I am trying to hang on and keep writing. This is not my year, obviously. Must wait for new year and new hopes that will be mercilessly squashed. That is what life teaches me– your hopes and dreams will be squashed like bugs beneath indifferent feet but oh, at least that rash cleared up. Trying to find something funny in the dreck, surely, that’s a talent? I have no idea anymore.

But hey, I have a road trip ahead. I get to be away from my room or work. I might need to take a day off and go into the Owyhees and scream into the void or something equally draining. I wonder if the void gets tired of all the screaming. Or if it even notices.

I’d hate to be noticed by a void. What would it do to me in return?

It’s Saturday. I am cleaning and tidying. I have a tiny blip of light in an otherwise shit-filled bucket that is my life at the moment. Hurrah.