The Waiting is Truly Abysmal

Salty Monkey Mystery is included in this collection, for a refugee charity.

It’s July. Hot. It’s hot. Ugh. Hot.

With that out of the way!

Been applying for jobs. I suck at finding jobs. I suck beans. Don’t know what that means but it sounds keen.

All attempted rhyming aside, it’s the waiting that is truly abysmal. See title!

Will I get an interview nod, at the very least? Will I get the form rejection letter, months later, that says they’ve passed on me? Will there be a black void of ‘we couldn’t even be bothered to send you a form rejection notice’? I have better luck placing my pitiful darlings [short stories] than landing a job. Unless it’s health care and they just need a warm body.

I’m also waiting for November. That’s the midterm elections for ‘murica. I am waiting in absolute dread for that one. Gonna be…? It could go either good or very very very bad. I’m thinking bad because Americans have no capacity for learning, history, showing up to vote or pretty much anything but screaming about how great ‘murica is while waving the nation’s flag that has a Confederate battle flag stamped on the back of it…mmm.

And then sobbing over how awful everything is while blaming the wrong set of people for all of it. Yep.

Okay, I’ll end this very short scream on something uplifting.

My yard toads are thriving. They like to shelter under these two pieces of bark I have placed by the old red rose bushes. It’s right by the drain for the washer, which is how they get into the house. Clever little demons. I can hear them croaking in the pipes in the house. You know spring is coming when you start hearing the toads calling from seemingly inside the walls.

Anyway.

I find them all over my small bits of garden. I often get startled by one as they blend so perfectly with dirt and dead leaves. They’re not big toads. They fit in the palm of my hand. Yes, I’ve picked them up. I have no squeamishness when it comes to frogs, toads or yes, snakes. Have not seen my yard snake this year yet but I’m sure he or she will work its way into the grass eventually.

There’s just something magical about toads. At least to me.

I did attend the Nyssa Thunderegg Days festival. Got some neato rocks. Got out of the house. I am nearly at the point where I don’t want to leave my surroundings even to go to town. It often takes me days to get up the oomph to drive about ten miles to go buy some milk. Days. I’ll go tomorrow. Oh it’s too late now, have to go tomorrow.

Waiting to hear back on jobs, toads and turning into a hermit cat lady.

Thank you as always for reading and hey, go check out my books, short stories, poetry and plays. That’s my strong-arm sales pitch.

I slog onward, wanting to give up all the time now. I slog onward…

Goblins and Wild Hats

O this month, thou doth weary me to the gosh darn bone.

Drama queen set aside for now, I am starting a new job. It’s already stressing me out and we’ll see how it goes whoop de doo.

A poem of mine got nominated for an award. A tiny little poem, really, about an imaginary goblin that lives in my pumpkin patch. Yeah. I was surprised and gratified to find that email. I needed it. I needed some slight nudge that, yes, I should keep writing and sending out stuff. As the rejection tsunami is rather daunting at present. Ouch. Ouch! OUCH.

Might have some new and revised novels coming out this year. Malheur Baby, Owyhee Days, The Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus are ready or almost ready for a publisher to go over. And, gasp, Oregon Gothic, a collection of short stories, might get a revamp and some stories added into the mix already there.

My cat is doing well.

Finished Peacemaker and enjoyed it thoroughly. Fun, raunchy, sad, action-packed and gets better and better as the series toots along. It might not be everyone’s cup of peppermint, but that

SPOILER, LOOK AWAY IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE LAST EP YET

[cameo from the Justice League made me snort and giggle. ]

Mrs. Maisel also started up again. I am not so charmed with it…for some reason. Mm. I dunno. Will I still watch it? You bet your best wild hat I will. I loved, loved, loved Imogene’s hat in ep one, with the pink flowers all over it. My grandmother wore such hats. I do love the clothes of that time period, they’re so gorgeous. I want Susie to win or have some sort of story beyond propping up Midge all the time. And I want season five to be where Midge doesn’t make it. Where she has to keep on doing standup for peanuts in shitty places. You know, like real life? Except real life seems tinged with actual blood and human screams anymore…yikes. Downer!

I need to go over Malheur Baby, again. It needs about ten thousand more words. It’s sitting at 48 thou. But it clicks along so well now as is. Maybe it’s a novella? Maybe I can pair it with Army of Flamingos. odd pairing but…! Found baby and man fighting back against the slowly awakening lawn ornaments of his mother. Mm?

HOT/POETRY

It’s been over a week of record high temps. I do mean well over a hundred for most of June. I recently traveled to La Grande, to meet with a friend of mine who has family in the area and is traveling further to Lincoln City, Oregon. Hot. It was hotter than those inedible Takis burn holes in your tongue snacks. La Grande is in the mountains. I do not recall my undergrad town being almost too hot to go outside, not even once. In June. Or any other summer month. Unusual weather we’re having here in the West.

So, here’s a poem. I have no idea where this one arrived from. But here it is. Maybe it’s a bit of nostalgia. My family would gather, both sides, during holidays. My grandfather loved loved loved Fourth of July. Both did, actually. But my dad’s dad would order fireworks, then delight in shooting them off or having one of us light the fuse. Roman candles, those ones that spin and fly, bottle rockets, everything illegal that would set giant fires, woot woot. Maybe I am missing the sense of celebration, family now scattered or passed on…maybe maybe maybe. That careless ignorance that such gatherings would never stop. Of course they do. Time marches like a savage merciless army through everything and everyone, after all.

JESSICA IN THE GARDEN

Catnip and thyme, basil and lavender.

Her left hand tugs at the leaves,

caresses the stems.

She will smell like spaghetti sauce

and old lady purses

when she wanders by.

She eats a banana while standing on one leg,

her eyes on the cat chasing the dog

through the new mown grass.

They put bananas on hooks,

some sly wit tells the child.

Maybe that’s where bananas go,

Jessica replies

before arranging the rocks she painted

into odd and various piles.

Pig Bait

Wheat field, with storm coming in, last year

It’s May. The weather is either FREEZING, WINDY HELL or hey, it’s warm out. Garden is planted, got a new blueberry plant to go with the one from last year.

So have been not writing that much. But. Have been thinking about it. Does that count? Yes, it does.

So saw this blip about Baker City, Oregon and how it’s now a sanctuary city against…wokeness. I. Um? Ahem. Not an Onion article or a satire piece in the sedate New Yorker. The mayor, with crazy glazed eyes, did an interview on Fuck It Fearnews. Where she blatted on about entire Pacific Northwest cities burning down, Antifa not welcome in Baker and…the usual bullshit you can hear from your red-hatted relatives. Seattle is gone? Portland is now just ashes? We’re kinda short on cities here in the Pacific Northwest. Eugene? Is it Eugene she’s shrilling about?

Yes, so!

This utter stinking lunacy gave me an IDEA. What if…what if someone deliberately trolled the red-hats, got them so wound up that one of them actually decided to ‘do something about it’. And it’s a trap. Baited with ‘go ahead, look me up, if you dare’ rhetoric implied. As Americans are off their damn rockers right now and do actually find people to shoot or run over or…Yeah, my brain, it just goes there.

Sometimes you have to take those wild ass far right news blips and turn them into horror tales for this post-modern trying to return to the actual fucking Dark Ages timeline we’re in now. Yeppity yep.

I am fully vaccinated. There’s that.

Been up since two. My brain is a swirly whirly sludge of huh? right now. But I noticed I had not posted for a while and hey, I do have a rough draft, two now, done of a short story I’m called Pig Bait. I rather enjoyed writing it. I haven’t enjoyed writing for a long time.

All righty! It’s gorgeous outside so I need to obsessively check my seedlings and yank the sprinkler to a dry spot. All my flower seeds sprouted! The cat is also doing well. In case you were worried. You know who you are.

Ambitions

Hi and hello. I am going to try to record my work in audio formats, which should be a fun learning experience for all. I am also going to stop being a chickenshit and get…A PATREON PAGE. Why not. I have stuff to offer. It’s a way to get my works out there.

I am not good with technology so this will be a challenge. And since the weather refuses to not be wintery, which is freezing all my plants…yeah, should jump with a WTF, let’s do this! rebel yell into the nearest canyon. All righty then! Onward, upward, woot woot.

https://www.patreon.com/annwuehler

Hello 2021!

It’s finally here!! 2021!

I have no hope it will be better but it surely cannot be worse than 2020. Yes? No? I guess we’ll see when we’re all fighting off the zombie hordes, waiting for 2022 to hit so everything magically gets reset due to the Oregon Prophet’s prophecy. Because anything is possible in this time of no laws, magical thinking, alternate realities for all and ignorance is just as good as knowledge debates. No, I’m sober. Okay!

I did start up an Amazon author page. My only goal this year is to improve my self-promotion skills. That’s it. No grand plans, no wild dreams, nothing bigger than…be better at advertising a wee bit. I just started this yesterday so am still trying to figure out why it won’t…and then cussing a lot, then playing some Candy Crush, but I’m stuck on this particularly horrid level, that gives you about five moves to clear about seven of those fucking nut/cherry combos. Why do I bother with this stupid game??? Why?? Surely I should be writing or self-promoting so hard my entire face bleeds…

Yes. Hi. Hi, 2021. How ya doing so far?

Move To Trash

I have decided to ax a post. I hit the publish button and then went, eh. Why does anyone need to read that? They don’t.

I have a book out, Aftermath: Boise, Idaho and am working on getting another one into final editing. That’s Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane.

I have had a pretty good year writing-wise.

My short story, Mouse and Man, was published in the Sun, in April.

My short story, Greenhorn, was in the Whistle Pig’s Volume 12.

I helped co-write a screenplay based on a short story of mine from Oregon Gothic.

There’s other things out there that got accepted and hey, good for me.

So will press forward this last very long month to be. Will skip Christmas, spend it on my own.

Onward and upward to a bright new year. [Hopefully?]

And thanks to all who read my scattershot blog and thanks to those who support me, even only slightly and thanks to this year about being nearly OVER ALREADY.

I didn’t cuss once. Look at me go!

Banana Poetry

My mini garden, in April. 

Hello! 

So here’s a poem based on the pic of a banana hangin’ on a hook. This is what formed in my brain. Not even kidding. 

JESSICA IN THE GARDEN

Catnip and thyme, basil and lavender.
Her left hand tugs at the leaves,
caresses the stems.
She will smell like spaghetti sauce
and old lady purses
when she wanders by.
She eats a banana while standing on one leg,
her eyes on the cat chasing the dog
through the new mown grass.
They put bananas on hooks,
some sly wit tells the child.
Maybe that’s where bananas go,
Jessica replies
before arranging the rocks she painted
into odd and various piles.

 

 

Terrible Happiness

from Day by Day. 

My brains seem empty. That oft-played scenes in Westerns, with the tumbleweeds tumbling across the landscape. Yes, that is my brain right now. Eastern Oregon does indeed have the tumblin’ tumbleweeds. They pile up along the fences, or among the piles of debris, irrigation pipes, parked farm equipment. You carry them over to the burn barrel or the spot designated as the ‘burn spot’. The flames so satisfying! At least to me. I am something of a firebug. I do love to set fires. A rake, a box of matches, a weedy bank or stretch, I am a peaceful, happy collection of bones, skin and muscle.

This weekend, I do plan on attending a writer’s workshop. It’s free and offered in Nampa, Idaho, by the Death Rattle crew. Maybe my sluggish gray matter will burn those tumbleweeds to ash as it offers me a bit of a rush or even a new Idea. Or the needed impetus to work on a neglected project.

So, I’ll make this short and end with a poem…

 

 

TERRIBLE HAPPINESS

Be happy or there’s hell to pay.
Smile or they won’t leave you alone.
Pretend real hard and post pictures of bread
you made while saving pennies
to buy cat food if you get to retire.
Put a grin on your face
or get called names
or be asked why you hate
your country.
Be terribly happy
or be labeled a traitor.
Wave that flag
until you dislocate your shoulder.

5th Street and West

Fun with filters! 

Something recent I wrote for a monthly poetry contest. I was channeling a bit of Tom Waits, perhaps? Maybe? Not at all?

 

 

5TH STREET AND WEST

Angus runs the liquor store on 5th Street and West.
His little ginger cat cleans her white paws
in the window each night if you pass by
after Angus locks the door and yanks the grill down.
The neon on the fur, strange strip club effect
but the cat doesn’t seem to care
for Biblical judgments that turn light into sins.
He lives above, in a tiny apartment and she must sneak down
to wander through the whiskey and gin and rum
as a tiger wanders through subdivisions
built over jungle and forest.
That same sensation of bewilderment and discovery
that perhaps something wonderful
lives just behind the section
of Kentucky bourbon.
He’s not married, and that little ginger cat
means the world to him.
When you buy a fifth of something harsh,
that cat purrs under his hand
as he rings you up with the other.
It’s just a cat, he claims with sneer on lips,
but the truth flops little moth wings
in his neon eyes.