Hello, New Year

Well, howdy 2023. What is up? Are you gonna be slapping us around like 2022 did? Huh? Are ya??

It’s been raining here. Raining. When not snowing, sleeting, foggy or raining.

You know, January weather.

Rejections flying in like dead birds thrown at already broken windows. Yeee haaaaa.

My cat is a sleek, complaining rascal. She sniffs at her food bowls and resigns herself to snack a bit, after pitiful calls for the ‘good stuff’. She enjoys meowing until someone lets her out the front or back door, so she can zoom about to my window, let herself in and have another go at getting someone to let her out a door so she can zoom about outside a bit before returning inside for a nap or several. She is, in other words, a total cat.

My country is, um. An embarrassment? A total eye-rolling puke-inducing stench lately? I should get my passport renewed and get the hell out for several years until it falls or somehow rights itself a bit? Haven’t looked at those teaching abroad jobs lately…

I got myself a pair of avocado platform boots. Because I had to. The compulsion to get them WOULD NOT GO AWAY. You see something wildly not suited to your lifestyle and work needs, and yet, you MUST HAVE IT. I was haunted by these damn boots for months. Such a high heel but it’s a platform, so that negates the heel height. I can do shoe math.

I resisted. I resisted so hard! No, okay, I didn’t. I finally succumbed. They were out of the size I wanted– a size over my actual size 8 because I have wide feet and sometimes things like, oh, boots, don’t fit. And yet…these fit. They fit. Oh. Oh! Anyone not a shoe fanatic will not understand but those that do…! You get me. You feel me. You know.

Writing? Oh that. I am…sure. I’m writing. I feel defensive writing this! My mind seems tired and utterly smooth of ideas and notions about plot, character, setting, genre and theme. Should I attempt a steampunk splattergore sci-fi western set on a planet a thousand years in the past? Should I be pushing out female-only stories that deal with political issues oddly parallel to our interesting times yet no actual real world stuff happens because it might trigger a slush reader and my story won’t pass muster and the rejection will say I need sensitivity schooled and…? Should I just write cute poems about elves in my patch of sage that persists in surviving no matter what? Or write essays about man’s inhumanity toward everything ever?

I don’t know!

I go over what’s acceptable and not for a story and…yeah, I get it but sometimes, when you live in, oh, say a rural place full of people convinced the government under Biden is about to round them up for CRT-re-education camps and about to geld the local kids…well. Yeah.

I went to lunch with a friend the other day. He was spooked to be out. It was in our mutual home town. He was afraid to say stuff because he’s gotten death threats because he’s, you know, a liberal. And a pacifist and very vocal, in the past, about everything wrong with home town. The local crank, in other words. And these days, the handful of liberals in a small, very conservative town might end up shot to death or run over or hurt in some way.

So, I have to shake my head over some of the restrictions placed on what can be in a story. Or just send that story anyway, with the trigger warning. But I do understand why the list is in place, when you see the rising crimes and vicious hatred directed at marginalized groups.

Anyhoo!

Back to 70’s era platform boots or what?

Had to. Look at them!!!

Hell-o, Halloween

Halloween display, Meridian, Idaho, 2019. Can’t find who to credit this with.

Welp, had to drive to work yesterday in fog so dense I nearly drove off the road, twice. Fun.

It finally rained here in Oregon East. An actual rain. We plunged into near winter temps! It might snow in the valleys! Nah, not yet but winter wants to pounce.

I want to enjoy Halloween and all its orange, black and sparkly glory, but the American midterm elections throw a giant moist pall over everything. Moister than moist. Dripping wet with racism, sexism, fascism and all the other crappy isms imaginable and then some. Who is taking all these polls? It does not seem to reflect anything but what is expected– that the Gross Old Perverts sweep everything and Biden gets made to look like a doddering, shitting himself in public, gibbering fool. Um? And yet so many people registering to vote and yet…mmm.

I just want this all over so I can start breathing again and plan accordingly. Do I still live in a ‘free’ country or do I have to practice my salutes, wave a flag with savage frantic grins plastered across my frozen face? Shout randomly, in public, about eagles and freedom and no more open borders? We don’t have open borders, what the fuck is that noise?

Idaho, by the way, is almost an Ida-don’t go there, stay away, avoid avoid avoid. We do have scary states here in ‘murica and that is becoming one of the scariest.

The Aryan Nations that used to be a joke, who used to live under rocks and only appear if you whispered something overtly racist near an open sewer…have now virtually taken over that state. It’s sad and tragic and awful. Aryan Nations meets QAnon nonsense, has weird disgustingly awful sex, produces a mutant baby and here we are!

And my state, by the way, has a trumpian Gross Old Pervert running for guvvie. I just. No. No!

I do have scary movies lined up, as the midterms causes eye twitches, drooling, screaming when a leaf drops from a tree too near me. It’s tense here, y’all. Tense. Golly, vote for sane people or batshit trumpfucks? I mean no offense to actual bats, who just wish to live their bat lives in peace.

I have had a few acceptances roll my way, but mostly, lately, it’s been rejection city. Sigh.

Need to sacrifice something to Satan, I guess. Maybe he’ll accept an IOU? Will hand over the flies stuck to the fly strip. They’re already dead and am just gonna toss that strip otherwise. Why be wasteful? Satan? Hello?

August Can Go Away Now

It’s way too hot here in Eastern Oregon. Triple digit hell. Just send winter now, thanks. I’d rather have to hunt down my socks and dig out the extra blankets than stay awake all night waiting for it to cool down enough to sort of sleep. Air conditioning? No. No, I have none of that. No.

My country. Yeah. Why even bother at this point? Except there are GLIMMERS of HOPE.

Like when Kansas rejected an abortion ban measure that would have changed their state constitution. I do mean an overwhelming FUCK YOU to the forced pro-birthers throbbing to turn quite a lot of Americans into livestock. Who are quite happy to have ten year rape victims give birth no matter what and people in medical distress due to pregnancy complications just die. Just die already if you can’t produce some livestock, bitches. Yeah. I think that’s the new GOP slogan. I swear I saw that flashing under Tucker Carlson’s made up story on [pick a subject here].

Or that Alex Jones, possibly an actual monster in a human skin, is getting his monster ass handed to him in a court trial as if written by sadistic monkeys on meth. There’s conjectures that Alex and his seemingly incompetent lawyer are trying to get a mistrial declared. This, of course, would benefit Monster Jones. The plaintiffs would have to start all over again– that’s the parents of a child murdered at Sandy Hook, by the way.

This is the how much should Jones pay out trial, as he was found guilty already of turning Sandy Hook into one of the biggest conspiracy theories out there. Jones’s followers also turned the lives of Sandy Hook parents into living nightmares, and one parent even took their own life over the accusations that the rampage was staged, that no children died, that…yeah.

If you want a truly deep dive into Alex Jones and Sandy Hook, I’d start with Jordan and Dan of the Knowledge Fight podcast. You can go back through their back catalog, after listening to the present day updates on the trial, etc and get a grasp on the genesis of the Alex Jones Sandy Hook ghastliness.

One of my fave podcasts, by the way, and really entertaining as well as infuriating on how awful Alex Jones truly is.

Trying to find a job. I won’t go into that, it would just be me screaming and staring at my phone.

The squash bugs have killed my zuke plant. God damn it! I got three zukes and then the poor plant got overwhelmed. Apparently, you need to tackle these bugs in early spring/late fall. As when they’re adults, you might as well burn your squash patch and sob uncontrollably over the nastiness of nature.

Oh!

I tried my hand at horror erotica. I used a fake name to submit it. I had one rejected– to be fair, it was over the top graphic, extreme and involved fisting and an extra long tongue. Yeah. Mm. But my second attempt is a bit more mild. A threesome, some murderous, horny ghosts…yeah. Hope it’s better received or at least not rejected so quickly. Bwahahahahaha.

I also attempted a horror gothic romance. I really like how it turned out, even if they don’t like it. A lighthouse, a sexy hero who needed some saving himself, a capable heroine…fun stuff. I kept the sex and gore to a minimum. Which is so unlike me! I’ll be here all week, try the chicken. Oh, it’s called the Blackburne Lighthouse. That is a title to excite the most quiet of bosoms, eh?

I tried watching Persuasion over on Netflix. I got five minutes in. WTF is this fuckery? I did like the rabbit. I might try again. Does she talk to the camera the whole movie?

The whole movie???!!!

I had no overall theme in hand. Just rambling on a very hot August morning. Thunderstorms supposed to float in later today and tonight. We did have an actual rainy day to break up the triple digit kill me now heat. You expect 108 F in Las Vegas, after all. Not in Eastern Oregon. That temp or higher used to be a rarity. Used to be. Ahem.

To sum up– go listen to Knowledge Fight if you want to satisfy your Alex Jones itch. [Ooooh! Gross!] If you have no idea who Alex Jones is, bless you and hope it stays that way. No, seriously. He’s a toxic vat of poison with no redeeming social values. He spits out whatever he can think of to sell dick pills. And if you need a new podcast, try KF. You might hate it, but you might discover you, too, wish to worship Selene and wonder what Dan’s bright spot will be this time around.

My squash plants are under attack. I’ve been trying some sort of new forms of horror writing. Jane Austen should probably leave her grave and sue whoever made Persuasion with the lady from 50 Shades. She’s not a bad actress, so maybe she needs some help picking scripts.

Need to get some submissions out, water the lawn, mourn my squash plants and stare off into the middle distance with an expression of real dread on my sweaty, red face. Fun day coming up!

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…

June, Baby

Hey, it’s June already.

It’s been raining here. All of May seemed rainy and cold, and at times, snowy. Snowy. At least here in the east of Oregon. Or the west of Idaho. I straddle the border between two states. I’m literally on Ore-Ida land. How old were you when you learned Ore-Ida stood for Oregon-Idaho? Yeah, at times I am quite clueless, blind, stupid and out of the loop. Ain’t we all? I hope?

Have gotten some acceptances. Some rejections. Have had a major case of the ‘don’t wanna write’ and it’s all I can do to write a short story. Making myself write, ugh. Need to fix my total antipathy to writing. The only way to do that is to write. You can’t take pills for it or can you? Is there a pill for the don’t wanna write malaise?

Trying Stranger Things, again. I started it at work, when I worked graveyards. Trying to pay attention to this dense, 80’s throwback horror fantasy family drama teen angst shit was just about nigh impossible. But hey, loved the sheriff guy, who’s this giant cuddly grumpy teddy bear and is that Winona Ryder playing with Christmas lights? It is! Evil scientists! MK Ultra! Nancy and Steve and Jonathon, just stab me in the knees already. I’m on season two.

I also caught up with the Boys, now on its third season. Holy exploding body parts, Batman. Hughie annoys me so much. That’s the Billy Joel listening Debbie Downer. Other than that, enjoying the return of this series. Don’t wanna give away anything but if you like raunchy, violent, funny anti-superheroes stuff, this might be your cup of blood. It’s strictly for adults-only, btw. So, be warned there.

Oh yeah, we’ve had several more mass shootings here in Amerigun and nothing’s being done to curtail them beyond ‘tots and pears’ and ‘it’s a mental health problem’. After which GOP politicians resolutely vote against any and all social and medical programs that might help people with mental health issues…fuck me, same as it ever was. Uvalde didn’t change those in power’s minds about guns. Sandy Hook sure as shit didn’t. Columbine, nope. You can trace the mass murdering sprees…fuckadoodle.

That train has wrecked, exploded, burned out and now there’s a stack of trains waiting to wreck so we can all watch, mumbling thoughts and prayers at it. Clumsy prose that cannot adequately express my motherfucking fury at all this, my sadness and grief that those in power chose the guns over the people being slaughtered in public places at such a merry and ghastly rate.

One of the ‘answers’ is arming the teachers. Turning teachers into soldiers responsible for not only protecting their classrooms, after a bare minimum of training with firearms, but getting the students to safety and seeing to wounds, etc, etc.

You know, like soldiers do in combat situations. Beau of the Fifth column took this one apart. If you don’t know what that is, he’s on Youtube taking apart conspiracy theories, gun myths, and explaining what stuff actually means to his best abilities. He’s able to reach those a lot of well-meaning folks can’t.

Another problem with arming teachers is– cost.

Who’s paying for whatever training far right lawmakers hastily propose or don’t and who’s paying for the guns and ammo? Guns are spendy. Ammo is spendy. If you arm all the teachers in your school and the staff, are you arming the staff like janitors, food preppers, etc…that’s a big chunk of your budget, if not all of your budget and then some. Not to mention the ammo for all those guns and the trainings and the classes you’d have to take and…mmm.

Does it have to be a handgun? Can you bring in a hunting rifle or a combat-ready weapon or your ancestor’s flintlock?

And oh, liability. If a teacher shoots a student, what then? If a student gets the teacher’s gun, shoots people, what then? Does the school have to take out even more insurance, get lawyers on retainer just in case? Or is that solely on the overburdened, underpaid shoulders of the teachers and staff at that school? Do you have to now buy liability insurance on top of paying for your own firearms training class/es? As teachers are expected to foot the bill a lot of time for keeping their teaching licenses updated and current, will they also be expected to train with guns on their own time and their own dime?

Or will magical funds appear to pay for all this soldier training for public school teachers? When that same funding can’t be found for updating classrooms or making sure all the kids attending get a meal to eat during their school day.

Teachers already have to buy their own classroom supplies.

They often have to buy their students lunches or provide breakfasts to at-risk kids. I did this, when I worked Special Education, in Oregon, for outings where my charges didn’t have enough to buy a lunch when out in the community. I noticed other teachers providing snacks and meals, out of their own scanty paychecks, while also buying art supplies, basic classroom supplies…ugh.

All because lawmakers have cut school budgets to the bare bones and then some, in the hopes of getting rid of public education. Making kids attend spendy private schools which push the Christian agenda like mad or force women to stay at home teaching their own kids as daddies need to go to work to earn that bacon, just like the old days.

Because today’s kids are soft! Soft, I tell ya! That’s why we’re having all these school shootings! Soft kids! They’re being indoctrinated by liberal teachers and taught how to give blowjobs at six years old! They’re being forced to change their genders by these liberal teachers! I have to call my daughter my son now because of liberal teachers!

You can go down that rabbit hole if you wish. It’s ugly, frightening and happening at a rapid clip right now. The ever-increasing spate of PTA meetings full of red-faced shouters screaming about needing to censor books, that teachers are too ‘woke’, that the gay agenda is turning kids into transgender freakshows ready to cut off their own bits to satisfy fashion.

Seriously, you can wander down to your own school board meeting and hear this stuff for free. You can sit there and chuckle about it, until you realize these people RUN THE FUCKING SCHOOLS IN A LOT OF PLACES. And can outlaw whatever they want, including trans people. And do and have.

See Florida and Idaho and…

Idaho is banning books, trying to erase LGTBQ folks and blaming their problems on…m’kay.

The hysterical attacks on teachers and CRT. Transgender anything, drag queen story hour, LGTBQ blah blah, not teaching the real American history that touts white men as saviors of the planet and the ones who built everything and invented everything.

Also, that the Founding Fathers wanted America to be Jesusland full of guns and manly men running everything.

Well, the men running everything part is true. If you know anything at all about early American history and why amendments got added to the Constitution and why, you’ll understand why those claiming the Constitution was written as some sort of weird praise prose to the Bible is just horseshit. Plain ole steaming road apples.

David Barton and others are pushing this alt US history.

It’s weird that teachers are both soldiers expected to defend their corner of some savage battlefield and yet to blame for all of society’s ills in America.

Teachers indoctrinate your babies on social justice agendas yet shoot to kill those trying to kill your kids. It’s AOC and her alter ego, Gun Mama. It’s the weirdest fucking cognitive dissonance imaginable.

To those outside the USA. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what to write about on this chokehold the gun lobby has over my country but it’s killing us in large numbers.

Gun deaths are now the leading cause of departure of this earth for American kids. You’d think the pro-life party would, um, do something about that. Actually do something other than ignore that thoroughly or propose even more guns to flood society.

But hey, selling guns is the GOP hustle. It’s the sole job of the NRA or the National Rifle Association, to sell guns. They pay the politicians big bucks to keep those sales up. The NRA didn’t used to be a scary ass fascist organization run by blood-hungry ghouls. It used to be about gun safety and limiting who could have a fucking gun. That’s right. I believe it was started after the US Civil War to teach people how to shoot correctly, as it was noticed Union soldiers couldn’t shoot for shit. I’d have to look that up and frankly, why bother with facts when making up shit travels so much father these harrowing days?

Okay, founded in 1871 to advance markmenship. This whole American stance that guns are sacred is a new fucking concept, relatively speaking. It has not been with American ideals since 1776. Not even close. I’d say the last forty years or so, maybe even less time. Yet another rabbit warren to pick a hole to go down. Darkness, dirt, worms and wide-eyed rabbits galore.

There doesn’t seem to be a last straw kind of incident to ‘wake’ up the GOP gun zealots to the danger of just letting anyone get all the guns they want, with little to no background checks or requirements they get trained or get wellness checks of any kinds.

There are loopholes at gun shows for selling guns, btw. Gun shows. Drown in that one. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Each state seems to have different laws regarding guns, which is why Chicago often gets targeted by the right wing, as the surrounding states have lax gun laws. People can just bring a gun to Chicago’s no-gun zones and…yeah.

And hey, Chicago isn’t even in the top ten for violent cities. I think the number one city for that is St. Louis, Missouri. But that never seems to come up on Fox News…

All right. Oh, another mass shooting took place? While a mass shooting was already happening? I guess I should scream about doors and arming everyone in public places is the answer instead of sensible gun control methods. Cause freedom eagle apple pie freedom Jesus.

Tots and pears!

Things I’ve Noticed

The Gilded Age, HBO. Bertha and George, Carrie Coons and Morgan Spector.

March. Warming up. Raised bed for squash almost done. Cat doing great. Now that you’re all caught up–

I happened upon Minx, over on HBO.

It’s about a fictional women’s soft porn mag started in the 70’s by a radical feminist and a hardcore porn mag producer. Whacky hijinks ensue! Yep, it goes about how you think it does.

Penises everywhere. Shrill, naive, unpleasant female lead named, seriously, this is her name– Joyce Prigger. I do mean unbearable. Holy shit. Fun, easy-going male lead, named Doug Renatti, who sees ‘something’ in the Matriarchy Rising mag layout of Our Heroine. She pitches her over the top feminist scream to several mag producers in SoCal at this fair. She of course gets nowhere because no one will give her a chance! She’s an editor shopping around her liberated woman ideals and no one will throw her wads of cash and accolades, wah.

I lost any and all sympathy for her about five minutes in. I’ve seen this shit so many times. The unpleasant, uptight female lead, the lead male totally likable and smart, the rest of the cast pretty adorable, sweet, intelligent at times and…ugh. Okay. It’s rom-com time. At least, that’s the take I take away here.

Our Heroine is fresh outta Vassar, working on selling subscriptions for other magazines and generally so stupid about how the world works it’s goddamn painful to watch. She doesn’t know how that to get financed, you have to get big donors with money? She went to fucking Vassar. She didn’t rub up against the children of politicians and even presidents? For fuckety fuck’s sake.

She can’t sit through picking a male model for their debut issue without losing her shit. Joyce is embarrassed and squrimy, tee hee. The college girl hasn’t seen many dicks! Tee hee. She’s not only a shrieking harpy, she’s a prude! Oh goody!

It’s not funny or charming or astonishing. It’s just dumb. She’s a dumb character, a stereotype, a Men’s Rights example of what they think a feminist is. There is no nuance to her. At least not in the episode and a half I made it through before switching over to Youtube animal rescue videos to clear my head of the ‘Why the fuck are they still writing this type of female character? And during the so-called women’s liberation height??? Fuck fuck fuck fuck!’

And then, yeah, I rewrote this series in my head. Because, writer.

What if.

What if Our heroine, renamed Linda Lewis, or some other normal name that doesn’t hint a thing, was cool. I mean, with it, on top of her life, ambitious, calculating, willing to take chances. And a force of nature or someone you’d want to hang out with, hear their views. She’s got a sense of humor! She wants to change the world and she’s not asking for permission to do it. Linda can be unsure of herself at times but mostly, she works out what needs to be worked out. She approaches the pornmag producer guy, pitches him her magazine idea and he suggests the nude male centerfold every month. As Linda is mostly okay with her sexuality, she agrees to this, but says she wants to be in charge of the whole enchilada, even the tasteful nudie stuff. They begin a tentative partnership and learn a lot along the way.

I’m so tired of the naive, awful female lead and the cool, with it male lead that makes the female lead look both childish and boringly stupid. See the Ugly Truth, with Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigel. The Proposal, with Sandra Bullock– which, despite her charm and Ryan Reynold’s scowling with his usual charm throughout it–presented a horrible female boss stereotype straight from a Hallmark Christmas collection of Bad Lady Bosses that just need a Good Man to Show Them Some Good Lovin’. Sweet Home Alabama, where Reese Witherspoon went home to shit all over her home town and her parents, yet wound up with her ex-hubbie after…ugh.

So yeah, done with Minx. Boring and irritating, not my cup of anything.

I’m also struggling with Our Flag Means Death. I want to like it more. I just fail at that. I do like Blackbeard. It helps that he’s played by Taika Waititi. I wish this series had centered more around Blackbeard facing the end of his time as the most bad-ass pirate ever. The Stede Bonnet character just repels me so utterly. A guy with a lot of money getting to do whatever he wants. Where in American politics and private blah dee blah have we ever, ever seen this crud?

I need a third to end this TV review rant.

Gilded Age! Now, it’s trashy, but it’s fun, gorgeous trash. I get tired of Marian, the female blond lead who’s so bland she blends into the scenery no matter what she’s wearing. Please, Jesus– let her be ravished by a pack of rabid sailors after that bland and boring lawyer guy sells her to a brothel after her aunt refuses to accept him into High Society. Wheeee!!!!!

And then she’s seen no more when she leaves with the sailors as their new captain. Work it out, writers!

As that would leave far more screen time to the Russels. Not the kids, yuck. Ick. Boring!

No no, Bertha and George Russel are fabulous, arrogant monsters you just love to love. She’s a social-climbing soft-voiced goddess and he’s a fiery, black-bearded robber baron you hope never escapes to run amuck in these here present times. Together they plan to dominate Old Money Manhattan and make it beg for mercy it ever slighted them in the least. Bwhahahahahaha! Yes, please!!

I also love the Peggy Scott character. Upper class black woman, with ambitions to be a writer. Her mom is played by Audra McDonald, of Broadway. The Broadway Audra! If you can’t tell, I love Audra McDonald. But, the show explores the middle class and even upper class POC post-Civil War strata that developed and lead to such things as Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I also find it annoying and eye-rolling when the blond Marian doesn’t seem to notice all the rampant racism all around her. Okay, sure. Ahem. But. We do get a scene with her bringing second-hand shoes to gift Peggy with during an unannounced visit to Peggy’s parent’s home. Dorothy Scott, Peggy’s mom, rightfully embarrasses Marian with how Marian expected the Scott family to be near destitute and grateful for a white lady savior. Ouch.

It’s not Downton Abbey. It’s a colorful, somewhat empty, imitation but it’s enjoyable. Watching the New Money sorts clash with the Old Money sorts, great fun. Watching the Russels plow ahead like a team of shiny Clydesdales, also great fun. The two aunts of Marian, played by Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon, make up for a lot. They remind me of L.M. Montgomery characters, for some reason. I half expected Anne Shirley to pop in for a cup of tea and a saucer of neighborhood gossip.

And there’s servants but nothing so far that grabs the attention or begs for more air time. There’s no Thomas, for instance, slinking about, causing trouble while managing to remain a near tragic figure we have to love. But, maybe in later seasons, the servants will be fleshed out, given actual characters, become part of the stories around them, rather than just set decorations whenever Mrs. Russel stalks by in a red silk dress.

Thomas from Downtown Abbey. Sorry if I lost some of you there.

I wanted to do a fluffy blog post, what with all the horrors here in America and over there in Ukraine. And other places, and other places after that. Oh dear.

Right next door, Ammon Bundy is staging a protest over the state of Idaho stepping in to remove a baby that was being horrifically neglected, as in that baby could have died if something had not been done. This extremist, who’s running for govvie of the state, claims it’s a medical kidnapping and has called for protests and even possible violence if the child isn’t returned to the parents who were abusing it. As these parents seem to be related to Bundy’s campaign manager…it’s a frigging mess in Idaho, in other words, right now.

This bunch of political theatre stunt-makers even shut down a major hospital there in Boise for a bit. The present lieutenant govvie, Janice McGeachin or something like that, attended a white pride rally in the most open and defiant of ways. She’s an elected official. She also wants to be govvie. And she’s batshit insane and a religious nutball. Wheee!! I’m two hours from all this and it sucks. It sucks!

So yeah, I’m watching trashy historical dramas and submitting my writing now and then to the here and there. Spring is around the corner. 2022 already seems a bust. 2023, baby, you gotta give us all some hope, m’kay? Great!

Meridian, Nampa and Boise are close together.

Update– Just saw, in the Idaho Statesman, where the child in question was returned to the parents, more than likely because of Bundy’s threats and bullying. It really can be an awful world at times. I doubt those parents have seen the light. And terrorism wins in Idaho.

March madness

Spring attempts a coup in my neck of the wilderness. Ukraine yet holds off Russian invaders. Gas prices continue to be used as a political hot button. Even considering adopting renewable energy sources to ween an entire country off fossil fuels brings on mass parades of screamy ‘patriots’ waving bald eagles and drinking oil milkshakes ‘to own the libs’.

I seem to be yet on a winning streak, writing-wise. A tiny one, but still. Cherry of Her Lips just got an acceptance for an anthology put out by Black Hare Press, on the theme of War. Lilith’s Arm got a nod for an anthology, too. Debuting this month will be Blood and Bread, in Toilet Zone 3, the Royal Flush. Seffi and Des will be in Musings of the Muses, a short story collection about the Greek Gods.

There’s also the flood of rejections. Don’t even worry about that, fellow babies.

Don’t know who wrote this. Seems apt and succinct, however.

I just saw an Idaho law that proposes going after librarians if they check out ‘obscene’ materials to kids. HB666. Idaho ledge. I have to think that numbering is a jest, a joke, an attempt at humor but no. And I have to ask…who gets to decide what’s ‘obscene’?

Rep. Skaug: “I would rather my six year old grandson start smoking cigarettes tomorrow” rather than view obscene materials in a library, he said.

What? Huh? Are Idaho librarians letting kids check out The Story of O or somethin’? Is Story of O obscene or artistic? Does it have ‘artistic merit’? Holy fuck, this really is the worst timeline, as wags have opined.

Are we bringing back smoking for kids in Idaho so they can have something to look forward to after working all day instead of going to school? Is that the goal here? Did Skaug give the game away??

Oh? That 666 thingie passed? Of course it did. America, the land of oppression, don’t say gay and targeting librarians, teachers, trans people and women’s reproductive organs, cause freedom eagles Jesus.

What does ‘mandate freedom’ actually mean? For? WTF seems inadequate here.

But hey, at least we still have ‘freedom’ convoys getting lost and mixed up on the DC Beltway to show them scary libs in Congress a thing or two! If you don’t know what this is, consider yourself a truly blessed and happy person. Remember the Canadian trucker fiasco there in Ottawa? Yeah, a breakaway group decided they would DRIVE ACROSS COUNTRY from California to DC, to protest…things that don’t exist or were never taken seriously, in America. Like mask mandates. Except the American tantrum league began to claim it wasn’t about mask mandates but about. Um. Not becoming robots of the state or something. And why didn’t they just drive into DC, shut down the Beltway, like they promised? Nancy Pelosi set traps and they were not falling for that! Um. Yeah, okay or the Beltway is about the most confusing snarl of roads ever invented by a sadistic pack of civil engineers.

Having lived in Maryland, and having avoided going anywhere near DC because frankly it made me cry to even think of trying to navigate that and get home again, I awaited to hear how the control the Beltway narrative would go. As I knew, deep in my black dead cold heart, it would go badly or not happen at all.

It went as expected. Stalling out, people got lost, people refused to try it at all…yep. No locals to help out, you tantrum-throwing darlings? There has to be locals sympathetic to ‘freedom from tyranny masks trying to turn us into robot sheeple’ sorts there in Maryland. The Old Line State would harbor reb-flag wavin’ collections galore. Some of them with trust funds. Nobody got in touch with the Maryland branch of trucker freedom fighters for eagles and Jesus?

I think this cross-country trek, sucking up gas as much as possible, imaginary joust against imaginary tyranny is America to a T right now. Just my humble opinion. That loud-mouthed, reactionary, emotional punching at made up villains while wasting time, resources, people and ideas. What if these truckers/assorted drivers of other vehicles had driven across country to protest…oh, low wages, vastly expensive bloated health care costs, human rights violations happening on American soil, student loan shackling so many people from having any sort of a future, education being dismantled by religious zealots and those eager to keep Americans stupid and…yeah.

Real stuff, in other words. Real stuff that would matter not only to the trucker bunch waving Trump and QAnon flags but to all Americans. I guess that’s commie shit?

Before I depress myself into a serious bout of eating everything in the house while watching Gilmore Girls for the 666th time, signing off on this storm-laden Tuesday. I will plant some actual seeds today, try to work outside and start a short story about a hidden garden. I will hope Ukraine holds on and Russia runs out of war steam.

An image taken from CPAC, conservative political action conference. Says it all, oh yes indeedy.

On My Writer’s Journey

I’m waiting for my country to implode. Maybe that event has taken place, and it hasn’t reached my Twitter feed yet. Bwhahaha. Ha.

If I laugh at everything, nothing can be that bad, yes?

I’m writing in fits and starts. I write a bit, read over it, despair at the utter savage awfulness of my words, start over. That’s my 2022 writing pattern so far.

I’m getting conflicting advice from every direction on what being a writer is.

Write every day. Don’t worry about when you’re not writing, after all, blah dee blah. Force yourself to write. Take time off from writing, take up a hobby. Thrust yourself into every writerly space or else no one will take you seriously. Relax, you got this!

Fuck me running, you writer advice-givers. Be militant robots spewing words no matter what or be slack underachievers telling yourself you got this over and over as your coffee cools in your slogan-covered mug.

Make up your collective fucking minds already. Which is it?? Force yourself to write every day, like a machine or because you need product to sling. Or take it easy, breathe, just be, just let your fingers dribble those thoughts onto the page and hey, everything will be okay, you got this.

I can feel the depression creeping in. Maybe that’s a giant chonky block in my writer’s journey. I just made myself vomit a bit, BRB.

Writer’s journey??? What would that even be? I wrote some crap during my lifetime. Some people thought it was good crap. Most thought it forgettable fart breezes oozing from unmentionable orifices. I died alone, very poor and utterly forgotten. The end.

Until twenty years after my death! Someone Important suddenly decided my writing was the bee’s knees. Sales of my obscure stuff become world-wide classics that….Grrrrr. Grrrrr!!!

If that happens to me, I am returning from wherever and I am bringing Jesus with me to start that whole End Times fun.

What month is this? February? Hearts and groundhogs.

I am tired. I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to do anything at all. Motivation is zilch, zero, DOA, MIA, KIA, all the letters that spell dead in the water already. I’m trying to revamp short stories to improve their chances. I think I’m making them worse. Ever been there? You try to ‘fix’ your artistic project and holy bells of hell, it becomes a nasty mess of edits, compromises galore and sheer hesitation over trying to write nicely instead of honestly. Or maybe I’ve run out of words.

Oh dear.

Babbling away. I tried to make pancakes this morning and the pan just drove me bugshit insane. Would not cook them. They stuck, no matter how much oil or spray I used. I nearly just threw that so-called non-stick pan away.

So I baked the rest of the batter in the oven in a cast iron skillet. Yes, I was cursing the entire time. I threw in some apples, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice, called it an oven pancake surprise.

I can’t write and I can’t cook right now. Go kill yourself with a chainsaw, 2022. I’m off to nap until there’s a new year, a new motivated brand sparkling new me and a brave new world that doesn’t want fascism to be their new lord and savior. For fuck’s sake already, earth. Have you learned nothing at all?

The Day Before the Second to Last 2021 Battle On the War on Christmas!

from turbosquid

Brigit, cowgirl extremis, wonderdog and all around great canine, went missing the other day. She occasionally takes off for cross-country adventures, sometimes with Molly gamely in tow. However, Brigit returns a couple hours or so after disappearing across the fields if someone turns their back a bit too long. She hates being cooped up in the yard and if she doesn’t get to go out, do stuff, she gets SUPERBORED AND SUPER-RESTLESS. Yes, she’s a Border Collie type of animal. Needs near constant stimulation and attention. I am thinking of getting her an actual sheep to keep her busy. Sort of kidding.

Anyhoo!!

She’s missing all afternoon. Up into the evening. It’s cold outside, baby. I mean down in the twenties. She lives in the house. She has short fur. I’m worried one of the farm trucks rushing to and fro hit her. There’s also the worry that the local coyotes led her somewhere and turned on her. Or that someone grabbed her and took her home. Or that…all the worries you get when your pet goes missing.

However, this is not a sad tale of a pet lost or a pet found smashed on the road. The evening drew nigh. I, having worked a graveyard, settled in on the couch to watch Hallmark fare and see if Brigit showed up at the door. I opened the door to check, yet again, for Miss Bridge. We’d all looked for her. Drove around the neighborhood, walked miles in the mud. Did I mention how muddy it is here this week?

She slinks into the house, wet, alive and exhausted. Very much alive. Not hurt. Thirsty. I squeal. A high-pitched OMG shriek. Brigit is home. I repeat, Brigit is home. Yay!!!!!! The sheer relief alone. Coming back from work just days before, I had noticed a dead dog and a car pulling up alongside it, with people getting out to gather up their pet…and I wish they’d gotten a happy ending instead of that. I know that scenario. Where you find your beloved companion dead or dying. That helpless grief that you can’t make that pet better. And how big a hole their leaving rips in the very fabric of your being.

Okay.

It’s the eve before the eve of Christmas. The troops are gathering to wage their final two assaults on the season, of course. The War on Christmas commences! I have no idea what those battles will be over. As the War on Christmas is a super-imaginary Fox News BS PR stunt that’s, ugh, endured. Was it Bill O’Silly who started the current version? The one touring with pumpkincunt to ever dwindling crowds?

As the Pilgrims hated Christmas and…anyway, American history has to now be super-postive, focused on WASP-y folks who were the ‘only ones’ involved in ‘building’ ‘merica.

No, really. Not kidding.

See Texas history books that have cut out nearly all or every mention of brown folks in the annals of American history. These same books go out to the rest of the country. Slavery was just imported labor or however that was repackaged. Ahem. Civil Rights? Good look finding anything other than carefully groomed MLK quotes said by white politicians.

See Ron DeDeathface, guvvie of Fluckida, and how he used an MLK quote to justify outlawing Critical Race Theory anything being taught in any school, ever. That includes where it’s actually taught– law schools. Not even kidding.

I am skipping this holiday this year, and maybe, always. Just done with it. I feel no joy or hope at the approach of the red and green monstrosity that doth croucheth across the end of the year like a particularly Lovecraftian Elder God horror. I went over, a bit, about my aunt and her charmless circle of nutballs. The other set of relatives are nearly as bad. I want to stay home, watch bad Christmas movies, drink whiskey and Kool-Aid [sort of kidding] and just…be. I’ve put up no decorations. There’s no tree. Not even presents. And nobody has said a thing. I’m tired.

My job has me waking up in pain, having to gulp down aspirin, noticing that twinge along my spine from trying to lift, several times over, a client at work who’s pretty much dead weight, not helping or trying to support themselves as they should. A situation that will need assessment quite soon, as it effects all at work, not just me.

Christmas has become the most stressful time of year and I just can’t anymore.

I just can’t.

I remember the Christmas of the past, with the entire family, both sides, there to celebrate. And I remember it probably not at all as it really was and isn’t that the point of holiday memories? That you don’t remember the icky, the awful, the mundane and the boring? You just remember the lights, the smells, the tastes, the sound of paper rustling and ripping. Maybe that it snowed or there was snow on the ground, if you lived in a state with four seasons.

At least, this year, there might be a white blanket on the ground by the time the Elder God settles over the world with a blood-smeared grin. And the guns will be loaded and set by the fire, in hopes that the Antifa will soon be near…bang bang, slaughtering protesters is the newest cool kid thing to do in America! Bring your boomsticks, Civil War Two will soon be on!

So tired of all this trumpie stuff. So tired. Wow.

Storms

Oh October, you beautiful orange beast. A big round ball of pumpkin-y goodness! A bowl full of candy corn and candy cigarettes. That time’o year when the leave turn yellow and the cows munch desperately at the corn stalks as they try not to lean against the electric fence. Whoop whoop.

I am now working a graveyard shift, at a place I used to work in the way back when time machine. A group home. It’s what it is. I hate it already. I cried the entire weekend  I had to start work. Why am I not father along, why am I not doing better, why am I not better at being me, better at everything by now??? I wrote to a friend of mine, she’s also crying about going to work, while working on finding some other way to pay her bills. What she’s doing now causes her untold stress.

Life sucks, then you die. That has never been a more apt or true saying. Perhaps the only true saying. Depressed yet?

I also, if you go back through these hit or miss posts, trim weed for my aunt every year. Until this year. I flat out quit. I wrote a desperately long scream about that, did not post it. Why bore the shit and crap and hell out of my patient sometimes readers? Why??? To sum up, my aunt and her new-ish boyfriend are deep down the alt right rabbit hole. It was like sitting in at a Klan meeting. Right down to the n word being tossed out. As in there are good Negroes and then there are ahem ahem. It’s 2021 still, yes? Not 1951? 1851?

Not even kidding was this person. This was tossed out with the reasonable tones of someone who meant it, was not trying to be satirical. The person tossing that out, by the by, is the reason I up and walked out of that shed.

I had headphones on, the day was frigidly cold, so the portable heaters blasted away, adding their level of noise. In walks, let’s call him Klarence, who brings donuts or some sort of breakfast type breads. Like he does every damn time he shows up to trim. So, it’s my aunt, her boyfriend, some ex-cop [who’s a total shitshow loudmouth braggart sort you might find in a Smoky and the Bandit movie. Old reference but Google is right there, kids.] and me cutting the devil’s lettuce this Arctic morning.

Klarence stops right in front of my table, says something. I can’t hear him. I’m fighting with my phone to pick up anything FM wise, as my aunt does not have the internet. That’s right, no internet. I’m trying to tell myself all that static will be fine, at least it drowns out the We Love Joe Arpaio Hour.  At least I don’t have to listen to how we need donnie chump back to save us from Joe Biden’s Commie Agenda. Fuck me running, some of their conversational threads about turned me into an actual serial killer. I just grab the nearest chainsaw, and there’s one right behind my trimming table, and go all Letherface on living beings who bought into everything Fox News was selling, is selling still.

I can’t hear Klarence. I say, rather loudly, yes, I saw you, hello, hi. Something like that. As he insists on greeting everyone when he comes in…so fucking annoying. I thought I was the only one who bristled at this. But no, it’s not just me. I really honestly don’t get upset or mad if someone doesn’t say hi to me or good morning. But I have no manners and I was brought up by parakeets.

So here’s the gooey good part.

Klarence EXPLODES.

I WAS JUST GONNA FUCKING TELL YOU THERE WAS DONUTS and some other stuff that probably had ‘bitch’ and ‘cunt’ included in it. I mean, he blew several gaskets. I don’t know what those are but he blew several. The other two guys had to rush in and save poor Klarence from the loud-voiced meanie. Again, not kidding or making that up to sell my books or make you go read some of my short tales available on the web even now as I write this.

I decided, logically and coolly, that remaining there as my aunt sat there like a lump, not saying a word, to go home. Enough of this stressful experience that I dreaded so each time I went up there to trim weed. My first day there was a surreal theatre of cruelty play as if written by Samuel Beckett, except ole Sam didn’t have talent and could only vomit back up what he’d heard that day from a Q drop. That’s where the someone/s pretending to be Q released some fecal-infused blurb about the Clintons, mostly, and their love of draining children of fluids at pizza parlors.

That first day, people there shared how they all kept guns on them at all times because the Civil War was almost here. My aunt was the loudest voice in that one. My aunt.

Back to Klarence. I told my aunt I couldn’t trim anymore. I told Klarence to enjoy his donuts and mind you, he’s still ranting and vibrating visibly with the urge to smack me. All because I spoke a bit too loudly, over the heaters and my headphones. And hurt his feelings. I can’ even with these people is, I believe, an expression that’s probs out of date by now. My aunt is asking if I’m all right…not telling Klarence to stop acting like a murderous tree frog on meth.

I left my purse in the shed. I had to go back and get it. The ex-cop was in the middle of a thoughtful diatribe on what a bitch I am. I pop back in, ask him pointblank if he just called me a bitch. I then tell him thanks, I love being a bitch. Out I swan, into the sunrise, as it’s before noon and go home. My aunt also tried to say that they all like me, just not when I’m…yeah.

She has not called or come over to see if I’m okay. She sided with Klarence so quickly it should have gone into a record book but it’s expected. It would have been my fault, after all, if poor poor Klarence had smacked me for hurting his feelings with my loud vocal range-ification. I’ve experienced this one before, after all. When my brother tried to choke me. It was my fault, according to mom and dad. I deserved it.

Yeah.

Okay, enough common as dirt family confessions.

It’s nearly Halloween, darlings. My favorite time of year. I love skulls and spiders, pumpkins and witches, vampires, ghouls and zombies, oh my. The season is changing, winter is around the corner with its snow and smell of cinnamon and sage. It’s harvest time, the mice move into the house and you’re not surrounded by ominous corn fields full of cult-minded children with butcher knives at the ready.

I am skipping the stressful, awful end of year holidays this year because I have to work. That’s my excuse. I have to work, sorry, can’t sit there and suffer through Fox News shitvomitings from y’all. As I’m the only not-Foxie on either side. In a deeply red part of Oregon, with a lot of my relatives from batshit blood-red Id-ee-hell. I don’t want to sit there and silently hate every single fucking one of them this year or ever. I have to call quits to all those family helldays. Sorry, holidays. My mouth wants to flap. I don’t have any backup and I don’t truly wish to hate any of them. I’m almost there already. Sigh of sighs.

The toad is croaking away. There’s a big collection of storms comin’ in. The cat says hi.