IT’S ECLIPSE DAY!

 

 

from NASA

Mornin’. It’s, yep, ECLIPSE DAY!

I do have the requisite glasses and I live in the right state for this. Or-eee-gone. Or to natives–Ore-gun. [Correct pronunciation– ORE-gun] I hope this solar event [sky event? event taking place way, way above my head?] is everything it’s supposed to be. A total distraction from Life In America, a mystical journey into my soul and a big bag of Easter candy. [Mostly those super-sweet Cadbury Eggs. I’m thinking the eclipse will send a rain of Cadbury Eggs. A girl has got to have #dreams]

KTVB archives. Central Oregon normally looks pretty empty, traffic-wise. 

Diversion, soul journey, chocolate. Yay!

Oh– go vote for my book cover. #FuckingShamelessPlug

I’d write some long-winded diatribe that veers off into #WTFPumpkincuntLOL but hey, tomorrow, if WE ARE ALL STILL HERE, is another day. Oh my gosh…which side won the Civil War again? I have to go check the local statues. Bye!

Um, on a note that has nothing to do with the Eclipsia…coffee is such a wonderful beverage. Sometimes you have to take a stand, ya’ll. [yawl]

Um, back to the Eclipsia– there’s a massive wildfire by Sisters. 

So. HAPPY VIEWING, EVERYONE.

Hey and hello: here’s some pictures my crappy little camera managed to take. You’re welcome. No damn chocolate. Dreams die hard, fellow babies…

 

Vote For a Cover!

Heya!! Hey!! Yes, you. You scrolling by or maybe some lurker lurking, waiting for some profanity-laced near X-rated political ranty rant…

I HAVE A QUEST.

A request, actually.

See, I have this book coming out. It’s called THE HOUSE ON CLARK BOULEVARD. And it needs a cover. Which, my gentle readers…drum roll…YOU GET TO CHOOSE.

Go here: http://www.kensingtongorepublishing.com/house-on-clark-boulevard-cover/4593976991

AND PICK OPTION ONE OR TWO. 

It would make me happy. It would totally make my publisher, Kensington Gore, super-maxed out to the max happy and um, it would make me happy. Did I mention it would make me happy? Woot Woot!!

Thank you!! Smooches! Oh, if that’s undignified to send virtual smooches, well…okay then.

 

 

 

 

A BAD DAY FOR THE DEVIL

 

 

 

First Part: Texas Preacher inspires a blog post

A Texas preacher was wailin’ and waxin’ large on how this is going to be a bad day for the devil. And naturally, on hearing this shouted from the next room, during the early hours… I had a thought of– is any day a bad day for the devil? It seems the devil gets a lot of shit done. Wars to petty little malicious gossip fun. Everyone’s getting devoured by that devil walkin’ around. The devil takes a stroll and checks things off her list.

What?? Her list??

Have I lost my gol-durn mind? Yes, I have, but that’s a whole other hysterical and barely readable blog post.

Part Two: Gender Politics

I have always wondered this. Why is the devil male? Other than patriarchal absolute control over everything from religion to nail polish choices, of course. Positions of power must always be filled with male figures! Even in legends, mythology, religion and tall tales. Women with power tend to be evil queens, evil stepmothers and witches. Or a combo thereof– an evil stepmother queen witch, such as Snow White’s dad’s second wife. Yep! There are ‘good’ witches but…they’re still suspect, because they have vaginas under those pretty princess-esque ensembles. And could go rogue at any time! We don’t get many tales of queens without there being some sort of ‘love’ story involved where she ends up secondary in her own story as a kingly sort steps up and ‘saves’ her from having to rule and make decisions or she falls into disgrace and gets tricked or…I’ll stop there. Ahem.

Other than that…why is the devil always portrayed as a male figure? We have witches, of course. But. They’re subservient and doing the will of their master…yeah. Witches went from powerful independent sorts to cringing, tricked, lied to servants of Satan. They went from enjoying their power and their relative sexual freedom to being puppets who just endured the cold sexual caresses of Hell’s Landlord. [Because why not strip even sexual enjoyment out of witchcraft, can I get an amen??] See Malleus Malificarum.

Women and power, it’s makes people uncomfortable. I get it. There’s reams written here. The powerful woman getting reduced to evil crone who licks the devil’s bottom during ceremonies held beneath the full moon. Read all that stuff. Read about the witch craze and how midwives were suspect and…yeah. But.

Part Three: A Tale of Love Gone Wrong

That rebellious beautiful angel who went against God. That reads more like a love story gone horribly wrong than some servant acting up and getting spanked, big time, for all eternity. Actually, that fallen angel gets rewarded, by being made the Big Baddie who gets to pretend to go against God. [And here, you can start screaming I don’t know anything about religion, the devil, God or blah dee blurg. That my years in the Lutheran church apparently did nothing more than give me a curious case of soul rash.] After all, does it not say, in Revelation, that God wins?

It’s right there. That’s bad storytelling. You don’t invent this great villain and then say, baldly, that that villain is going to lose. We know the villain loses, we want to pretend some actual surprise. There has to be a moment when we think the Joker is going to squash Batman and yank his wings off. That’s just how good stories trot along. We want, maybe, to even believe, for a bit, that the villain, the Big Bad, will win the day and destroy the planet, kill the tied up girlfriend/love interest/wife/some random girl; uh, get that death ray to work, etc, etc. You don’t state that so and so will win while presenting some Big Bad as the ‘villain’. Unless you plan on springing a surprise on us. Like some super-villain in the wings. Maybe her name is Mary who wraps her holy thighs around the devil and God and devours them both with her girl parts and comes out the winner of it all.

I would so watch that movie. I would even buy the over-priced gold-plated popcorn to munch as I watched that movie.

You cannot announce that you’re the winner ahead of time. It’s insulting. Why do you need an adversary? Especially one that seems on the payroll? Why is he needed at all? Oh…because the devil has a case of bitter grapes and seeks to take down as many as he can before THE END OF IT ALL. [No, seriously, that’s the answer I’ve seen to this one. The devil wants to have a game of freeze tag before the End. Yep.] Cue evil laughter, ala Vinny Price.

PART FOUR: MORE GENDER POLITICS AND EVEN MORE LOVE GONE WRONG MUSINGS

How bitter do you have to be to infect as many humans as you can before God yanks the curtains closed?? That’s female territory…that’s spurned lover territory. That’s…yeah. I’m marching out some rather tired female tropes here— the woman scorned, the bitter woman who wants to repay her ex in spades, the nasty woman who will do anything to smear her ex, etc. Entire industries chug along on that crap alone. There’s also the crazy ex who stalks the current Pretty Young Thang and there’s a catfight where boobies bounce a lot. That’s both a movie plot go-to and the newest ad campaign for Chanel Number Five. Petty revenge against a force that’s all-powerful and who announces they’re going to win no matter what happens…doesn’t seem like male on male catfighting. [Can men have catfights?? Mmm. Maybe tomcat fights? Because tomcats are both slinky and possess testicles? MMMM!]

PART FIVE: WHAT SORT OF DAY DOES THE DEVIL HAVE?

But anyway. The devil, in my opinion, always has a good day. The list of sins is long and people are stupid. You can’t even have naughty thoughts without making God’s I Saw That! list. You can’t lust in your head, your thoughts are on trial. God is literally the thought police. The devil wants you to run that hardcore dungeon daddy fantasy involving a Viking era cowboy-ish muscled up pretty boy who puts you through your paces with a small whip and a large donkey. The devil is saying, hey, baby, go for it. You say, okay! Good day for the devil. Or maybe, hey, you’re in charge of an entire country. And you’ve got pretty bombs and tanks at your disposal. Why not use them on something? Like Chicago?? Yeah, the devil doesn’t even have to do more than shrug and go, hey, baby, go for it. That whisper of permission to give in to your darkest or most silly little vices. Instead of living with your knees crossed and your mind full of amens and hallulujahs and notions that the world is burning alive.

So it makes sense, to me, to make the nemesis of the desert God who stalked about in the lands of Canaan and Judea and so forth…a girl.

And hey, if we keep the devil a boy, well…kettle of very LGTBQ fish, can I get a high five and a clobber verse, amen? [There are six, by the way, six. That’s it. There’s about six maybe references in the entire Bible about this issue. Uh huh.]  You can’t have women with power, after all and you can’t even entertain the notion of God and the also-male devil being exes…because how soon before we’re making bestiality and incest legal and letting people marry their own houseplants?? Hello!

A seductive temptress whispering, go for it, baby, as she picks your pocket and paints a target on your back. That, after all, is what women are…we’re either whores or good girls. That Madonna/Whore dichotomy. One fall from grace and we’re forever branded a sin-filled whorebeast, we gals. There’s no forgiveness for us if we tumble a bit or a lot or at all… We have to be kept covered and controlled and in our place otherwise…chaos. That’s the central core message of pretty much any major or minor religion…women are suspect. Big time. Beware. You give women any sort of freedom and they turn to the devil and become witches and try to become men and want to vote and shit. Gol durn it, not on my watch!

PART SIX: WHERE I FINALLY MENTION SOME WRITING PROJECTS OF MINE!! YAY!

Which leads me to…yes, my piddles in this area, writing-wise. Gotcha!! I wove a pretty web, I offered some sweet blasphemy and oh, viola…here we arrive at some stark PR for my products. Oh my!

Being a writer chick, I invented a character. It’s kinda what I do on occasion. She drives around in an old Caddy, seeking whom she may devour. I didn’t give her a name, other than ‘devil’. She’s a black woman riding the roads of America, offering deals. I was writing along in Alice in Oregonlandia and went, as you do, hey…what if the devil shows up.

What if the devil shows up.

And, sometimes, my mind-worms poop out some useful smeary images. One of those 50’s monstrosity cars with fins that get about three miles per gallon because gas was cheap back then. Flames painted on the black doors. An engine that can heard miles away, one of those big powerful V-8 take on all comers engines. And a woman at the wheel, a powerful woman, a woman to be feared, a woman of sadness and fierce laughter, the devil. With dark skin , a body that’s hers and hers alone, a confidence that her road trip isn’t gonna end any time soon. She suggests sins, doesn’t tell you to actively commit them. She knows you and maybe even loves you a little, but still wants to turn you inside out to watch you strangle in your own guts.

She also turns up in my third book, Saint Lysette and Bloody Alice. Which I’ve let ‘rest’ for a week, as other writing urges hooked me like a fly fisherman hooks one of those trout in a river in Montana. Must write this now! I’m mulling ideas for that third book, deciding just who and what Mr. Blue, Bong Bong and Mr. Peepers are. [If you have no idea who those characters are, it’s okay. I forgive you. Go in peace.] I’m inventing the mythology and reality of this world Alice, and her mother, Nancy, exist in. What happens if there’s devils within devils within devils? What happens if. It’s what writers do, after all. I’m not thinking Overall Literary Theme. I thinking, what if the devil is trying to fix her mistakes? What will Alice do when she finds out what Lysette is? What does Aaron know? I am thinking in terms of what comes next, not Man’s Inhumanity to Man.

The devil, after all, is in the details.

PART SEVEN: BWHA HA HA

Bwha ha ha.

The devil always has a good day. She likes to keep busy and she’s a multi-tasker, as women have been since the time they lived out in the open scavenging lion kills. God will snap His fingers and the devil might very well not even notice. She’s bent over whispering into a susceptible ear to some sexually confused young Christian man to look up three-way twink and bear porn [if you have no idea what this is, boy, are you gonna have some fun with Google today] over on porn hub [a real site, in case you thought I made that up, my innocent sweeties]…whispering in that ear to go for it, baby. God will be saying, hey, I’m ending the game. The devil will look up, from whispering sweet nothings into various ears. You do that, baby, if you think that’s best.

And God will swell up and stomp back to heaven, with a hearty string of expletives for his Ex and the devil will smile. It’s always a good day for the devil.

 

The House on Clark Boulevard

The actual Clark Boulevard

As House on Clark Boulevard is in editing at the moment, I’ll take that as a good sign from whatever dark gods control the universe. As the editor took sick, well, that’s par for the course. My hope barrels are full of sand and ticks and I should probably post something totally optimistic and up with people, but I just fucking can’t do it right now. Sorry.

But hey, the Oregon Ducks get to advance in the Great Basketball Tournament of Death, or whatever it’s actually called. March Madness. I know what’s it bleeping called. I already used up my one allotted cussword.  I’m still trying, desperately, to be a lady. Sigh. March Madness! Suddenly America goes nuts for b-ball. And ignores it the rest of the year. Unless you’re an actual basketball fan, of course.

Danger noodle, wah.

Okay. What was I blatherskiting about? Oh yes!! Upcoming book coming out. What’s it about, Ann? Let me tell you, gentle readers!

It’s about novel length and is not a short story. Ha ha. Ugh. Okay.

No, for reals and such.

Set in 1978, against the backdrop of Thanksgiving and Christmas, this is one young-ish housewife’s fight against the forces of darkness as well as wrestling with a family she’s not sure she likes, enjoys or even loves. Mr. Blue claims he can make all the ghosts and beasties that torment her on a nearly daily basis go away. The giggling ghost boys who play pranks on her, some times all night long. The rolling teethed beasties who sometimes try to push her down. Mr. Peepers, who lives in her daughter’s room. All she has to do is sacrifice her oldest child, Alice. Nancy balks as this, of course, because she’s supposed to be a good wife and a good mother, damn it! She’s also dealing with a toddler who hasn’t yet mastered where to poop or pee, a husband struggling with his own dreams, the newest girlfriend of her ladykiller brother and holiday turkeys that sometimes won’t cook fast enough. She’s got a lot of shit on her plate, man! Alice, by the way, can see the ghosts and beasties as well, and lets this slip at the most embarrassing moments, of course. Nancy decides maybe she can trap these annoyances, after a trip to the local library. But it’s Mr. Blue she starts to gun for as a showdown looms between a woman trying to play the role of good wife and mother to one and all around her and a possible demon come to make Nancy his personal pet project.

Frankly, I wanted to have some fun with the haunted house themes. Every movie I seeor book I read about people and ghosts has the people screaming and loosing control of their bowels. Or so it seems.

What if, I went, what if someone just found the haunters annoying and in the way and just another thing to deal with in a day filled with cleaning, cooking constantly and never-ending childcare duties? [And yes, this is totally about my mother, okay?? Okay.]

Nancy is hard-headed practical and pragmatic. She tackles what she can tackle. I rather like how she let me tell her story. She even showed up, at times, to steer me into how she wished her story told.

Not that, she’d say. No, that isn’t what happened. I remember Anne Rice talking about her creation, Lestat and how she had Lestat looking over her shoulder as she wrote about him. Nancy was in that same category.

I scrapped several versions of the scene where Nancy flees her own house. Until I happened upon the one that seemed right. Where Nancy calls on her brother, who won’t ask her questions and will drop whatever to come get her. Nancy wouldn’t go to outsiders for her problems or…well, you’ll see if that book ever does actually come out of editing limbo and gets put out on the market.

Here’s a bit of a blurb. A taste. A nibble. THE HOUSE OF CLARK BOULEVARD. Oh and the sequel is done, too. I know!! Alice in Oregonlandia. About, you guessed it, Nancy’s daughter dealing with her own life and the fallout of her mother’s battles with Mr. Blue. Are you excited, gentle sorts??

The following is how the book opens, with Nancy preparing her little house for Thanksgiving’s excesses. Well, you’ll see…

THANKSGIVING, 1978

The telephone hung in the air. Nancy ran the vacuum cleaner over the shabby green and gray carpet of the living room, ignoring that floating beige receiver held out to her to take. “Not today,” she said briskly. “I’m busy.”

The telephone bobbed in the air, she saw it do so from the corner of her eye as she resolutely went after every last bit of dirt and dust. Which did no good at all in this dusty afterthought of God’s country. Dust drifted up and drifted down, it did not good at all to actually expect it to stay away once a vacuum or rag had been after it. Something pressed against the back of her knees, hard, trying to knock her down. “No. Not today.” She repeated, using the vacuum to keep herself from falling. Another push against her legs. “No!” The see-through little girl peered at her from Nancy’s open bedroom door, in her flour sack dress, holding that severed doll’s head, her face bruised. Her eyes held sorrows, her hair held sticks and leaves and snarls. She disappeared, like hot fat in a frying pan.

Nancy heard the click of the telephone as it returned to the cradle. It rang. She let it, the roar of the Hoover as it sucked up filth a far more welcome sound than the reet reet of the phone. The walnut hutch held her good china, which she would use tomorrow. Her husband had anchored it to the wall. Her brother had helped. Nancy moved a chair out of her way, the four that sat around the dining room table, the table made of polished oak with two removable leaves. These sat in the hall closet, waiting for holidays. The every day floral tablecloth had stains, gravy stains and ketchup stains and mustard stains. She’d get out her good tablecloth for the big day. Dark blue, with a blocky yellow edge. Her Aunt Pansy had made it. Right now, her table had room for about four people. Tomorrow she’d put those leaves in so everyone coming by for Thanksgiving would have a place. She had folding chairs ready to go. She, Arthur, Arthur’s parents, her parents and Aaron and Alice, her two children. Eight people expected. She didn’t know if her brother would show up, with his newest girlfriend, some dishwater blond who liked whiskey. Who would like whiskey a lot. He kept showing up with the same woman, she just had different names. Her eyes rolled. Tom had a talent for picking out blondes who adored whiskey far more than anything else. The phone stopped ringing, after ten reet reets.

The thump of a small something hit the carpeted floor of the living room. She turned slightly and there lay a handful of thrown jacks, waiting for her to take her turn, a small battered red ball moving enticingly, trying to tempt her. “No, not ever.” The ball bounced and some of the jacks disappeared, rusty little toys from some other era. That red, worn ball floated toward her. “No! I am busy!” They tried to get her to play with them. At times, she could almost see whatever wanted her to play jacks. A small form, child-sized, with only half a face, at times. A little girl in a flour sack dress and chopped off dark hair, with eyes as pale as water. She thought there might be two little girls. A giant boy, so skinny she quite wanted to make him a milkshake. Rather harmless, wanting her to sit and play jacks. If only the damn house were infested with such harmless toy-playing things! The jacks, about ten of them, disappeared, the little well-used red ball as well. She had hurt their feelings. Oh well.

Something rolled past the doorway into the small, warped-floor kitchen, where she would cook the big turkey, make gravy from powdered cream of chicken soup and boil potatoes to mash. Something that would stand as tall as her knees, a big fuzzy furry black something that moved swiftly but slyly enough to let her catch a glimpse of it. Over and over as she got that rug into tip-top shape. Except for the eternal dust, the dog hair and the dust, of course. Over and over, that creature rolled, flashing by the door into the kitchen. Once it had tried to push her into the deep freezer. Whatever it was, its humor was that of a ten year old boy. As boys liked to hurt and harm, with no concept their pranks could actually cause damage of any kind. “Go take a nap, I am busy. No. Now leave me alone.” She often thought the fuzzy rolling ball of mischief had, at one time, been a boy. Maybe all little boys who died came back as rolling fuzzy balls that haunted housewives as they tried to get everything done for the damn holidays.

So far, no Mr. Blue. No unseen lips whispering at her. No if you kill her we’ll all go away So far, no Mr. Blue.

Not the house but close enough. Eastern Oregon

MICE AND DARKNESS

from Pinterest

There’s a mouse nibbling at something in my closet. Spring is springing here in Oregon East and the mice seem to be holding tea parties in my boxes of crap and stuff. Now, yours truly has been on a writing slog so yours truly has not been the little housewifely creature she never is, ever.

 

Alice in Oregonlandia is progressing. My sequel to a novel I just finished, for now called House on Clark Boulevard.

I’m also writing festering crap I would not show a Danger Noodle, let alone the tender readers who dare my clumsy words, galumphing sentences and frothy artistic confections. [Oregon Gothic. Have I mentioned yet, or ever, that I wrote a book called Oregon Gothic??? Don’t worry, I’ll mention it. I promise.]

Alice veered into territory that’s a bit dark and awful, but hey, it’s supposed to give a few tame thrills to readers in the Shivers Department. I’ve been rereading it and trying to get back into it, because I let it rest for a bit and now I’m going, uh, where was I? Where was this actually going? Why did I write about eating hearts and now there’s something about rainbows and puppies?? Was it going anywhere but off the rails on a crazy train?

Great. Now Ozzy is wailing in my head. Wail, Ozzy, wail! Get it over with, brain.

Yep. So. Also trying not to succumb to that utter darkness that wants to suck me into the void. I know! How cheerful am I? Not cheerful at all. No cheer here to give.

I won’t descend into some maudlin screamwhine about my inner hellscapes.

I present them publicly via my writing and plays, so why do I need to further reveal that I am one savagely, probably chemically, depressed little mama? Is it not de rigueur for a writer to be an emotional, physical, mental mess? Does that not ‘fuel’ our art? Would we even know who Virginia Woolf was if she had not gone off the rails on a crazy train?

DAMN IT, BRAIN.

 

But. Mice.

I hear them at night. I used to be scared shitless of them. Little rodents just trying to survive their fate as tiny tasty prey to dogs, cats, hawks, owls, coyotes and whatever else lives in the walls of my house. [I do have a horror bent to my writing at times, hello.]

Then I found out they’re smart. They sing to their babies. They’re social. They’re…uh. My Cute Animals Syndrome kicks in. Where cute animals deserve saving and ugly animals don’t.

A mouse is rather a darling little thing, if you look at one. That little face, their little pink paws, ah. The Rescuers! Ah!! I still get annoyed when mice are found in my stuff. I’d rather mice than cockroaches, if I had to choose a vermin from a list.

The cockroaches in Honduras made me scream and head for the nearest flame-thrower. Yep, they were BIG. And if I didn’t have my computer playing something, I could hear them. Hear them. Hear their cockroach feet tap-tapping. Made me want to embrace Jesus in the worst way and just beg Jesus to Rapture me already because surely there will be no giant, thinking about jumping on you, bugs in heaven. Cockroaches know they freak you out. They KNOW. I know they know, they need to be honest and admit that they know they freak us out and do things to freak us out and then go off and have cockroach giggle parties.

 

I probably spend way too much time alone.

No, I do. But. I cannot stand other people right now. I have an actual phobia to other folks. Probably just my common sense showing up at last to the party that is moi. I’d rather deal with the odd mouse and even a pack of viciously gleeful cockroaches bent on making me try to figure out how to work a flame-thrower. Oh. I did promise not to get all confessional. Because I was already confessional via my writing.

 

 

My tooth is loose. I can rock it back and forth in my somewhat sore gum. My tongue plays with it. Hello, poverty! I just watched The Grapes of Wrath, the one with Henry Fonda [Is there a remake or a gritty reboot of this already gritty drama?] and yes, I can relate to the Joads.

Oh you betcha. Ahem!! I am poor and cannot afford the dentist. That’s a thing here in America. Our healthcare system, or rather, lack of anything resembling any sort of compassion toward those without a trust fund. Which has been pounded into the dust and sand and mud and ooze. Politics.

 

 

I listened to grown men in the other room praise 45 for that speech. One of the men was Japanese and there’s internment camps you can go look at right here in Oregon where people who were Japanese-Americans, during WWII, were put. For safety. To keep America safe. Anyway! That speech!! Back on the rails…DAMN IT, BRAIN. NO, BAD BRAIN.

That carefully orchestrated performance piece [the State of the Union address] to make a certain Orange Slushie look and sound ‘presidential’ and they, the grown men, some of whom are related to me, gushed. They gushed like teen girls over the newest national or international crush. They sounded like teenyboppers practically having kittens to some cutie pie in some movie they just saw.

If only people would give him a chance. That was a pretty neat speech! I don’t know why those people are upset. He speaks his mind!

 

 

I swear to Jesus and Allah and Ra and Odin and The Great Flaming Vagina of Doom– that’s what was actually overheard by this wide-eyed trembling soul. I had an actual out of body sensation. A real ‘this is not my life’ fireworks boom in my head. A moment of ‘They know I can hear them so they’re just having fun with me’, rather like those damn cockroaches and their tappy little feet. Just. Like. That.

 

And then I mused over how people can hear the same political slickster speech and hear two completely different versions. And isn’t that funny?? Isn’t that rather…ugh. No. No, it’s not funny at all. Hello, darkness, my constant friend. You’ve come because you never went. You’re always here in my head, you’re here when I get up and when I go to bed!

So I should probably clean out the places in my little space that need cleaning out; it is spring! Spring cleaning. What can I throw away? What can I discover tucked away? That I can get out for a bit and then tuck away again? What little bit of something will spark an almost artistic effort? What little bit of forgotten something will…I do cannibalize. Which I admitted in another post. Maybe I left some bones with meat still one them! Ooooh!! This works on both an actual need to clean and sort and throw out level and the metaphysical declutter the brain miasma. Wow. I’m obvious and shallow all in a few handy sentences! Good for me!

Darkness and mice and spring and my tooth and life and Orange Slushies and too-aware cockroaches and depression and writing and Jesus.

I’m going to be honest. I need a haircut.

Did you think I would blurf out something about life, suicide, despair or rivers? Sorry. You’ll have to comb through my writing for my state of mind, darlings.

 

Alice of Oregonlandia

 

So, I’m working on a a sequel to a novel I just finished in December.  Which might be coming out soon, I never know these days. How’s that for vague?? I have about twenty five thousand words for Alice. No idea where it’s going. But it seems to want to go and drag me along behind it. Hurry up hurry up!  So that’s either a good sign or I’m going insane in the membrane. And then I look up and notice my country [the United States of Pre-Civil War II A’Brewin] seems to be exploding in all directions as hard and fast as possible, so I dive  back into my scribbling foray and head off, again, to the shining city on the hill Eighties of Herr Reagan, Dirty Dancing and small town politics. Oh and ghosts, because I’m supposed to be writing about scary things but can’t seem to write anything scarier than the rapid decline of Not-Canada.

 

[This is from a protest against the ‘temporary’, did we get a time limit on this ‘temporary’? ban on people coming from several Middle Eastern countries. Here’s the New York Times article on that: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/refugees-detained-at-us-airports-prompting-legal-challenges-to-trumps-immigration-order.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0 ]

See what I mean? And you wonder why other people are defending this who had relatives who came here or who themselves are refugees or recent immigrants or…and then you realize people can justify anything if they try hard enough and want it to be true. Which gives you a case of the cold dead shivers. And makes you want to watch Pixar movies and just wait for the end of it all. So!! Ahem.

I’ll put a bit of Alice in Oregonlandia here, because I’m a shameless huckster now of my own writing, bwha ha ha, ahem, and you can judge me on a first draft effort. Yah? 

  “Because. Mr. Blue is visiting again.”

    My stomach dropped, my skin went cold, I bit my lower lip so hard I nearly severed it. I tasted blood. “Are you shitting me? Why? He always loses when he takes on my mom. Always.” I knew he was about again, but it hadn’t yet been confirmed. That’s why I’d wanted to go to the house and see for myself. Maybe I should call off our Saturday Night Adventure.

     “Maybe he wants his slick girlhog.” Mr. Peepers actually said to me. “Maybe he’s sitting there like a patient toad for a particular slick girlhog.” Those obsidian eyes regarded me moistly. The little gross thing actually did actually love me. And, I was not going to let Mr. Blue scare me. My mom had kicked his ass to the curb, twice now. Didn’t he know to stay away?

     “Oh please, ” I replied, shooing him off my bed so I could sit. He went reluctantly, those little strange feet slapping down, slapping down. Lysette curled up into a little ball of arms and legs. “I’ve seen the horror movies, you freak. Don’t go in the house! And then they go into the house! This is real life, fruitcake. Real life. He’s afraid of girls. I’m supposed to ignore that, Peepers, old friend, ole pal?” I tried to sound tough, to sound smooth and tough and fearless. Because I did not want to go visit that burned down childhood home of mine now. At all. But pride. Pride, man, it’s a bitchkitty.

     Mr. Peepers went to our closet. Lysette and I shared everything, after all. He gave me a look from those awful black eyes of his. Sometimes they had little orange dots in them, as if his eyes were on fire. “That’s what he wants, Missie Alice. He’ll come sniffing out the holes in this house now…JUST YOU WAIT.” The traveler laughed and laughed, slapped his droopy little potbelly and then stalked off into the closet. He had a nest in that house on Clark Boulevard. Where he kept a deck of cards, some socks and other things I made myself forget as soon as he told me. I just like cards, they’re small and slick and pretty, he had admitted one night. I’d wait until mom and my dad were well and truly asleep, not fighting or anything else…and then get up out of bed or off the couch. And play Old Maid with Mr. Peepers or hear stories from the little girls. Rosiecheeks had one story she told–a version of Little Red Riding Hood, where the little girl doesn’t win. The other little girl in that house liked to talk about her doll and the doll’s tongue would come out and try to touch my face. It became a game to not let that tongue touch me. Dirt, what she called herself as she didn’t remember her name at all, would just smile and smile as her doll’s head tried to lick my cheek. It’s not much fun over here, she would complain. It’s not much fun at all. Sometimes the little boys would show themselves, if they weren’t too busy stomping from the back door to mom’s room, over and over. They thought that so funny. Especially if they could get her to wake up and check on the noise.

     But where do you go? I asked Rosiecheeks that once or twice. She didn’t know. Or she didn’t want to tell me. Or she couldn’t tell me. Then, to distract me, she’d go into her version of Little Red Riding Hood, where the little girl dies and no one comes to save her. The wolf licked her blood off the walls and Little Red Riding Hood watched this as she died. That’s where it ended. Every time. The story always started with: A bad little girl in a bright red cloak walked into the forest.

     Why didn’t that little cloaked brat save herself? I never thought to ask that. A wolf is just a big dog. Pick up a stick, fight back.

 

 

Ms. Positive Vibes and Happy Rainbows of Industry

 

from the Oregon Trail Game

So. It’s four in the morning. I’m awake. I wake up, more or less, between two and four every morning, so this is normal. Don’t worry, I go to bed around seven. Because that’s when the heroin kicks in. Just kidding. That’s what you say when you say or write something awkward and want to dull the edges a bit. “Just kidding” is rather like using the term, allegedly, when you say something that you know is probably ninety percent true. It’s just a version of CYA.

Welladay, it’s snowy here in Oregonlandia. As in destructive, can’t go anywhere in this crap, why am I upside down in a ditch, when did that happen? snowy. Buildings are falling down here in Ontario, Vale, and Nyssa. Over in Idaho, poor Weiser lost its only grocery store. A town of about three thousand people, and home of the Old Time Fiddler’s Convention– http://www.fiddlecontest.org/

Okay, this is supposed to be a bloggie blog about my writerly writings attempts, fails, victories and other assorted bleep, bloobs and blumberings. [As a writer, I can make up words. I give myself permission and sign that executive order to make up all the words I wish because I can and it’s bigly good and I approve of this message.] So aye, maties, let’s stop dawdling and get to the meat.

I actually did start a cheerful dystopian not-gritty not-rebooted Shitweasels of Desire. Except now it’s tastefully called– Pimple Hollow. And since it’s amusing to me, and lets me funnel off some of my brain-melting depression a bit, I’ll probably write at least twenty some pages on it. Or start it all over again, and then again after that, until some sort of story actually occurs to me or I’ll put it aside and work on something else I put aside. Because, being a total Gemini– I even have a tattoo in case people doubt that I am indeed a total Gemini– I have more than one novel, play, short story, bit of sloppy self-indulgent poetic snippet or what I call–“junkcrap no one gets to read because it’s on level with something my dog wrote, if my dog drank whiskey and did crack” going at any one time. And then I read where Neil Gaiman does that, too. Have several projects going at any given time, so that when he gets bored, he can focus on something else for a bit and then come back. Oh my gosh!! I DO THAT, TOO. I so do that, too, Neil!!

 

I also did manage to finish my ghost novel, House on Clark Boulevard. It’s set in one of my childhood homes [we moved around when I was little, so I have several.] during the end of the Seventies. Around the holidays. And yes, it’s a weird mixture of family memories and a housewife fighting the forces of darkness. Nancy, my pragmatic heroine, has to find a way to defeat Mr. Blue, who’s offering her quite a horrific deal. She also had to get through the baking of two turkeys, rocky family waters, and what major appliance will break down next. It’s a full life!

Now, since writers seemingly have to have a series these days, I actually thought, vaguely, of a sequel for House on Clark Boulevard [if you keep repeating something, apparently, people, even though they’ll make faces and gagging noises, will remember it. I think that’s true of propaganda, movies stars, and obscure book titles. Yay!]. I don’t have a title yet, other than Alice of Halliday Road or maybe Alice Remembers. Or something with Alice in the title, since Alice is the name of Nancy’s daughter from THE HOUSE ON CLARK BOULEVARD. Did I mention, yet, that I am already considering a sequel to THE HOUSE ON CLARK BOULEVARD? Well, consider it mentioned!

So!! This as of yet somewhat sorta named not at all yet sequel would be set in the late Eighties, maybe the last year of Reagan. [As HOUSE ON CLARK BOULEVARD was set in the last years of Jimmy Carter’s turn as POTUS. See what I did there?? Points if you noticed, dear reader.] Alice would be taking up the fight, more or less, that her mother, more or less, fought. How’s that for a ‘must-read that!’ tagline?? Sucks, yeah. Thanks. I could also explore how others see Nancy from HOUSE ON CLARK BOULEVARD. And get different versions of events from HOUSE ON CLARK BOULEVARD. Fun! [Points again if you notice the repeating title I keep repeating, dear reader.]

 

I also started a novel about ghouls. Which I labeled “Infection“. But. It’s fairly hardcore graphic and has cannibalism right off the bat. I might post some blurbies from it for future bloggie blog postings, the scrubbed and nice paragraphs only, of course. We might be in a post-PC world now, but there is a limit!

It’s probably tortureporn a bit, ayway and should be kept locked away in this writer’s little trunk of “nevva evva gonna show that to a living soul, amen”. Why am I bringing this one up?? It’s a project that I set aside! It’s not calling out for me to come play. Oh, did I mention I finished HOUSE ON CLARK BOULEVARD??

I’ll end this rambling screed with a shudder at anyone eating lamb blood pancakes with raisins sprinkled in the batter. Raisins. In pancakes. No!! I saw that on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman. Some supercold, Northern European place, where they slaughtered a lamb, then used the blood to make blood pancakes and…blood oatmeal cookies. [There was oatmeal in the fried blood pudding– they thickened it with oatmeal, then pan-fried slices of that blood pudding in butter– and Andrew took a bite of it, nodded as he does, and pronounced that it tasted like a ‘bloody oatmeal cookie’. With ‘bloody’ being used to describe the flavor, not how it was a wanker. That’s what I got from that, anyway.] So, there were two kinds of blood pancakes made– with and without raisins. Always, always, choose to leave the raisins out. I can’t put a positive spin on that. Just leave the damn raisins out!

HOUSE ON CLARK BOULEVARD. OREGON GOTHIC, by the way, is, like, totally available and doesn’t even have any Goths in it. What??? Buy a copy and find out why it doesn’t contain any Goths!! BUY A COPY TODAY.  https://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Gothic-Ann-Wuehler/dp/1514140527