Blog layout editing... la dee dah

This has effectively become a test blog at this point, but if you pop in, well... Hi! How are ya?

I had some heinous green enter my blog. You'll still see it upper left in the sidebar. I couldn't figure out, at the time, how to fix it. Tonight, I guess my brain had cooked it enough (for many, many months), because the solution took about 2 minutes.

Here's how it HAD looked, when I first came upon it:


And here's the fixed version, for posterity, because I will undoubtedly be tweaking:


There's still a box of green. I shall have to find that in the CSS somewhere.

This reminds me. Figuring puzzles out is COOL!

A declaration of anonymity?

And now for something just a little different from recent posts about education, eco-friendly technologies, and the aggravation that is Hillary Clinton... This is a little odd, in my mind:

There is apparently an organization called "Anonymous" that protests Scientology. Now, from the little bit I've been learning, it's not in the least bit odd that one would protest Scientology (although as usual I'm left wondering: Couldn't we just cut to the chase and protest religions and cults in general? But I digress...), but I admit I'm finding it odd that Anonymous presents itself in a little bit of a... hhhmm... cultish manner.

I worry that it's awfully easy for some people to want to belong to something, and that when they jump ship from something as apparently icky as Scientology... they're awfully tempted to just sign up for something new, which seems counterproductive to me.

Why can't we raise more people that just want to be themselves? Themselves could be pretty cool, you know.

But there, these last few paragraphs will now have pissed off absolutely everybody, yay! (I just don't understand religion I just don't understand I don't... ~sigh~)

ANYWAY, despite that little ick-factor, I think Anonymous is kinda neat. Cathleen posted a link to a post about their upcoming worldwide protest (June 14), with accompanying video. Will there, I wonder, come a day when homemade videos on the Web used for organizational/advertising purposes have to actually recognize the copyright on things like James Horner's terrific Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack? Stay tuned, but DO NOT hold your breath.

But the real reason I, of all people, am posting the same link is... CHECK OUT THE VERY NICE FLAG DESIGNS! I mean, it's a great logo to begin with (though I sense it has perhaps had a good upgrade fairly recently), and then it works so well on some of the country flags. Nice design job, I must say.

And for my last "ponder" of the morning... Isn't there something odd about calling oneself Anonymous and then designing a logo that can be recognized everywhere? Hmm...

Arrrgh!

Hillary continues to run in the wrong party

Soon enough, I'll get back to the important matter of kitty cats and the fact that I can now walk to the water (and will be doing that in a few minutes if I know what's good for me). But I keep getting distracted by the ongoing soap opera that is the current Democratic nomination race. I say race, but it's been somewhat stalled lately.

As a follow-up to my previous post, Hillary apparently does, in fact, think the GOP is the better party for her. Yup! Mr. Boudreaux of George Mason University breaks it down for us in a delightful way in the Wall Street Journal:

'Nothing but Misogynists'

My problem is this: If she doesn't pull out now and start rooting heavily for Obama, there won't be enough time for her to drag her faithful followers to his side before November. I am, of course, assuming that she'll even be willing to do so. Many of the faithful on both sides in this race are getting quite venomous toward the other candidate, and because of all people the GOP chose McCain... these Democrats think they have a moderate alternate choice! Yikes! Talk about a bad idea! So ONE of the Democrats has to pull out and throw his/her full support behind the other, telling his/her followers, "okay, cut the crap, you know you can't vote for McCain, you just can't." Otherwise, as my own dearest and bestest friend pointed out in his myspace blog, we're looking at a long, hard future with a very conservative Supreme Court, given the people McCain would nominate. That's much more dangerous, long-term, than just the bunch of other horrible things that McCain could do in the next four years.

Hillary apparently NOW thinks that she is being expected to be the one to pull out because she's a woman. It's sexism. WRONG. It's far more likely a reflection of the fact that she's RUNNING AS A REPUBLICAN. Pfffft.

Oh Daddy I'm so glad to see you but the Moustache Man is gone!

Just poking my head in here to say hi to anybody who may be lurking. I will likely be resurfacing more properly in the coming weeks as I get used to the fact that I'M FINISHED SCHOOL YIPPEE!, but that resurfacing will likely involve ending this blog and starting something new. If you're a "regular," I will definitely let you know where to find the new digs.

Speaking of new digs, we are moving. T minus 5 months or so. Specific address yet to be determined, but it's looking pretty SWEET!

And I graduated.

That is all.

A recovering book-a-holic

In 30 seconds flat, Diane Wright got me hooked on Library Thing, and the funny part is, I don't read.

I am not a reader. But I used to be one. I could play one on TV, given half a chance and perhaps some plastic surgery.

When I was much younger, I shared a library with my Dad. People we knew, and people they knew, would come to our house, browse our collection, scrawl their names on a sheet of paper, and go away with artifacts from our bookshelves. Often, they returned them.

I learned to see books and bookshelves as reflections of myself. Other people might put photographs of their grandchildren up, or set out their fine collections of miniatures, or decorate their kitchens with cute cow-print items. For me, good bookcases full of books I decided I liked enough to keep offer an opportunity to say something about myself to visitors.

Alas, Luther and I do not do whatever it takes to have visitors, and my books and his are in cupboards and closets. And my book collection has shrunk, due to the pressures and necessities of moving. And, since I don't read, and since when I did read, I read almost exclusively science fiction... my book collection is not what you'd call "impressive" among the literary set.

Still, the books say something about who this Becky person is, or was before she became bekbek, certainly before Georgia. And when there's a newer edition in the mix... they say a lot about how much I loved them, when I was a reader. Enough to buy them again, even though I don't read them again, because they simply ought to be on my shelves.

The green headed monster

As long as I'm going to be jealous about other peoples' talent and adventures, I might as well share.

Here's a blog I try to keep up with. What is not to love about a gorgeous woman who takes beautiful photos, understands what's fun about Aaron Sorkin, apparently is some kind of lawyer (I'm quite mystified about this), and likes good food and good drink? I mean... okay, I'm just living vicariously, but damn, it's a good vicarious life.

She's in India right now. Quote: "So anyway. I saw a monkey masturbating today. NOW my trip to India is complete."

And if that doesn't make you feel totally lame in comparison, this will. Thinking With My Skin: What Happened to My Daughter on Friday It's by Bill Cameron's daughter. Who the hell is THAT creative? Damn. I'm such a slouch.

Bill's pretty cool, too.

That's all for now.

Christmas Twenty Questions

Since I'm clearly not writing a novel anytime soon, and the screenplay is going nowhere fast, and the Simplicity comic is still just a bunch of sketches showing no sign whatsoever of developing into actual drawings... I have time for a survey! This one is courtesy of Bill Cameron, who got it from some other fine folks, and so on, and so on...

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
You know it's interesting, but I bought some egg nog recently, on my way home from gift-shopping, thinking that I'd have some nog while setting up the tree, and... it's just not all that great. I mean, I like the taste fine, but it's awfully thick and awfully sweet and in the end I'm wondering... wouldn't I rather have a beer?

That said, egg nog with Mount Gay is the way to go. Alternately, bittersweet hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and a dash of whipped cream. I guess the answer to this first question is, therefore: Both, and I'm clearly a drunk.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Santa doesn't exist, hello, but when the gift is for the whole household (including myself), it's a useful "from" name to use on the tag.

Presents are always wrapped. Even if you have to cover them with a Mexican blanket, there has to be some "unwrapping" going on, or there's almost no point!

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
Both on the tree! I like the white lights because they look like little twinkling stars, but I like the colors because they're so festive.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
No, it already grows on all the trees around here without my help or anything. Fancy that, eh? Mistletoe growing, like, for real and everything!

I get a lot of kisses. *wink*

5. When do you put up your decorations?
When the last of the homework is done, and especially when I'm itching to put some presents out. Have to have somewhere to put them! I put up the little plastic tree this year (just this past weekend), when normally I insist upon a real tree, because we're going to be in California for Christmas and the poor cat will be all alone in the house, and I figured a plastic tree with only the plastic ornaments was the way to go under such tempting circumstances. She's already been under it once, but to be honest I think she was more interested in the presents. I do love the little plastic ornaments...

We do have exterior lights, but man oh man are they a pain, so for the past few years they have just sat in the closet...

6 What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Fruit cake and Wensleydale cheese with port around the fire with Mom and Paul. And whatever they're serving for breakfast the next morning! YUM!

7. Favorite childhood Holiday memory?
This has to be when I bored everybody (Mom especially, I am sure) with a year-long campaign for an electric train set I was sure I could never actually have, and then Christmas came and the entire family got together to give me an N-scale train set. People just kept pulling little packages out of their pockets, and each one was an engine, or a car, or some plastic cows or something, and I got more and more and more excited, and then Dad and Paul went outside together and came back with a huge piece of plywood with a track nailed down to it, all ready to go! And then when we ran the train, a light came on inside the Pennsylvania line passenger car that my sister had given me, and you could see the tiny, tiny people inside, and it was almost like I was on a train trip with them.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
There has never been a Santa. "Santa" is a fun game that we play at Christmas. There are some movies and stuff that go along with the game. Miracle on 34th street was a particularly good little fantasy story.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
More and more often, yes, but I don't really like it. I miss the whole getting up early, all excited Christmas morning thing, and starting with the stockings, everybody in pajamas, and the sun just coming up, and the frost on the windows, and the shiny paper everywhere, and then breakfast and old movies on the television. But it gets harder and harder to find the old movies, and the presents are less and less likely to be toys that one plays with for the rest of the day, and one of us actually has to make the breakfast now, and I've gone and gotten mixed up with someone with a whole different set of traditions, to boot. So... the presents happen whenever, but usually early.

This year will be interesting because we'll be with Luther's brother and family. Sadly, Luther's Mom will be in Greece and not in California, because her father passed away last week. I don't know what Mike and Robin's traditions are, other than the upside-down tree. And what about our presents to each other? Do we open before leaving for California, or do we hold them until New Year's?

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
First, the annoying untangling of lights. I wrap them up perfectly nicely when I put them away, but somehow they never come out of the box like that. Then the ornaments one by one. I try to make an event out of it. I like to think about where we got each ornament and what it represents. But this year, like I said, most of the ornaments stayed in the box for safe-keeping and anti-cat-ness. I did hang our souvenir from Greece, though, in Mom-Vicky's honor and in memory of meeting her Dad in Athens a few years ago. It is a simple little brass cut-out of a pomegranate.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it. Of course this is easier to do, now that I never get to see any. I miss shoveling, but I think I would probably die of a heart attack if I actually had to do any.

12. Can you ice skate?
Bill wrote, "Not really. I mean, I can scoot around on skates a bit, but I have a hard time stopping and usually crash into the side of the ice rink. But I think it's very fun, actually." And this is a pretty good description of my relationship with skating, too. I used to be able to get up to a good speed, but that only works if there aren't too many other people skating, because my direction control is a little sketchy...

13. Do you remember your favorite gift for Christmas?
My absolute favorites are two gifts I gave to others:

The first was a tree that my sister and I got for Mom and Paul, when they were in Australia for the holidays but then unexpectedly were coming home in time for Christmas. We found an enormous blue spruce, absolutely gorgeous, and took it to Mom and Paul's house and set it up with lights, and the box of ornaments sitting next to it, ready to be put on the tree, and some champagne and cookies, and a little gift tag with a cartoon of my sister and me hanging on the tree. We got out of there just in time! Mom and Paul got home within a half hour of my leaving, and saw the twinkly lights when they were just getting the door unlocked.

The second was by own Ikea stuffed bear, which I put in a box and sent to Luther, his first Christmas after his marriage broke up, alone in the new little apartment without his kids. Apparently it arrived Christmas Day, and the postman decided to go out and deliver a few last packages so people could have their presents, and so Luther had his bear to hug, and it makes me cry all over again to think of.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Getting a chance to remember what an amazing life I've led, with such an amazing family and wonderful adventures.

Also, the sappy movies.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
I do like pie, yes.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
The ornaments on the tree, I think.

17. What tops your tree?
Two stars, when the tree is big enough. One is from my life in Toronto, and the other is from Luther and the aformentioned "new little apartment" and the tree he decorated for his children. But if you read the "love tree" post already, you know all this.

One time, someone (it may have been Luther) asked me about the star on the tree. If I don't believe in God and the whole Christmas story, why the star? I said, "I believe in stars."

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
Yeah, the giving! I love to go all out, I love love love to come up with creative ideas for "just the perfect present." Sadly, this is not always possible, and then I admit to getting a little down. It's just not... as much fun, if I couldn't make them go WOW!

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
White Christmas. And lots and lots and lots of Frank.

20. Do you like Candy Canes?
Not really. I'm not a hard candy person. But they sure can be pretty!

Thanks, Bill. :)

No plot? No problem!

I finally got around to getting caught up on my Optimist Realist reading the other day, and was amused to read about James Koole's six-word memoir. Six words!

How the heck does one do this? Mine could be... "Grew. How hard could it be?"

James came across the memoir-writing contest at a site called NaNoWriMo, for National Novel Writing Month -which apparently was all of November. I didn't even know there was a National Novel Writing Month, and now I've gone and missed it!

Still, my novel-writing prospects are looking up: As many of you know, I am plot-challenged, so the idea of actually sitting down and writing a novel pretty much sends me running. NaNoWriMo apparently has a solution for me:


Sounds good. Amazon has it, even. And after all, plot or no plot...
...yeah, yeah. How hard can it be?

3em is even better than 3M

I found the code I was looking for, and I fixed it. How about that? Of course, I started the hunt in the first place because I wanted a black background, and a black background revealed the complete lack of a right margin in the sidebar content. Finally, I found the sidebar widget, whatever that is, and I changed one of the values to 3em, and wow, that's actually too much margin. I set it to 1em and moved on.

Only by this time, I'd stopped loving the black background.

For my next trick, I'll be trying to figure out how to put a gradient into the background, or maybe tile it with a texture. Because...

yeah, yeah. How hard can it be?

The "new look" is a considerably tweaked version of one of Blogger-beta's stock templates. I made the banner out of a kelp tattoo design I've been thinking of actually having tattooed on my own self, like the woman in the banner only... fatter. And then I made a new gif for one of the template's dividers, and I adjusted some colors. Not bad.

I'll be playing with it some more. Hey, I might even crack open that web design book, eh?

Picture: Less than or equal to 1000 words

The Master's I'm pursuing is in Information Design, which is the compact way of saying, "technical and professional communication, recognizing that this can no longer be limited to writing for print, and therefore encompassing the informed utilization of multimedia, including the Internet and World Wide Web." It's a mouthful, isn't it? You can see why we professional communicators prefer "Information Design."

What this actually means to my studies is that every time I turn around, somebody is talking to me about how writing for the web is different from writing for print.

For example, the first paragraph of this blog post is too long for online readers. Sorry. You gave up halfway through, and have already clicked elsewhere.

This morning, I was on my way to work, driving my little car and thinking about what a perfect day it is, crystal blue sky, crisply cool air, warming sunshine, low traffic during fall break for local schools; and I passed the scene of an accident, SUV and sedan, the sedan all spun around and facing the wrong way on the shoulder of the fast lane, ambulance in attendance, cop lights spinning. I thought about how easily someone can jerk a wheel, startled by another vehicle coming by too closely, dance a little too far into the next lane, and strike another car. At freeway speeds, no impact is small, and you're the best kind of driver and can see 360 degrees at all times, having had just enough coffee and not too much hangover, and you still can't guarantee yours won't be the car that's hit. You can't avoid every accident.

According to the CDC, "More than 41,000 people in the United States die in motor vehicle crashes each year, and crash injuries result in about 500,000 hospitalizations and four million emergency department visits annually" (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/duip/mvsafety.htm, accessed Oct. 12, 2006).

And yet, people drive longer and longer distances to work and home each day. People spend more and more time in their cars, in traffic, than ever before. And why? Mostly because it's cheaper for businesses and homebuilders to build on open, undeveloped land than to rebuild on developed land, and where your future boss puts his business doesn't relate in any concrete way to where your builder decides to offer your future home. It's all completely meaningless, except for the fact that you need a place to live, and you need money to pay for it. For that, you put your teensy little car on the road with giant tractor-trailers at 80 miles per hour each morning, and you swear to your heart's content at the people on cell phones with electric razors and makeup kits and bowls of cereal at the wheel, and you try to see 360 degrees around at all times, even through that B-pillar that blocks your view and makes you blind.

I tell myself it's worth it, and I get to work safely, and it's a gorgeous day, and I start thinking about writing a blog entry, but I can't decide which to write about: car accidents, my car, the beautiful day, the way I woke up this morning to the sound of a neighborhood-wide broadcast of a high-pitched tone and the electronically-spoken words, "FIRE! FIRE! LEAVE IMMEDIATELY!" And I think about the letters I used to write to my friend Luther.

In 1999, my friend Luther spent six months in Kuwait. I had only recently "met" him, playing an online game with him and several other people in various locations at odd ours of the day and night. He was a Master Sergeant in the United States Air Force, married, with two children he clearly adored. I didn't know how to spell "sergeant," and I didn't know where Georgia was.

Luther was smart, and he had very traditional manners of a type that seemed old-fashioned to me, but he was also coarse and flirtatious and funny, and just plain foreign to this Canadian hippy-raised forever-single forever-childless city girl. I liked him and decided we would always be friends. And when he was sent to Kuwait and asked for mail, I sent mail, about anything and everything. On the streetcar, at work in the middle of a long take of another boring shot of some show or another, at home waiting for the pizza and pasta delivery from Ciccio's, at Ted's Collision bar drinking with friends, I scribbled notes about my world onto scraps of paper, and then I'd put them together into long, rambling letters that wound up painting a picture that was far more of me than of the city I'd been trying to explain.

They were good letters. I enjoyed writing them. I saw more of my city and my life, in those six months, than I'd been seeing for a long while.

This blogging thing, this is a little attempt at that awareness. Of that joy in who I am and what I love (and hate) about the world around me. And most of the blogs I visit regularly are something of the same, whether the entries are short or long, business or personal.

It's like the whole blogging thing defies the conventions. This paragraph is too long. I've used too many descriptive words. Punctuation is harder to see on-screen. I need to use headings and subheadings. People find it too difficult to read long blocks of text off a computer monitor. The resolution is too low, and the light is harsh. I'm sure it's true: It says so, right here in all three text books for this semester's class. I know it's true.

But I found the car accident interesting. And it's a gorgeous day. I liked writing long letters to my friend Luther, and letting him decide whether or not to make the effort to read them.

Somebody likes me!

I am astonished to report that my little story, Runaway, somehow came in 4th in Jason Evans's Lonely Moon short fiction contest! I really wasn't expecting it and am truly honored.

The contest was a huge success, with exactly 100 entries, and I did my best to keep up and contribute with some comments and my votes for the Readers' Choice award. Around the time the winners were announced, I went online to find out how many of my Readers' Choice picks had placed among the overall contest winners. I wasn't looking for my own name and was about to click away when it finally dawned on me that I had somehow made the list! What the--!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jason and Anne both, for another terrific experience. I am not worthy.

Speaking of "not worthy," though, I have to wonder how this works. I was proud of my little story. I thought it was good. Still, I was surprised to see it win anything. Why's that? Common humility demands I mention there were so very many good stories, and there were indeed (I'll list some specifics shortly). But why wouldn't I have even entertained the possibility that mine might be judged "good enough"? I dunno. I shall have to think on this and get back to you.

In any case, I was pretty much the picture of "tickled pink," and sort of hooted and hollered into the main office area at work, boasting and blushing. Very cool. There really were so many stories among the entries that I consider marvelous. Not to take anything away from any of the others, but I'd like to point you toward a few I think are very special:

Hardway, Jack, Man In The Moon (#100)
Fringes, Two Months at the Lake with Strangers and Old Friends (#38)
Flood, Robbed (#44)

Many of the participants agreed with me about that third one. Flood won the Reader's Choice award! Congratulations to you and to all the writers.

I think I might like to do a little more of this creative stuff after all...

My contest entry, "Runaway"

This morning, I finished my entry for the Lonely Moon contest. You can read it here. As with my first contest (the Midnight Road short fiction contest), I was energized by the desire to just write something, and then surprised myself by writing something I actually quite liked.

The story this time took a while to come to me. The contest creator, Jason Evans, provided a beautiful photograph as inspiration, and it did inspire a mood, but then the visuals that came to mind conflicted with the original. Especially, I kept drifting into imaginary snowstorms for some reason. I suppose snow and lonliness go together for me.

Thank you for another wonderfully creative opportunity, Jason.

The next blog

There's a little button on the Blogger bar a the top of my blog. Do you see it, too? "Next blog."

So one day, I clicked the button.

Now I'm a little bit hooked.

It turns out a lot of bloggers on Blogger are writing in a language not of the English variety. I hit the back button and try again. It's not that I mind the foreign-language blogs. It's just that I can't read them.

So I click back and then I click Next Blog, and I do this nice back-and-forth thing until I get something in English. It's often pretty broken English, but really, aren't we all broken in some way or another?

Just now, I read about an elementary school teacher's first few days of class this year. She was witty. She's just started blogging, though, so I ran out of posts almost immediately. I bookmarked her blog and will check back later to see how she's doing.

I looked at a lot of naked man pictures on a blog self-described as a "gay blog." I didn't see much gayness going on, just a lot of naked men and penises.

I read a recipe for curried prawns. I ate too much tonight, however, so it didn't sound as appealing as it ought to.

And I discovered that what appears to be broken English in some cases is some newfangled kind of texting thing going on, which I'm probably supposed to be able to read, but I can't. I mean, I can dish out the LOLs and TMIs like the best of them, but what's up with

gah, I can't even hold this stuff in my head long enough to transcribe it.

When whole blogs are written in this shorthand, post after post, I gotta wonder: Is it me, or are cell phones even more evil than previously imagined?

Blogs gone wild!

I migrated my blog over to the "new" Blogger in beta. There are a few unexpected little glitches... like the fact that I can't edit the raw html of my template. But I'm having fun playing with the new controls.

What's new for you is the "labels" function. I can now label my blog entries for different types of content. For instance, this entry will be labeled as part of my "blogosphere" adventure, since it's all about blogging and not at all about my day to day life. Those posts, you'll find in the "what's up with bekbek" section.

As I write this, my blog is black. I'll be playing with the templates, so there's no knowing what the blog will look like when you get here. I think the black is too hard on the eyes, but it sure is dramatic!

Writing by the light of a Lonely Moon

Contest alert! On August 22, Jason Evans announced the "Lonely Moon" Short Fiction Contest. Readers may recall I actually entered the previous contest, quite a new experience for me. This time, the contest will be co-hosted by the incredible Anne Frasier, and autographed copies of her September release Pale Immortal are among the prizes. Why don't you join us?

Gravity

The topic of death has been circling, lately, like a vulture. There’s no sense of malice in it. Rather, it’s like a disinterested, lazy fact. Like a rock dropping, it doesn’t require effort, nor is there much to stop it. Death and gravity are both just facts of life.

This circling of death started with a friend’s blog. Anne Frasier wrote about experiences of death and questioned how these experiences might play a role in deciding what she and other writers choose as subjects. In the many comments her post received, I read story after story about very personal losses –and was reminded in a powerful way of how little of real grief has touched my own 38 years of existence. Anne mentioned something about a “charmed life” and I wondered, am I living one of those? It sure doesn’t feel charmed, but...

With this whole question fresh in my mind, I heard that another online friend had suffered a terrible blow. Eighteen and in his first week of college, he’d been called home because his father, in the hospital due to a stroke, was not going to make it. With the family depending on this one young man’s strength and decisiveness, I could imagine the stress and the grief was overwhelming. I gave what condolences I could, but that’s just the thing: I could only imagine.

Now, I’ve got a good imagination. I found myself several times in tears about a person I’ve never met outside the virtual confines of an online message board. But isn’t this reaction on par with the tears I shed over a good movie, and the loss experienced by a heroic but nevertheless fictional figure onscreen? How valuable can my little bits of wisdom and empathy be, when they are based on such a lack of personal experience?

Then I found something I’d written after a visit to a hospital.

I felt that my body was burning itself up. My head was just one tremendous pain, that didn’t allow much in the way of thought or control. On the way to Emergency, I started thinking about the man I love, but my brain couldn’t seem to focus on the things I wanted it to. All the lovely moments, all the beautiful imagined futures with him eluded me, and I started silently chanting his name over and over. I wasn’t going to lose the one connection I could still manage. I lay there chanting “Luther, Luther, Luther” while the nice vampire nurse took my blood, and then I sat up to take some pills one by one, calmly saying it would be a shame after all this to choke to death on too many pills.

I’d been freezing for a few days, bundled in layers of sweat-soaked clothing under a down duvet, literally dripping with sweat, but so cold that it actually seemed painful. At the hospital, the nurse made me get out of my bundle of nightgown and housecoat and towel wrapped around my shoulders, because I needed to cool down, and I lay on the bed shivering until they started wheeling me down the hall to the x-ray room. In motion with just a thin sheet on my overheated body, the coolness of the air moving over my damp face suddenly felt lovely, and I know I smiled at that moment. It was possible to feel better. I would live.

I remember being sure that I was going to die. I gave messages to my mother, to take to my friends. But I couldn’t think of any words to give her for Luther. I asked her to call him, but he didn’t answer the phone, and then I was frantic, thinking he should be home and if he wasn’t, something bad had happened. Was he okay? How could I die without being sure?

I realized that I live in fear of losing the people I love. I’m not afraid of dying. I’m just afraid of never seeing Luther again, never hearing his voice, never holding his hand. I don’t believe in souls and afterlifes, so death is truly final. I can’t pretend I’ll still somehow see him and know he’s okay.

My friend James recently lost a family friend. He wrote about the many questions that arise on such occasions. People do struggle to understand the meaning behind death, the impossibility of life and death being so interconnected. When I first read his blog entry, I thought I disagreed. There are no questions, for me. Death is a natural part of life.

But the more I think of it, the more of a crock that proves to be. I question death daily. I cannot accept that I could have Luther taken away from me, whether through his death or through my own. There has to be another answer, a different answer, a solution to the problem. How could I possibly turn a corner one day and not be able to reach out and touch him?

Gods, spirits, souls, meaning, purpose. I think of these concepts as barriers to accepting the finality of death. But even though I don’t believe in any of them, I sit here frowning at the puzzle, thinking in one moment that death is natural and completes us... and in the next moment that there must be another answer. I could die, sure, fine. But stop loving?

I don’t see how that’s right.

Blogs and bubbles

It's funny that I'm such a johnny-come-lately with this blog thing. I've had an email address for about 25 years. I chatted on newsgroups via the usenet over 20 years ago. I was always the roommate with the PC. I was online with a Mac laptop when they didn't come with color screens. I met my husband online, for crying out loud. I thought I was a technogeek. But at some point the world caught up and passed me, and now there're all these blogs and flickrs and mp3s and I'm just lost in the wilderness, enjoying a look around, but not sensing a path.

My friend James has always understood that I'm not all that. He laughs at me. It turns out this is simply because he's brilliant, and I am one of those poor ignoramuses wandering helplessly at his feet. Luckily, he blogs! So when I have a moment of clarity and a good cup of coffee, I remember to visit his world and attempt to understand it all. This morning, I find that he has been talking about bubbles.

Someone recently suggested that Luther was too old for nipple rings. This will seem very much off-topic, but bear with me. Bubbles? It seems that on July 2, a whole lot of adults with or without kids trekked down to Old City Hall in Toronto to blow bubbles. There are even pictures to prove it, James reports.

This is the kind of gathering that makes me really miss "my old life." Outside Toronto (and New York and London), I have not met many adults that spontaneously gather to blow bubbles just for fun. This is whimsical. This is youthful, even. And outside a place like Toronto, Luther and I are told we are much, much too old to do such a thing. It's for "young people," or it's for "children."

So I've been wondering why people are so old outside the city? Why do they just stop playing? And once again, I find myself blaming the automobile. Picture this same event, for a moment, taking place in your average new-city sprawl. Everybody drives to the location. Everybody has to park. This alone rules out most locations where people would mingle with the wider world. The whole charm is lost, the whole silliness factor. A bunch of adults, some with children, standing around in a parking lot blowing bubbles. Uh huh. Fun. Okay, bye. Everybody walks back to their vehicles. The doors shut, and they are disconnected again. No more bubbles.

Everybody knows I miss the city. What I love is that I'm starting to understand why, and it's beautiful. People should live in cities and towns or be farmers. I think the two extremes are the only way to keep living. You should always know some guy who got his nipples pierced when his kid was in High School. You should always see people of all ages enjoying the world, making friends, sharing new experiences. And blowing bubbles.

And then they should blog about it all, so that everybody gets to be there with them.

A sip becomes a glug (and a burp)

I did something foolish last night, but I'm not sorry.

I read about a short fiction contest on Jason Evans's blog. (Strunk & White say it is "Evans's," not "Evans'," believe it or not.) The deadline for submissions was Wednesday at midnight. I thought it would be fun to write something, but with so little time?

A few hours later, I inexplicably found myself sending a precisely 250-word story to Jason Evans. I can only say the timing was right. I'd had a brief conversation about luthiery, a new word for me. And I'd admired and considered the haunting photograph Jason had posted as inspiration. But most importantly, perhaps, the quite immediate deadline prompted me to sit down and write, instead of pondering, procrastinating, and ultimately passing on the whole thing. Timing, it is said, is everything.

Also, calendars are useful. The deadline for the stories is Wednesday, midnight, June 28. A week later.

So I did something a little foolish. I wrote a 250-word piece of fiction for possibly the first time in my life, and I submitted it without giving it time to breathe. Uncorked, it does have character. Some interesting flavors. But it's a little undefined, a little murky. I should have decanted... instead of drinking straight from the bottle, glug, glug!

The thing, in short, needs some serious editing. But I'm not sorry. I like it. I'll edit it...

...sometime...



luthier: A lute-maker (OED Online)
luthier: One who makes stringed instruments (Merriam-Webster Online)

by the hair of my chinny chin chin

Last night I had an adventurous dream in which we saved many people from terrorists. It was a lot of work, and only a very few people got killed. Then I got up sleepy and dopey, had some coffee, and somehow managed to drop everything, lose everything, run up and down the stairs too many times, and finally arrive at work grumpy. Life: Pretty good, but I could really use those lottery winnings.

My friend farawayhelen has journeyed to Merry Old England and asked about publishing a blog. I said, "How hard can it be?" And that, my dear friends, is that.