An allergy to work

Every weekday afternoon, just before 3 p.m., I have an attack of the sneezes. It's taken me many weeks to determine that this does, in fact, occur every work day.

What is happening at 3 p.m. that causes me to sneeze?

Observations on a rainy day

One: I was never really afraid of storms in Toronto, but now I have to be afraid. We reviewed tornado procedures at work this afternoon, and then I drove home with clouds so low they looked like they were coming right at me as I crested each subtle hill on the freeway. Brooding, disturbed poltergeists formed and malformed and deformed all around me, and the rain, thankfully light, had me craning forward in my seat, as if that would somehow help me see better through the muddy wetness swiped by windshield wipers between me and the road. And I thought, what if a tornado happens now? I regularly come home clenched up from head to toe, shaking and stressed because a storm kept me from seeing where I was going (and made me invisible to others going the same way). How do I suppose I would respond to the sight of a tornado -not just a funnel, which I've already seen here, but a full-on furious freight-train devil? Driving in wind and rain and probably hail as well, there's no way I'd be able to tell if it was coming for me or running away, if it (or the inevitable flying cows) would cross my path or just pace me as I made my way home. I get nervous about pulling over to the side of the road. What would I do? Would I just drive my car into the whirlwind and hope the Wizard turns out to be sexy?

I should put it in a story. And since when was I putting things in stories, anyway?

Two: When considering the purchase of a residential property, confirm that high-speed internet is available. It is, here -but I've seen others less than fortunate on this issue. But equally important, perhaps, find out what kind of asshole trees are hanging over your driveway. Nuts are bad for windshields and dainty little paint jobs. Just fyi and all.

What do I believe?

I recently registered as a bright. A bright, says the organization's website, is "a person who has a naturalistic worldview." I don't normally think of myself as having a "naturalistic worldview," but I applaud this core ideal: Let's define ourselves by what we believe, rather than what we do not believe.

It's easy to talk about what I don't believe. Like most brights, I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in souls. I don't believe we have a purpose, other than what we ourselves decide to pursue in life and in death. I don't believe good and evil are absolutes. I don't believe in God.

But what do I actually believe? I can say with confidence that I believe there is no God, but if I let that belief define me, then I'm defining myself with a negative, or defining myself by what other people believe. The idea behind "the brights" is to try to form a community of atheists and agnostics who can speak positively about their worldviews, without speaking negatively about others' beliefs, and without defining themselves only by what they don't believe.

Curious about what the general public was saying about the brights movement, I did some poking around and immediately ran into harsh criticism. The biggest problem is the name, "bright." Nobody really believes that this name wasn't chosen as a less-than-subtle implication about the cognitive abilities of those who do believe in Gods and other invisible forces.

Only... right there, we again insist that somehow because I am an atheist, I must define myself in relation to theists. That in defining myself as bright, I must be comparing myself with those who are not so bright. Well, why? Why can't I just say what I am, however I see myself, and have it have nothing to do with you and your church and your prayers and your God?

In criticizing the brights movement, this creep here says, "If you sense a linguistic sleight-of-hand going on here, you're brighter than Brights give you credit for. Despite their clever rhetoric, a belief system that rejects the supernatural is one that inescapably rejects the existence of God. So regardless of what affiliation a Bright claims, by definition, he is an atheist."

No. By your definition, I am an atheist. Because you can't say anything without God in it. If I follow my own beliefs, however, I deserve the right to talk about myself without talking about God. God does not exist in my world, so why should I have to define myself in reference to God?

I'm not sure how I feel about the brights. It almost sounds like a cult, like... a religion, and I'm frankly used to being on my own with my beliefs. I also don't feel a warm and fuzzy about this thing having a lot of success, at least not in the United States. But I have to say, I think they're onto something, and I'm going to ride along and see if being a bright affords me the opportunity to see my own self more clearly.

I'd like to be able to refer to my beliefs without the negativity our language has previously required I employ. I'd like to be able to talk about what I do believe, instead of what I don't believe.

Still Pimpin' Pale Immortal!

There once was this Blogger in beta
That tended to block my guests' data!
Let your frowns all be gone
And the party rage on!
Your comments Anon're all the greata!

yikes, that's bad...

Blogger-n-beta seems to have some trouble with comments across different Blogger versions. Still, it'd be nice to know you visited! Leave an anonymous message with your own blog URL, and I'll buzz you back!

Pimp my Pale Immortal

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things. Of ships and sails and sealing wax, and Anne Frasier, and Pale Immortal.

If you read (and if you don't, what the heck are you doing here?), you will be enthused to consider today's release of Anne Frasier's new novel, Pale Immortal. I blog it here because, well... let's leave that for a moment, shall we?

The USA Today bestselling author of Before I Wake, known for keeping readers on the edge of their seats, delivers a tale that will have them looking over their shoulders....

Okay, I have to interrupt already. This is obviously just a bit of marketing mumbo jumbo. I mean, "edge of their seats"? Come on! Nobody reads a book at the edge of a seat. Movie, yes. Book, no. And "looking over their shoulders" is so... eighties! But I digress...

The sleepy town of Tuonela, Wisconsin, is known for one thing: the killer who stalked its streets one hundred years ago, drinking the blood of his victims. And when the drained corpse of a young girl is found, the citizens fear their past has risen from the grave—and point their fingers at one man....

Evan Stroud can never see the light of day. The prisoner of a strange and terrible disease, he lives in tragic solitude, taunted for being a “vampire”—until the son he never knew he had shows up in Tuonela, and is drawn into its depraved, vampire-obsessed underworld. Then Evan must rely on coroner Rachel Burton, his childhood friend, for help. But the evil that they face is powerful and elusive—and about to take them to the very brink of madness (Penguin, 2006).

Here's something foolish: I've read this synopsis -or iterations thereof- several times, but it wasn't until recently I noticed this Rachel Burton character. Who is she? Oooh, a coroner?

For me, this makes the Evan character even more intriguing. How did this happen? Well, now we have Evan -a man- and Rachel -a woman. All of a sudden, there is... a relationship. This relationship is not necessarily romantic, I'll grant you, but the mere possibility makes Evan Stroud more attractive. Now, we have an intriguing Evan Stroud instead of a creepy Evan Stroud. We have a son that Evan Stroud never knew he had. And we have a woman, a professional, a woman with the kinds of skills one might use to solve a crime... Aha, says a bekbek's mind: This, here, is the start of an adventure!

So that's it, then. I'm hooked. How about you? Go out and buy this book! In addition to the thrill of a good novel, you get to be a part of a movement! Yes, it's true: This blog entry is part of a bonafied "blog crawl," as we trip and stumble and curse our way over the internet, crying, "hello! There's a new book out!" Cool, eh?

And while you're at it, stop by Anne Frasier's own blog, Static, and become a part of the phenomenon. This is a whole lot like going downtown to blow some bubbles, and gosh darn it, I am in the mood for some bubble blowing!

Finally, if the bubble-blowing mention doesn't convince you, here's a more effective teaser:


______________
Penguin Group (USA). (2006). Pale Immortal. Retrieved on September 4. 2006 from this site, here.

Local culture

This rings all too true:

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...

The morning commute

I drive just over 21 miles to work in the morning, in 25 to 35 minutes depending on traffic and other stupidities. During the drive, I do some thinking, and sometimes I talk my thoughts out to an empty vehicle. Lately, I've reviewed four or five different topics that have been on my mind, over and over again, usually with the idea of posting them here.

Then I get to work.

Then I go home. The drive home is always considerably more aggravating. It takes 40 to 50 minutes. It's hot, and I'm tired. When I arrive at the house, Wil is either doing homework or watching television. Luther is eager to chat about his day. The cat is often under my feet, waiting for me to give her a snack. And blogging is the last thing on my mind.

Maybe tonight I will finally write something down.

Don't hold your breath.

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.

GED update

In addition to my fantastically slow work on the comic strip (see next), I have been taking my time with this GED thing. On discovering I could very likely pass all the tests without studying, I decided to at least review all the available study materials. I bought a GED study book a couple of years ago, so I've been doing those practice tests. And I have been going through some online stuff available at www.LiteracyLink.org.

Here's a cool thing that came up. I was reading about the gold rush in California. You know, it's not like these things are foreign to Canadians, but this is what was available, and I'm trying to prepare for the possibility that I might not know all there is to know about American history.

Anyway, here's the concept: Some guys find some gold, just sitting there. Big chunks of gold for the taking. And another guy says, "hey, cool!" and buys up all the pick axes and shovels and so forth that can be found. And then he makes sure that the entire world learns that there's gold just lying around in California.

First, I have to wonder, is it "pick axes" or some kind of "pickaxe" type of thing? Enquiring minds want to know about the spelling.

Second, what makes a guy's brain do this? I mean, he became the wealthiest man, and he never, ever had to pick up an actual chunk o' gold.

Yeah, yeah, you think it makes perfect sense. Okay, picture this:

The tall trees in your neighborhood start sprouting... ten-dollar bills. The damned money is growing on trees. And you? You don't get a ladder and start picking bills off the trees. Not even the one right there in your own front yard. Nope, you go to Lowe's Hardware and Home Depot and buy up all the ladders. Heck, you borrow money and buy up all the cherry pickers.

I mean, the money is growing on the tree in your yard, and you're not picking it.

I have to say, this story really impressed me.

Simplicity update

The development of the Simplicity comic strip is going slowly, but well. You might think, from my previous post on this topic, that the main character is a cat.

This other character here will argue that it has made more of a sacrifice for the art, and therefore should get top billing:



It doesn't have a name. I guess it can be female.

Paper

Received yesterday, about two months after finishing the semester. I gather they had some difficulties...

GED practice continues

Over the weekend, I completed the Reading and Science sets of my online GED practice tests. The reading went as expected -clearly, I know how to read. The science tests threw me several surprises, but I managed to struggle through. I need to study up on proteins and gene pairs and some other "stuff." I had some trouble with black rats and white offspring.

Still, the practice tests are bolstering my confidence in a big way. No matter how lost I felt, I managed to make a minimum of 60% on each subtest, usually more like 70-80%, with three to six subtests in each GED subject area. To earn my GED, I'll need at least 65% total in each of those subject areas: Writing, Reading, Science, Social Studies, and Math.

That last area, Math, is the one that I expect to be weakest in. I loved algebra back in high school, and I don't recall having trouble with math in general, but let's face it: I haven't had to take a math class since then, and other than some basic arithmetic it just hasn't come up much. I might read about and discuss science topics, history, geography. I certainly use reading and writing. But math?

So this weekend, I got through the Reading and the Science, and then I decided to do the Math... and the very first question that popped up had me staring blankly at the screen. "Duh... What's that supposed to mean?" Quickly, I closed the browser window.

What is it about math, I wonder, that scares some of us? This morning I went back to the math topics and worked my way through them, and I did fine. Not great, but certainly passing. In the process, I learned some key concepts, and on a fresh set of questions I'd be willing to bet my score will improve. But that first time I brought the test up onscreen, the vocabularly looked unfamiliar, and where in other subject areas I would try to work out the meaning, with math I said, "yikes, I don't know this, I can't do this."

Is it because I've heard so many people say, "math is hard"? Is it because in math, I expect there to be finite answers, so I expect my own knowledge to be cut and dried? Know/not know?

In the end, these GED tests are not really about knowledge. They're about logic, combined with experience. Sure, some of the questions would be impossible to answer without some of those aforementioned "key concepts." But enough -certainly enough to pass- can be deciphered with plain old "reading comprehension."

If the GED is a good representation of the abilities we expect our high school grads to possess (not by any means guaranteed), then two skills are crucial: Reading, and a willingness to create or discover an answer, versus simply regurgitating one. What are our schools doing to address that second requirement?

Simplicity, the series

In addition to getting my GED, this summer I also want to launch a comic strip. Right now, I'm in the process of developing the characters. It's an interesting process, because I have to think about what I can actually do consistently, so I can't just make one nice drawing and consider the character designed.

The central story of the strip is the relationship between a cat and a flightless baby bird. It's based on a time when our own cat, Simplicity Simone, brought a baby bird home for dinner. You can kinda see where this is going.

I started with the cat. I got a book about drawing cats ("Draw 50 Cats: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Domestic Breeds, Wild Cats, Cuddly Kittens, and Famous Felines Like Morris the 9 Lives Cat") and have been using this as a starting point for practicing poses and attitudes. Next, I'll have to develop the bird. I wonder if there is a book I can use? Draw 50 Naked Baby Birds: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Completely Helpless, Sightless Animals That Cannot Possibly Survive...

GED Day 1

I have piddled away most of this summer on inconsequential things like earning money and improving my health, but there is still time to accomplish something meaningful. One thing I'd like to do is take the GED exam.

According to the Southern Regional Education Board, GED stands for "General Educational Development." Often, however, people replace "Development" with "Diploma" or "Degree." This is because the "GED" is something you can get in lieu of a high school diploma. Well, it just so happens I never finished high school!

I dropped out. I got a job. I got an apartment. I worked. I traveled. And then when I decided I wanted to go to film school, Ryerson provided a "mature student" option. I met the requirements, and ultimately I earned a Bachelor's degree.

Now that I'm halfway to my Master's degree, I think it might be time to do something about that missing piece of paper. Sure, some friends suggested I could wait until after my doctorate. But since I am not taking a class this summer, this is as good a time as any. Step 1, I figure, is to figure out exactly where I stand. Do I need to study, or can I "wing it"?

To that end, I located some online practice tests. Today, I took my first set. The Southern Regional Education Board breaks this section of the GED down as follows:

Writing Skills, Part I (50 questions, 75 minutes)
15% Organization
30% Sentence Structure
30% Usage
25% Mechanics

I spent about 30 minutes on the four tests. I got 10 out of 10 on Sentence Structure, no surprises there, but I ran into a few problems with the others. One careless mistake in Usage, no big deal because I will pay more attention in the real exam. In Mechanics and Organization, I dropped three more questions on pretty subjective issues, so I spent some quality time rereading the tests and arguing with my computer screen. My final grade in Writing Skills Part I: 91.5%. I think I can safely "wing" this first section of the GED.

If you like, you can follow along with your own attempts on this site:
GEDPractice.com

The Reading tests are next! Oh boy!

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.