Paloma Dreamtime

It seems the yesterday’s post touched more than a few people in ways I hadn’t suspected.  About a year ago I had someone start following the blog, only to send me the following comment two days later:  ”This isn’t just about writing, is it?”  He stopped following me the next day because, yes, I don’t always talk about writing, and this upset him greatly.  Probably had something to do with him being a nutso control freak, which manifested in a couple of online writer groups I was in, but that’s another story.

While I write about writing, I also write about how I feel about writing, and how it makes me feel.  It’s not always good, and it’s not always pleasant  but it’s usually honest.  As a writer we have to be honest with ourselves, at least that’s what I think.  You can spend all your time writing stories that involve having sex with your step-kids, but at some point you have to be honest and say, “This is really sort of crappy.”  If you aren’t saying that, well . . . you’re not me.  Which probably isn’t that bad a thing, come to think of it.

I try to pay attention on everything these days.  As Johnny Cash said, ”You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.”  That’s me these days:  I look ahead, but remember what has already come before.  Because I do know what it’s like to be pinned down by your past, and how it can gnaw at you until you can’t move forward any longer.  It sucks hard, and I don’t need that negative energy in my life these days.

So what is this about Paloma, you say?  A dream, I say.  After editing two chapters last night–editing and formatting, I should say–it was off to bed, because it’s not like anything else is happening in my life.  It was raining lightly last night, and I love to hear soft rains, so I was off to sleep pretty fast . . .

That’s when the strange stuff happened.

Whatever I was dreaming, I was in world burning mode last night.  It seemed as if things were really crappy, that things weren’t nearly as good as they are today, and yet, it wasn’t entirely a crapsack world.  Tre Funky, yes.  But I still had a car and internet, so it wasn’t a total hole.

For some reason I was trying to move a bunch of kids from my part of the country to a new job in . . . Paloma, California.  For some reason I thought this was a great idea, because I’d have a fantastic job and I’d be able to take care of everyone, and so forth and on.  It stuck with me so much that after I got onto the computer this morning I did a quick map look for Paloma, California . . .

And was duly unimpressed.

It’s a small collection of buildings in the middle of nowhere east of Stockton.  There’s a church, some roads going elsewhere, and that’s it.  A couple of nice houses, but no business that would make me willing to pack up a bunch of kids and haul them a few thousand miles.

Why did this happen?  Maybe there’s a story there.  Maybe not.

I’ll keep my eyes open, though–just in case.

At Home With the Insane

Lets get this out of the way right now:  I have mental illness.

I was in therapy at ten because I was lonely, frightened, depressed, and didn’t like the company of others.  Well, there were a few reasons leading to that, but part of my problem is that I was bi-polar.  My therapist then was starting to get to the root of things, then my parents pulled me out of there because, one, they didn’t see improvements, and two, they thought the woman who was working with me was putting “strange ideas” in my head.

Let me tell you, she didn’t have to:  there were plenty of strange ideas there already.

I had friends when I was in school, but not a lot.  I started smoking pot in 1972, and drinking a couple of years later.  These days the behavior is called “self medication”; back then it was just getting high.  And I did it quite a lot.  Mostly because it felt good, mostly because it kept whatever demons were chasing my ass away.  I had my books and I had my music, but I also had my “medication”.

There were some incidences of bullying in school, but nothing really physical.  It was all mental, all designed to wear you down and break you.  At the end of the day, when I walked home from school–because after a while I was afraid to take the bus, and I didn’t want to be with other kids–I’d sometimes find a moment, while alone in the woods, to cry a bit.  I did that often, and it bothered my parents when they saw it happen, so I only allowed myself the chance to do this when I was by myself, and there was no chance of being discovered.

There was a place where we used to get our drugs, and sometimes even our booze.  The home was owned by a husband and wife, with the husband’s brother living with them as well, and they seemed to be able to get their hands on just about any kind of drug you wanted.  For the most part I was interested in pot, but they let it be known that they could get their hands on just about anything . . .

And not just drugs, either.

There was one time when a friend and I stopped over to see them, to buy a bag, and the brother wanted to show me the latest acquisition–which were not drugs.  I didn’t get a full tally of what they had, but I do remember four M-16′s, a couple of boxes of grenades, and . . .

See, the story they were giving us was they’d knocked over a National Guard armory a few nights before, which may or may not have been true.   This was 1973, Vietnam was winding down, and who the hell knew what was being kept in some of these places?  In all likelihood they’d traded a lot of kilos of drugs for weapons, but since I knew these guys were a bit crazy themselves, it was just as likely they’d knocked over an armory.

But lets get to the payoff, the item hinted upon.  The brother opened up as case and said, “Hey, I got twenty kilos of C-4.  I’ll let you have it for $250:  I’ll even throw in the detonators and det cord.”

So lets review:  a guy I knew was offering to sell me about forty-five pounds of high explosives, along with the means to use it, all for $250.  Which I happened to have.

I said no, because . . . well, what was I going to do with twenty kilos of C-4?

Let me also state this:  I was very smart and very imaginative back then.  I was also pissed off and scared and upset a lot as well, and for a few weeks after that incident my fevered little mind thought up all sorts of shit that I could have done with that sort of stash.  The only reason I didn’t?  Stephen King put into words many years later:  ”If you take yourself out, you’re a hero.  If you take out others when you take yourself out, you’re chickenshit.”  I hated myself, and a few other people, and if I really wanted to get back at those I hated, I’d get after them, and that would be that.  Anyone else who’d get caught in your madness would just notch you a little higher on the Chickenshit of the Year list.

I won’t say the thoughts of revenge and getting evenness vanished after that time.  Oh, no.  They aren’t there as much any more, but they still show up from time to time.  These days I chalk up thoughts like that as “Research”, because you never know when you’ll need to know, like I did in 1991, how to bring down a very tall office building–say, 125 to 150 stories–with everyone inside.  I spent a few days looking over the office building I worked in at the time, and understood that, if you have the right tools, it’s not that hard.

I did that because I needed a scene for a game I was running.

I don’t act upon any of these ideas–which are research, remember, because I do write; you should see the really bad ones–because I’m not that crazy.  I’m bi-polar, but I can tell the difference between right and wrong, and as ignorant as I have believed most of my co-workers to be from time to time, I’d never do something that would eventually see me labeled as a “disgruntled worker”.  (Does this mean there’s a grunted worker?)  As an atheist I long ago created my moral compass, and have worked at doing the right things because they are right.

Taking out others just because you’re nuts and pissed off at the world is the wrong thing to do.

Probably is, a lot of people don’t have the same moral clarity as I.

If you are mentally ill, getting help is damn near impossible in the U.S..  You are stigmatized because you have a “problem” that you can’t “handle”, and if you just “sucked it up”, you’ll work through it.  That was what I was taught as a kid; it was bullshit then, and it’s bullshit now.  It is easier to get access to treatment these days, particularly if you work for a large company, but that’s only come about after more than a few large companies have had their offices shot up by disgruntled workers, and they’d had to go through the hassle of hiring new people.

That was how I got treatment.  The company I was working for had a program, and I basically had to tell my manager I was loosing my shit, and bad things were going to happen if I didn’t get help.  They told me to call the help line to set something up, and then let me go home for the day.  Let me repeat that:  I professed to suicidal behavior, and they had me call a help line, and then sent me home.  Now, I did get in to see a counselor a few days later, and while she was a great person, she couldn’t get me medication.  The only person who could do that was a psychiatrist, but it might be weeks before I could get in and see one of those.  She told me the easiest thing to do was go to the local ER, tell them I was suicidal, then have myself checked into a facility for forty-eight hours–at which point I could get on meds.  Oh, and lets point out:  she couldn’t commit, even with my permission.  I had to do it myself.

That was how I was able to get on medication to help me with my bi-polar disorder, and all it really took was . . . maybe two weeks of speaking to, or seeing, different people.

Good thing I wasn’t having any serious problems.

You wanna have a discussion?  Lets talk about why we have the worst system for mental health this side of the old Soviet Union.  Lets talk about why if you need help, it’s a culture of “Go see them; I can’t do anymore for you”.  Lets talk about why people are vilified and made to think they are even worse than they are if they profess to being sad, or depressed, or if they feel like they have no choice but to hurt themselves.  Lets talk about why we have so many people with mental health issues in the first place, brought about by stress, by over-work, by being made to feel that if they are LBGT they are scum and should probably die anyway.

Lets talk about why it is every time someone who is mentally unbalanced, who isn’t getting help, flips the hell right out and does something horrific, we act so surprised that something like that can happen here.  Lets talk about the idiots who, upon hearing about said horrific thing carried out by the mentally unbalanced, believe the one thing that will fix this problem is arming everyone . . .

Those of you who think that last is the end-all solution to everything, there’s this thing called “Cause and Effect”.  You fix the cause, the effect becomes diminished.  It does work.  Reaction to the effect does little good, because you didn’t prevent the effect from occurring.  That is what the kids these days call Epic Fail.

There needs to be dialog.  There needs to be discussion.  Without discussion there are no solutions.

Without solutions there is no future.

Guilt and the High Cost of Annoyance

Okay, kiddies, I’m going off the rails this morning and I’m riding the crazy train straight into Rantville, so you may wanna jump off as soon as possible.  Why?  ’Cause things will be said, and there will be . . . language.  I usually leave something for those who jump in and see the warning, and decided they don’t want to go on, so here:  read about how Natasha Kerensky helped The Motherland during the 1917 Revolution.  You’re welcome.

For the rest–onward.

The election hasn’t turned me into an old, nasty person who’s opening my door every few minutes to get you damn kids to get off my lawn, but find there are fewer things these days that prevent me from getting pissed off.  As I told someone the other day, “I don’t have a temper, just a low tolerance for bullshit,” and said tolerance is growing lower by the day.

For example, there is social media, and what happens when you discover your friends think you should like what they like.

I was keyed up over the election, and I breathed a sigh of relief when they finished late last Tuesday night.  I even got in a few digs at the losers, which I have to admit wasn’t nice, but I was in a “Don’t give a shit” mood, and that’s never pleasant.

Then I went to bed, and woke up the next day to a barrage of petitions.

Most of the time I ignore petitions.  If I want to get on something I’m there, but for the most part I’m passionate about those things that touch me.  But the petitions were coming:  Tell Harry Reid That We Want Elizabeth Warren on the Banking Committee.  Tell The President to Have the DoJ Decriminalize Marijuana and Let the States Decide.  Draft Rachel Maddow to Run For Senate–

Hold on there, people.  You’re serious about this?  You’re saying, right now, a couple of days after the 2012 Election is through, you want me to get on a petition draft to get Rachel Maddow to run for the Senate?

Now, I like Rachel.  She’s likely one of the smartest individuals on television, and knows a great deal about how public policy and government works . . . but I’m thinking she’s not the sort of person who’s gonna wake up one morning, log onto Facebook, and go, “Hey!  16,000 people signed a petition to tell me I need to run for the Senate!  I’m on this shit!”

In other words, not going to happen.

Then I got the word that I needed to hop onto a Cause, which is more important than any silly ‘ol petition, because . . . it’s a Cause, and that makes it the Eleven of Petitions.

Most of the time I ignore these as well, because as with petitions, I get on what I want to get on, and most of my feelings do not follow yours, just as yours don’t follow mine.  But when I get a Cause sent to me, where we just have to nominate Malala Yousufzai for the Nobel Peace Prize . . . I don’t want to bang my head on a desk; I want to find the person who started the cause and slam dance their noggin.

Not to take anything away from Malala Yousufzai, because any person who stands up to religious extremists who are so pants-shitting scared of anything that doesn’t fit their limited world view that they will try to kill young girls who are flippin’ them off with a book needs all the support they can get . . . but if by now you aren’t aware that you can’t nominate anyone for a Nobel Peace Prize, you need to get some schoolin’ as well.

This happens every year.  People get together and say, “Hey, you know who’s done a lot to promote world peace?  Glenn Beck!  He needs a Peace Prize:  let nominate him!”  And then three thousand yahoos send off their “Nominating petition” and sit back all fat and happy that they’ve done something good.

Then the others come:  Rush Limbaugh!  Harry Reid!  Sarah Pallin!  Morning Joe!  Dr. Oz!  Tony Stark!  Natalia Romanova!  Nick Fury–no, not the black one, the other one.  It comes every year–

And every year the Nobel people say, “You’re wasting your time; we don’t take nominations, because . . . damn.”

But, hey:  better to take that shot that your Cause might just be the one that gets read, than not take any shot at all.  After all, it’s the Internet:  what’s the harm?

Though this is just small change in a world of Big Internet Money.  For if there is one thing that drives me even nuttier that the few items listed above, it’s getting hit upside the head with following:

Abused animals and military personnel.

I have never abused an animal.  Never.  Been pissed off at them from time to time, and have been annoyed at the neighbor’s dog barking its ass off at 2 AM, but I’ve never abused an animal.  I love cats, and it hurts me greatly to even to think of anyone being able to hurt, torture, or even kill such as creature.

That said, I really enjoy logging onto Facebook at 6:40 in the morning and discovering that one of my friends has decided I need to know that there are all sorts of scumbags out there who hurt animals, so here’s a picture of a dog that was tortured to the edge of death, send some money to keep this from happening again–you’re welcome!

Over the years I have donated money to shelters and organizations to fight against this sort of thing.  For a while I owned five cats, and four of them were rescued from shelters.  So the history is there, and I feel that I’ve done what I can to help animals short of becoming a Crazy Cat Lady.

Then the following happened, and I don’t believe I can sum up my feelings, in words, any better than this:

I love you, Sarah, and I love your music–but it used to be when I’d hear that song, and see those pictures, I either changed the channel, or left the room.  ’Cause as nice a person as you likely are, I knew you were going to show me why I should help this cause–and if it was necessary to guilt trip my ass into forking over the cash, so be it.

And it went on for years.  It’s still going on, but with a different actress, and different animals, because lets be real:  a couple of years after the first, “I’m Sarah McLachlan,” ad went out, the animals you were seeing in that ad were, in all likelihood, dead.  Probably because you–yes, you!–didn’t send money.  Probably because you changed the channel . . .

But now we move over to the world view of military people on social media–and I feel the need to place a little personal information here . . .

I grew up during some of the worst parts of the Cold War, and during the height of the Vietnam War.  The majority of the people in my family were pro-military, and supported the Vietnam War–though I’m not sure if it was because they felt we needed to prevent the Domino Theory from becoming a reality; or, as my grandfather put it, “We need to show those gooks who’s in charge.”  I tend to think it was more of the later than the former, but that’s another story.

When I was eleven I joined the local chapter of the Civil Air Patrol.  The CAP was not just a paramilitary organization for kids then:  it was considered part of the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary.  I was, from eleven until just after I turned fourteen, in the Air Force, more or less.  I wore a uniform for meetings, I went off to a few Air Force bases in my time, and I did my share of saluting people who were of a higher rank than me–which was most everyone.

But I also learned first aid; I watched a child birthing movie twelve; I figured out how to navigate an airplane–and I was the go-to kid when you needed to know the effects of a near-by nuclear detonation (in other words, it didn’t kill you right away), because I was about the only one who knew how to use the circular, handy-dandy, nuclear bomb calculator.  Yep, if you needed to know when you were about to get dosed with lethal fallout, I had it down.

I could have even attended the Air Force Academy and graduated in 1980, and if I’d put in my thirty years I’d have gotten out two years ago, probably around a Major or a Lieutenant Colonel, or maybe even a Full Bird, and found out, for sure, if that broom closet at NORAD was really a utility closet, or if the back was another door that only looked like a wall, and that was the real entrance to the SGC.  But that didn’t happen, and there are reasons for it–most of which I really don’t have time to go into right now . . .

That said, every time I get a post from someone on Facebook saying I have to Like this picture of our people in uniform, ’cause if I don’t I’m not supporting the troops, I want to find the person that sent the picture, and stick a heel from one of the boots I’m now wearing up their ass.

Back in the early 70′s, Harlan Ellison used to call it “Flag Waving Patriotism”.  It’s the attitude that the mere fact of  hanging a flag in front of your house, and talking up a good game about how we need to “kill commies”, you were supporting your country and your troops.  In today’s vernacular, it was my earliest exposure to the “America!  Fuck Yeah!” syndrome, which one can find all over the Internet–and you don’t even have to try looking.  It’s right there.  Trust me.

So I get pictures saying that I need to like them if I support our troops; that I have to like them if I defend those who fight for my freedom; that I better like them, otherwise I support the terrorists, and I probably shouldn’t even be living here–

Stop right there.  You do not get to tell me I’m some kind of terrorist because I don’t like your picture.  Ever.  Because I’m not buying your arguments . . .

See, when was the last time the troops really fought for our freedom?  As in, “You’re protecting my state from the Big Bad.”  Invasion of Grenada, 1983?  Don’t think so.  The peacekeeping forces in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War, in 82′ and 83′?  Not really.  NATO intervention in the Kosovo War in 98′ and 99′?  As noble as that effort was, I’d have to say we’re very selective in which ethnic cleansing we try to stop, which raises another set of questions . . .

We have lots of people still in Europe, South Korea, and Japan.  The European forces were meant to stop the Soviet Union, but unless you’re Mitt Romney, the U.S.S.R. ain’t been rattling many sabers of late.  The troops are in South Korea because there’s still a war going on there–really–and there are crazy assholes running the North . . . but the reality there is, North Korea has about a half-million artillery pieces pointed at Seoul, and if they wanted to reduce that city to rubble, about the only way we could stop them would be to invade, or light them up with napalm, but still–not protecting anyone here.  And the forces in Japan were originally put there to keep Japan from attacking anyone else.  These days, it’s more like the Japanese are worried about service personal attacking their daughters . . .

Then there’s Iraq . . . yes, we got rid of a bad dictator, a guy who killed, what?  Killed four hundred thousand of his own people?  Yeah, that is bad . . . ‘cept Saddam would have been the first guy to tell you that the Kurds weren’t his people, just as Suharto, the second President of Indonesia, would tell you those six hundred thousand people that died after the September Revolution in 1966 weren’t really his people; they were Chinese, and more than likely members of the PKI (the then Communist origination in Indonesia), which made them even worst . . . and the million or so people he killed while he was in power, using  weapons we supplied, and done with the training we gave to many of the officers in charge of the military at that time–hey, you know, shit just happens, ‘kay?

But, I will argue, at no time was Iraq ever a threat to us.  We got Saddam, but we also got a trillion bucks run up on the credit card, and we ended up with four thousand dead–which, if not given the state of body armor used these days, would have been about five times that number–and we now have thousands who are in need of physical and mental health treatment . . . only, that’s something that’s really kinda hard to pay for these days, it would seem . . .

And just as a bit of a head’s up:  if you’re going to remove a bad dictator who kills four hundred thousand of the people living in the country they run, try not to kill six hundred and fifty thousand of the same civilians you say you’re saving.  Kinda bad PR, in case you weren’t paying attention . . .

When it comes to supporting the troops, I do this:  I try to support people in the government, or who want to get into government  who aren’t going to send those the troops off to some conflict that’s gonna run up another trillion, and maybe another five or ten thousand dead, on a war that isn’t needed.  Like, say, a country that might have one nuclear device in a few years, who don’t really have a delivery system for said device, who could be turned into a sea of glass in thirty minutes time due to the numerous SLBM boats slinking about in the Indian Ocean–but which is sending a lot of politicians, and other crazy-ass Amurcans, into a pants-pissing frenzy because this is the end of the world as we know it, and it needs to be stopped now!

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I’ve heard this shit for fifty years, and I’ll probably hear it for another thirty if I live that long.

You want to do something, get off your butt and do something.  You wanna send me pictures of tortured animals and suffering troops–

I’m all full up with taking care of crazy shit this week.  Come back next week–

You know where to find me.

Into the Haze of Life

This is one of those days that I know will redefine one.

The last few days have been sorta crazy.  I don’t mean crazy as in, “Oh, wow.  Wild stuff going on; better get goin’ on this.”  No, it’s more like, “I’m totally losing it; I should see about getting checked into the facility.”  As in, I’m really on my last good thread, and if it’s cut, I’ve got serious stuff to deal with in a major way.

Last night I tried writing.  My heart didn’t feel as if it were in it.  I did my best, but these things that are happening, it’s eating me alive.  Maybe I’ll get more done later, because even when I’m feeling as if I’m going to have a heart attack at any moment, I need to do something towards my craft.

For if I don’t have my craft, then I have nothing.  There is nothing else waiting for me.  Give up my writing, and I might as well start looking for a nice place to rest for the last time.

I know that sounds extreme, but there really isn’t anything else at this point.  The Undisclosed Location has become less of a place to crash between trips to the job site, and more of a prison of them mind.  At this moment, I’m not there, I’m at The Real Home, though a return to TUL is likely tonight.  Maybe.  Possibly.  It all depends on what transpires during this morning.

There are things to do today.  I’m dealing with things the best I can.  I’ve got support on this end, and I’ve been getting support from other people as well.  I’m not completely alone at this point–which is something that I do feel when I’m at The Undisclosed Location.  It’s nothing but alone there.  It’s the feeling of nothingness, of being isolated from everything but the local Wal Mart down the street, that’s one of the things putting a lot of strain upon me.  It’s helped to be a great writing local, but it’s not helping with anything else.

So many things to deal with:  the job, loneliness, isolation, fear, the feeling that I’m screwing up everything . . . oh, and one other thing.  Something that’s really defining me at the moment.  But nothing I’m ready to speak of yet.  That time is coming, but it’s not yet.  Just like all the events that are surrounding this little episode, I have to leave it for another place and time.

I have to conclude that one of the reasons this current work in progress is taking so long is because I’ve got entirely too much shit on my mind.  My plate is full, and I can’t seem to clear it these days.  There is more calling for my attention, and I don’t have the means to fit it in right now.

Bouncing off the walls, I am.  It’s not quite gotten to where I feel like I’m about to do something totally stupid, but it’s feeling very close.  Objects in the rear view mirror are always closer than they appear, and this one has been tailgating me for a few weeks.

Okay, I’m off.  Even with everything swirling about my head like mad, I can still write.  At least I write here.

See?  Everything’s okay.  Really.  It is.

And I’m Hanging Out At . . .

The Author Blog of Nikki Noffsinger is where I have a guest post this morning.  Man, I’m all over the place, ain’t I?

Can You Hear the Music?

Four on the Floor

No, this isn’t a confession to the Wonderland Murders, though you never know, do you?

A friend of mine, Peneleope Price, the very nice author and owner of the Priceless blog, tagged me in a post.  She tagged me and said, “You have to do this Meme of Four, Ray.  You have to write out four things in each group and tell people about yourself.  You must do it!  Do it, or your immortal soul is mine!”

Well, now, not that I wouldn’t hand over my soul to Penelope–only because that’s such a sexy name–but (1) I don’t have a soul to give, and (2) if I did have one, My Muse took it, long ago, she hides it in her heart, and she will kick your ass to keep it there.  So, nah!

That doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk about these things.  After all, my life is both interesting and boring, and some people may get a kick out of the answers I set out below.

So, without further ado . . .

Four Places I’ve Worked/Jobs I’ve Had:
a. Akzo Chemicals, North America
b. United Technology Corporation
c. Hover Trucking
d. Playboy Enterprises

Four Places I’ve Lived:
a. Cedar Lake, IN
b. Hammond, IN
c. Merrillville, IN
d. Indianapolis, IN

Four Movies I Could Watch Again & Again:
a. Forbidden Planet
b. Them!
c. Apocalypse Now (either version)
d. Inception

Four Television Shows I Watch:
a. Doctor Who
b. Project Runway
c. Sherlock
d. Real Time with Bill Maher

Four Authors I Enjoy:
a. Arthur C. Clarke
b. Stephen Baxter
c. China Miéville
d. Charlaine Harris

Four Places I Have Travelled To:
a. Hong Kong
b. Amsterdam
c. Paris
d. Bruges, Belgium

Four Websites I Visit Daily:
a. Facebook
b. The Mary Sue
c. Cracked
d. The Rude Pundit

Four of My Favorite Foods:
a. Cheesecake
b. Steak
c. Peppers stuffed with black beans and cheese
d. Italian sausage and peppers.

Four Places I’d Rather Be:
a. Working on a novel
b. In the mountains
c. Hanging with my Muse
d. Gaming (yes, I am a gamer; yes, I’ve been doing it since 1974; yes, I haven’t went insane and killed dozens of people because the devil managed to get to me through my D&D dice and tell me how I can rule the world . . .  though I did date a gamer girl once.  Does that count?)

Four People I Want to Tag:

Ah, and here’s where it gets tricky.  I’m not much for tagging, and I really want to know a blogger before I go laying the tag on them.  For now I’ll say, “I’m thinking about it,” and leave it at that.

We Said Goodbye Hello

Last night was one of my rare nights out.  As in, I actually get out of the house for some conversation and pizza.  The last time was a month ago, and what with everything that’s went on in my life of late, it felt like a good time to get out and relax.

But I didn’t relax.  I was tired most of the night.  At one point I almost fell asleep watching TV.  The pizza didn’t have flavor.  And when I drove home, my mind was in neutral.  It was one of those cool, cloudy evenings that I usually love, but the drive home was . . . well, there wasn’t any traffic, which was the high point of the trip.

Everything seemed a note or two off.  Hell, I couldn’t even get a good scene up in my mind.

Not that I didn’t try.  I went back to that well I call, “Twenty Years of Stories You Want to Tell, Man!” and latched onto one that, believe it or not, I actually wrote and completed back in 1990.  ”And how did that happen?” I hear someone asking?

Glad you asked.  I wrote it for four women in my office.  No, really.  It came about because of a lunch where I was out with these same ladies, and I was talking about writing, and it was sorta like, “Hey, Ray, when are you going to, you know, show us some of this mythical writing you do?”  Not being one to have four women throw the gauntlet back in my face, I sat down and cranked out a very long story (do I write any other kind?) titled, Dinners at the Memory’s End.

At the time I thought it was good.  It still is, but I thought of it a lot last night, because there are certain things in the story that is pretty doggy.  There’s no other way to put it, because there are aspects of the story, as it was written 22 years ago, that wouldn’t work today.  No how, no way.

So were I to write this story today, I would change it in some significant ways.  Notice the “were” part there.  Of course, if I’m thinking about writing this story, it’s because I’m interested in writing this story.  Or rewriting it, as the case may be.  And it would be a major rewrite, but it would also bring back a story that, for me, was something of a favorite.  And not just because I got to show off like some beat poet trying to get laid.  It’s a favorite because it was the first novella I wrote, and completed.

And it was good.

I’m learning that a good writer knows what to write, what to rewrite, and what not to get into.  One of the reasons I was a bit off last night–perhaps a bit off for a while, come to thinking of it–has to do with the idea of writing a YA story about two of my favorite young characters, Annie and Kerry.  I saw “Annie” yesterday, and told her my idea for the prologue to the novel.  And she loved it.  She thought it was great–

Then . . . I realized I couldn’t write this story.  Not yet.  Not now.

Part of the truth is that I don’t really have it in me, at the moment, to make this a real story.  I’ve the idea, and the idea is good, but that’s all it is.  I can run with ideas, because I’ve done that before.  Stories are ideas, and you put them in the car with you, hit the gas, and head towards your destination with a basket full of tunes and some tasty beverages to pass the time.

There’s something else here, however.  That something is Annie.

Annie is a character, but she’s also a person, someone I’ve known for a while.  And I know her investment in that character.  Yes, she’s told me, “Take the character, make her your own, and let the story fly, you creative little scribbler, you!”  I would, you know.  I totally would.

But I love the character too much.

It’s a awesome responsibility to take something created by another person and do with it as one likes.  Happens in comic books all the time.  I mean, is the same person who created Wonder Woman still penning her stories?  No.  One, he’s dead.  Two, if he were, we’d still have Wonder Woman running around playing bondage games with the other Amazon ladies.  Instead, we totally find out the Amazons got no use for their baby boys, and pretty much sell them off into slavery, misery, and death.  Shit happens, you know?

That’s what happens when you have others playing with your characters; they can end up doing very strange things, or acting in ways that don’t seem right.  With Annie, I want to get her right.  I don’t want her to be a shadow, or a shade, or act in a strange way.  The only way to do that right is to have the Real Annie work with me on the Character Annie.

At the moment, that’s not possible.

So there is no telling of this particular story, at least not now.  Maybe not for a while.  Maybe not ever.  I’ll write the prologue, because it needs writing, but for now . . . no, I won’t go there.  Because every time I think about making that move, I get this thing in the corner of my eye, and it bothers me.

I care for Annie, a lot.  To use a Jack O’Neill (with two “l’s”; the guy with one “l” has no sense of humor) comment, “I care for her a lot more than I should.”  Because I do, I can’t run off with her character.  I have to be careful.  I have to be honest.  I have to be loving.  Until I’m ready for all that, I can’t write the story that will, eventually, be written.

Every story comes in its time.  Annie’s will come–

When it does, it’ll be beautiful.  Just like her.

I own it to Annie.

The Serpentine Dragon’s Flight

Despite the title of this post, you’ll likely be dismayed to discover nary a dragon in sight.  So is there any significance to those four words?  Maybe.  You’ll just have to roll along with me and find out.

Originally I was going to go off on someone.  There was a set of comments I saw the other morning that sorta rubbed me in the wrong way, and I felt like I needed to get on and rant about stuff.  Because that’s the way I am; every so often my bullshit detector red lines and I gotta say something.

The comment had to do with someone who’d apparently seen The Hunger Games, and who’d become upset that people could find a movie about a group young teens being forced to kill each other for the entertainment of others–the others in the movie, that is, not the people in the theater–to be, well, in a word, entertaining.  This person was upset that people were clapping at the end of the movie, and this was, again, another in a long line of indications that there no morality in our society–as, it would appear, there was also no sense of morality in the main character, Katniss Everdeen, either–and it was criminal that a story like this could be considered suitable for young adults.

All they needed to say was, “This is indicative of the Culture of (name of whatever thing it is that pushes your moral buttons) we live in!” and they’d have pretty much hit the trifecta.  Although a comment seen later–”As long as you are doing it (participating in The Games) to protect your sister, it’s okay to kill”–is pretty much a deal sealer.

But there’s no need to get too caught up in this hullabaloo, or spend a lot of time ripping someone apart for a couple of inane lines.  My twelve year old daughter has read the trilogy, and I’ve yet seen her preparing to go after the neighbors with a bow and arrow, nor is she in need of extensive waxing.  If fact, good person that I am, I gave her my copy of Battle Royale to read, telling her, “You might enjoy this.”  I don’t expect her to get into a life-or-death struggle with the kids at school welding only a cooking pot, though I would give her odds to come out on top were such a conflict to occur.

Nor is there any reason to speak extensively upon the morality of Katniss, either.  If you know anything about the story, you’ll know Katniss is directly responsible for keeping her mother, younger sister, and herself feed.  She is, eventually, the breadwinner of the family, and without her they all starve.  She doesn’t go willingly into The Games; she does, indeed, enter in order to save her sister, who was originally chosen by the government to be one of the contestants to fight to the death, and Katniss knew if her sister entered the Arena, she’d quickly end up a bloody statistic.  But the idea that it’s the kids who want to do this, and are okay with the killing?  Please.  This is something forced upon the people by the government, teaching them a “lesson” about what happens when you fight the power.  And the idea that The Games are being used for entertainment is sick?  Um, read a little history, and then tell me that Fox wouldn’t be the one hosting this show if it were allowed.  Come to think of it, American Idol would be a far better show if the Sword of Damocles were hanging over the heads of each person being sent home every week.

And just so we are straight on this, lets go right to a direct quote:  ”The idea for the trilogy was based in part on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, in which seven boys and seven girls from Athens are sent every nine years against their will to be devoured by the Minotaur, a cycle that doesn’t stop until Theseus kills the Minotaur. (Author Susan) Collins, who heard the story when she was eight years old (about the same time I heard it), was unsettled by its ruthlessness and cruelty. Collins said, ‘In her own way, Katniss is a futuristic Theseus.’  Collins also characterized the novels with the fearful sensations she experienced when her father was fighting in the Vietnam War.”  So much for the story being another example this murder-fest being endemic of our immoral culture.

I know the point the person who made the original declaration was going for:  that these stories happen, and people are entertained by them, because there is a singular lack of morality brought about by a singular lack of religion.  I’ve heard this point made a lot, and I’ve been hearing it since I was about 7 or 8 years old–which is to say, I’ve been hearing it for close to fifty years.

And it was as much bullshit then as it is now.

Morality is learned, that is true.  It is also true you can be a pious person and about as immoral an individual as one can imagine.  As an Indiana native I’m very much aware of one of our favorite sons, Jim Jones, he of the People’s Temple and Guyana Cocktail fame, and it’s pretty easy to say he was both a pious man and as immoral and/or crazy as a shithouse rat.  It doesn’t matter how moral you believe yourself to be; if you’re a sociopath, you’re living your own version of morality–and the odds are ever in your favor you’re extremely eager to get other people to bend to your idea of morality.  Ricky Santorum, I’m lookin’ at you, babe.

By the same token, it’s easy to say one can develop a sense of right and wrong while not being very religious, or religious at all.  I have to put myself in this category, as I’ve been an atheist since I was a teenager.  This downward slide stared when I was kicked out of Sunday School when I was 8 or 9, because I kept asking why no one was upset when Lazareth started walking around after having been dead a few day.  Nowadays he’d get a guest shot on The Walking Dead, but back there–you’re telling me no one freaked out?  After class was over my parents were asked to speak with the sister in private, and when they came out they were pissed, because they’d been told I was “disruptive”, and that it would be best if I not return to class because I was “upsetting the other students with my lack of faith.”

Hey now!

I can tell the difference between right and wrong, and do what I can to help others where it is necessary.  And as far as the characters in my stories go . . . well, a large part of Transporting–the whole third book, in fact–deals with helping people out of something that will eventually become, in a massive case of understatement on my part, “very bad” for them.  The person who instigates the action to save these people–she’s an atheist, as is her eventual partner-in-crime, who is not only also a person who lives without faith, but a lesbian as well.  Yeah, I know.  I should burst into flames right now, shouldn’t I?

Strangely enough, I have written about characters who had considerable faith, and used it to guide them.  You can find them in my story Kuntilanak:  Buana, a traditional Balinese healer, and Indriani Baskoro, a paranormal investigator who is also a Muslim.  Yeah, sorry about that, folks, but when one is writing about people in another country, the chances are good they might just have religious views a little different than what might be considered the “norm” here.

I suppose I have gone off on a rant, but it’s not the sort that I have been known to do.  In part because, from my point of view, I only need state my point of view, enter in a few facts, and be upon my way.  It’s not necessary to jump into the fray with both feet, and slaughter the innocent at the Cornucopia, much as Katniss didn’t do when she first entered The Arena.  Personally, I’ll live how I like, because I find it works for me, and I’ll try to ignore the rantings of others who feel we are like the very Worst Culture EVAR, because there is a whole group of tweeners and teenagers out there who are getting enjoyment from reading the modern retelling of a three thousand year old myth.

Hang on tight to that dragon, baby.  It tends to be a bumpy ride.

Sucker Punching

Here we are, 1 April, and the first quarter of the year is already behind us.  I was seriously considering giving this post the title, The Killing Joke, but if I did that, I was gonna be forced to go out and shoot some girl in the stomach and paralyze her, after which she’d become a genius hacker.  Can’t be doing that; it’s way too early in the morning for mayhem.  At least let me have one cup of coffee.

I didn’t go out last night, which was a shame because I needed to do something.  I was suppose to do a few things yesterday, but didn’t, because when I’m back at The Real Home, I feel like a bum and not in the mood to do much of anything save work on my stories.

But, I can do all those things this upcoming Friday, because I have the day off–yay being a state employee!–so I’ll put that day to good use.  I also have to do my taxes this week, which is going to suck, because I know I owe a lot–

Enough of that.  Let’s talk writing.

In 91 days of writing, I’ve created two long stories–twenty two and thirty six thousand plus respective–and knocked off another forty three thousand finishing an old novel.  If you add up the numbers, you’ll see that once you add in the little “overs” for each piece, we’re talking around one hundred and two thousand words have popped out of these fingers.

But let look at something else:  this blog.  I always made an effort to get in at least five hundred words a day, never less, but sometimes more.  The average is probably around five hundred fifty words a day, so doing some quick math . . . I’ve written about fifty thousand words within this medium alone.

And to believe that, at this point last year, writing was one of the last things on my mind.

Yes, I’d taken some writing courses at the end of 2010, and the beginning of 2011, but I wasn’t feeling like writing.  Take that back: I didn’t feel like I could write.  Big difference.  Anyone can put words on a screen–or paper, if you still roll that way–but having it make sense is the mark of someone who wants to write.

The thing was, I didn’t want to take anymore courses because I knew I could write, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  It was a horrible time in my life, what with depression and a very bleak future laying ahead of me.

The only thing that was really saving me was someone I knew, someone I like to call Annie, who pulled me into a world of online roll playing, and who, through very subtle–and sometimes not-so-subtle–encouragement, got me to come out of that depression, little by little, and not only had me write some pretty good scenes between us, but helped her develop our own little role playing world.

It was only a matter of time before I got an idea for writing, but not before I did my damnedest to toss myself back into the pit of despair and not think about writing–again.

That’s always been my biggest problem.  Its not the people around me who have very often not given even a single shit about my stories, or me as a writer.  It’s always been me kicking my own ass, or coming up from behind and sucker punching myself in the back of the head, trying my best to deliver that one blow that’s going to put me down and knock me out of the writing game for a while.

It is said we are all our worst enemies, and in my case that’s very true, though I’ve called a cease fire to all this bullshit.  I can pinpoint when it happened, because it was during NaNoWriMo.  It was at that point, when I was streaming through my novel, that I realized I’d promised to do a blog post for someone, and I also owed someone an article for another blog.  Not to mention I was doing this blog . . . on top of all that, I was blogging here, and with all this insanity going on, I decided to write about it, and was in such a hurry to get the post out and jacked up the title in a very humorous way, and left it wrong to this day.

It was at this point that I knew I was not only writing, but I could write.

So, 91 days down, another 91 to go for this quarter.  I’m editing Couples Dance, with the hopes of getting out for sale very soon–which is going to happen because I’m going to be researching places to send it over the next couple of weeks.  I’ve got another 400,000 thousand words to edit beyond that, and I’m certain I’ll get the urge–very soon–to create something new.

And next month the erotic story I sold in December will finally see the light of day, and I’ll step into another role:  that of the author being interviewed.  Oh, joy.  I have no idea what that’s going to be like, to be very honest.

But we will see, won’t we?

Blackout Days

Just to let you shiny people know, I may say some bad words in the text below.  So if you don’t want to see them, I’ve left you this video of a Skyrim mod where all the dragons have been changed into My Little Ponies.  Enjoy.

A lot of people doing the dark today, all on honor of kicking SOPA and PIPA in the ass with hob-nailed boots.  Both links are up, by the way, and for obvious reasons–namely, information needs to be free.  And if you aren’t educated, then you can’t make up your own mind.

Oh, sure.  We know why these are up here.  Because the Internet is rife with piracy.  Go out on YouTube any day and, horror of horrors, someone has put up a video of a song–that they don’t have permission to play!  Oh, my gawd, I can hear Mista Kurtz now:  the horror, the horror.  Or someone has put up a picture, and they didn’t get permission from the people who own the copyright on movie it was taken from!  Or, worst of all . . . you put up a video clip without the express written permission of Major League Baseball.

Now you’ve stepped into the shit, my friend.

Let’s face it: this isn’t about protecting the Internet from piracy.  Oh, sure, we’re told we need to stop the rip-offs that happen every day, that a lot of people are hurt by Internet pirates who just take and take and don’t give a shit if you’re hurt in the process.

No, what this is about . . . is money.  Big money from big players, who only want to get bigger.  And these players got some important people helping them out.  I mean, come on: SOPA is sponsored by Larmar Smith, a genuinely batshit insane douche if there ever was one, and PIPA is sponsored by Patrich Leahy, who, while usually something of a moderate, is way the hell off-base on this.

But if you really want to see how these players just shuffle people around, one only needs to look at the current head of the Motion Picture Association of America, one of the biggest players behind SOPA.  The chairman of MPAA is none other than former senator Chris Dodd, and boy, is he pissed that people are blacking out the Internet today.  He’s pretty much calling it a “gimmick”, and a “dangerous one” designed to “punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals.”

Well, now!

Lets face it: there is a problem.  Stuff is being ripped off all the time through the Internet.  Or, I should say, it gets ripped off and then shared through the Internet.  I mean, did someone really rip off Transformers 3: We Still Ain’t Got a Freakin’ Script through an Internet download?  No.  They got it through other means and then . . . well, someone in their insanity decided people really wanted to see this, so they passed it around.  I know; it doesn’t make sense, but it happens.

It’s no surprise that a lot of piracy comes through Asia, in particular China, and that government doesn’t give much of a shit about piracy in any form.  I remember the days, back in the very late 1990′s and the early 2000′s, when, as the visiting IT guy, I’d catch someone in our China office loading software they’d picked up at “the night market”–the place where you bought all your pirated stuff–on to their computer.  Hell, I once caught one of the office managers installing the newest Microsoft op system, and sure enough–straight outta the black market that shit came.

China is, to put it bluntly, the World’s Knock Off Artists, and people there will pirate every damn thing they can while the government looks the other way.  How bad can it get?  How about 3 fake Apple stores in Kunming?  Oh, did I say 3?  Those are just the ones in Kunming that were shut down.  How about 22 total?  And the ones that were shut down were found to be “trading without a licence.”  Not that they were selling bootleg shit out of a bootleg store.  No.  They didn’t have their paperwork in order.

Of course I could say this is payback for Apple using Foxcomm to make their iPhone, and where the working conditions are so horrible that, recently, over 100 people said “give us our pay or we’re gonna kill ourselves.”  Amazon uses them to make the Kindle as well . . .

Of course, no one does much about China.  They bitch about it, yeah, but they don’t do anything.  Because, in the end, it’s all about money, and it’s easier to look the other way there and continue pandering to 1.3 billion consumers, while busting some 18 year old’s ass over an Adele video on YouTube.

And why would “liberal” Hollywood get behind these bills?  Please.  As I’ve pointed out before, while a fair number of actors and actresses are, by definition, liberal, the people running the studios are all about putting asses in the seats and coin in their pockets, and liberal isn’t something they get behind.  They want to fight the easy fight, and that means they’ve finally gotten tired of having their lawyers chase down some guy who’s set up a Deep Space 9 fan site and are currently threatening to lock their ass up for 20 years if they don’t pull down those pictures of Ben Sisko.  Naw.  Let the government do that for us.  And while they’re at it, just shut down the whole fucking Internet as well, ’cause we know the greatest threat to company profits are those illegal fansites dedicated to getting Kira Nerys and The Intendant together.

If you really want to see how SOPA and PIPA play to the big money players, just look at how lowly writers fair.  A day doesn’t go by when I don’t hear about how Amazon is guilty of allowing plagiarized, or just out-and-out ripped off, ebooks to be sold through their outlet.  And when this is brought to their attention, the attitude is sort of like, “Phuff!  Go away, kid, you’re bothering me.”  This happens a lot with other sites selling, or even giving away, pilfered ebooks, as well.

Sort of the same situation with pirated role playing games, like the ones sold through Drive ThruRPG.  I can find copies of just about every game somewhere on the Internet, and independent developers lose their asses because of this.

Is the government going to step in and shut down a couple of sites because Cubical 7 is getting ripped off?  Is the government going to shut down Amazon if I discover my ebook is being sold under another title by another writer who decided to rob my ass?

Yeah . . . you know the answer to those questions, too, don’t you?

In these times where the debate on corporate money in politics is coming to a head, it’s plainly obvious that SOPA and PIPA is just one more example of how that money is buying the people at the top what they want.  In the end this is about money, but it’s also about control.  It’s all about making more money for the people who already have it, and tightening the noose around everyone else’s neck if they decide to get out of line.

In the end, it’s all about seeing how much longer you’re going to swallow this fucking lie that you’re really free.

All That We Take With Us

All that I seem to have these days is writing.  Oh, man.  It’s all about the story these days, it seems.  That, and getting ready to head to the Undisclosed Location.

Yes, that moment in time is looming for me.  I haven’t talked about it much, because . . . frankly, I haven’t wanted to talk.  But situations have arisen where I have to leave my little cocoon of comfort and strike out for another city for a while.  It’s not forever; it’s really all about paying the bills–which is coming to a head finally, as we started overdrawing one of our saving accounts horribly the other day while buying stuff for my move.

Irony, as some might say.

I’ve been a bit on the freaking edge for a while about this move, but, Saturday evening, after I returned home from a trip to get things arranged, I more or less calmed myself and put it in prospective:

There was a time in my life when I used to travel on business a lot.  And I don’t mean like going from Chicago (the city I live very close to) to, say, Denver–which I have visited on business, but that’s another story–but more like going to Chicago to Hong Kong.  Yes, I’ve been to China.  Yes, I’ve visited there for many weeks at a time.

I’d pack up my stuff, head for the airport, fly to Minneapolis or Detroit, then fly to Tokyo, then fly to Hong Kong, and roll into the Sheraton Hong Kong Towers on Nathan Road almost 25 hours to the minute after I rolled out the front door of my house.  After that I’d head for my final destination, just up the river in Shekou (where I’d see this as I approached my hotel, which is on the far right of the picture), and I’d settle in for a stay.

I’m looking at this move pretty much the same way.  I’ve settled in for what looks like a 6 month stay at the moment.  I may re-up for a year, may not; it really depends on how the position goes.

But after 25 years in IT, I’ve decided I don’t want to stay.  I’m creeping up on 55, and that means I maybe have another good 10 years in IT before I’m told to call it quits again.  It’s not the way I want to go, and I won’t go there.

Ergo, the writing thing.

I’ve been on a writing jag since the end of July.  At this point I’ve written about 145,000 words for stories, and close to another 70,000 words just within the confines of this blog.  For me, that’s quite an accomplishment.  Not because I’m writing, but because I’m finishing.

The newest story, Couples Dance, is moving along well.  I wrote another chapter yesterday, 1,270 words for the day and bringing the story total to 6,435 words.  Now I’m moving into the “erotica” part of the story, a chapter where the sexual relationship between the two main characters is explored.  It seems with this story I’m going an “every-other” flow with the chapters: there’s sex, and then there’s exposition.  Get off, then get information.

And I like how this is working.  Of course, I have two more chapters set up, and I know there will be more chapters after that.  I just haven’t figured that part out yet.

Actually, just now, I went down to get coffee . . .

While  getting a cup I had this post in my head, and I realized after the last chapter I have listed, there needs to be one where the couple in my story realizes something is happen, but they don’t know what; then one more bit of exposition, then one last really hot sex scene (and, yes, I know what that scene will be, because I’ve thought about it for a while), and then the coda, and ta-da!  Story over.

Funny how I do that.

So, there.  I have the story plotted out, and I just need to set up the note card chapters in Scrivener, and I’m ready to rock.

This is the sort of thing I want to lean on as I approach 60.  Work as I knew it is over.  It’s a dead end.

Pouring out my imagination to others . . . that’s where it’s at.

Just a reminder, I’m getting interviewed tomorrow, as I pointed out in this post.  Bernadine Feagins from Phillybookpick’s Blog will interview me on Blog Talk Radio, and it’s gonna be a good time.  Tomorrow, 18 January, at 1 PM EST, Noon CST, and 10 AM PST.  Be there or be square.

Dreaming the Dream

NaNoWriMo kick off last night, and it was great.  Ran into a couple of friends who I’ve gamed with–one of  them the former owner of a really nice space ship and Jones, the Space Cat of Death, who always, eventually gets you even when you’re smiling while holding him–and meet another person who I can turn into a writing buddy.  We also made plans for getting together, including an idea I had for a Dusk-to-Dawn session that would involved Chicago pizza and my friend’s girlfriend having to dance barefoot on a table with a snake wrapped around her shoulders.

These are interesting times.  It should be Panicville right now, but it’s not.  It’s feeling like a great time to work, to develop, to create . . . and to work.  I was told last night I’m approaching this with an energy that’s somehow different that what I had earlier, and they’re right.  I feel have something this very moment that is way off the charts from what I had when I wrote my last two stories.  Good or bad?  Who cares?  I’m the guy with the word processor.

Part of it might be what I discovered yesterday after yesterday’s post.  The day before I’m talking about my erotic story to Trusty Editor^tm and they mention that they’ll be happy when they hear I’ve sold the story, that others are enjoying it.  I’m like, “Sure,” because I always think the worst, but then yesterday . . . there are groups I belong to where writers of erotica hang out.  And one of the, the editor of an erotica press, posts a notice:  hey, we’re looking for flash fiction, submit!  (No, not that sort of submit; not all erotica is BDSM.)  They said they were looking for stories up to 9,999 words, so I do a word count on my story and . . . it’s 9,948 words, which is 9,950 when you round, which means I nail it, yes!!!

Talking writing, talking characters, talking about plots and ideas–it’s a great time for it all.  It seemed like when I’m turning here and there, I’m finding idea.  Yeah, I have another erotic story with a supernatural bend to it, and I’ll probably crank that out, maybe when I’m not working on NaNo.  It’ll be strange, it’ll be kinky–hey, any story that starts out with a naked woman and her sex toy has no where to go but someplace different.  And I’m the guy to take it there.

But it’s all there, all feeling great.

These are the dreams I have that I am trying to make true.  They are coming, slowly, but they are coming.

Yet these is one more dream to come.

And I think it’ll be here soon.

It’s one of a more personal nature–so personal I can’t talk about it, not yet.  I know it’ll be one of those life affirming moments, so that when it happens–as Captain Jack might say–everything changes.  As one friend told me, “I want you to have (this dream), and when it’s over I want you to be happy.”

Happy is something I haven’t had in a while.  I’m starting to feel it, though.  I know it’s just outside my door, and it’s ready to knock, and when it does I’m letting that sucker in.

We should all get our dreams, and they should make us happy.  I know I will have that dream, and I’ll be happy.

It’s about damn time.