This morning on his way to work, J got into a fender-bender. Actually, a teenage driver rammed into the back of our almost-new CRV (we got it around February). It's in for repairs now, and we've got a loaner from Enterprise. The loaner is a 2012 Dodge Charger SE, and in addition to being ugly on the outside, it's absolutely soulless on the inside. I would no more have sex in this car than I would in a doctor's waiting room. (Yes, that's the standard by which I judge a car: Would I have sex on or in it?) The plastic, pebbled dashboard that juts into the shotgun seat is especially heinous. J mourns the CRV's rearview camera, and I miss the XM radio. At least we all had insurance and no one was hurt. I hope we get our car back soon. She has heart.

My carpal tunnel is acting up, so I may seem absent or terse but really I'm just unable to type.

My poems "Red Eye" and "Castle Lanes" will appear in the June issue of Niteblade Horror and Fantasy Magazine.

"Red Eye" is set in the Cafe Nowhere 'verse and is all about Maggie. It was part of my poem-a-day project a couple of years ago. "Castle Lanes" features Quinn and Diego, two characters from a novel in progress. They also popped up in poem-a-day: http://cafenowhere.livejournal.com/189383.html.

Thanks to busy lady alexa_seidel for the call for subs and (even better) the acceptances!

This leaves me with only three outstanding subs, all of them poetry. Looks like I'd better get moving again.

I've been waiting to make this announcement!

My dear asakiyume's story "Tilia Songbird" is now live at GigaNotoSaurus. By sheer kismet masquerading as mere coincidence, I got to read an earlier version of this fantasy not knowing who had written it. I loved it from page one. When I found out who the author was, my heart nearly burst with joy, just like when you read a story and the ending is both perfect and completely unexpected.

“I wanted you to know me,” the girl said, tracing the door jamb with the feather. “Now you know who I am.” Then she was gone.

It is such a pleasure to know Tilia. Read her story as soon as you can!

 

Quinn McDonald has a great twist on found poetry that's bound to wonderfully disrupt your day. (oh Cthulhu, forgive me the puns; it's a sickness.) Use the titles on your book spines to compose poems. Here are two of mine:






The concept really lends itself to haiku, as you can see. The first one created some angst, because I couldn't BELIEVE I didn't have a copy of Alice in Wonderland. I'm convinced it's been STOLEN, or maybe just mis-shelved, perhaps downstairs in nonfiction. (heehee) But I do love the second. It's practically a synopsis of my novel in progress. 

Feel free to share your spine poetry in the comments!

The Iowa Senate has erupted in shouting matches twice in the last week.

Once, over state money going to fund abortions for women who qualify for Medicaid. "Are you willing to take over $1.5 billion of federal dollars away from the health and safety of every woman, every child and every family involved in Medicaid in this state?" Sen. Jack Hatch (D) asked, which makes me think the Republican proposals were equivalent to the Texas debacle that forfeited HHR monies. To which the Republicans said (paraphrasing now because the actual statement is too vile to use here), "How many babies are you willing to kill?"

Then, yesterday they yelled about whether aging sex offenders should be allowed into nursing homes. This was an especially volatile debate because an elderly woman is suing the state Department of Human Services for allowing an 83-year-old sex offender into a nursing home, where he later raped her. Lots of accusations from the Republicans about Democrats throwing "Granny" under the bus. (Apparently ignoring the fact that *all* nursing home residents are vulnerable to sexual predators, not only the women.) 

I think the first instance is much ado by overreaching politicians over a scenario infrequent to begin with. The second instance is much more troubling to me, because it is *not* an infrequent threat. Our prison populations are aging, their sentences are running out, and most of these offenders will not have been rehabilitated and will not receive transitional support for their late-life care. Where will they go? Who will take care of them? Must nursing homes now also police some residents to protect others? The issue is complicated and important and emotional, and screaming about it in legislative overtime won't solve a damn thing.

Tweetie is reading a new series called Dear Dumb Diary. I appreciate the main character even less than I do the guy in the Wimpy Kid books. For one thing, the girl narrating the Dumb Diary books is "looks-ist" and engages in the backbiting Mean Girls subcult I dread. I've told Tweetie I don't like the "heroes" because they're rude and unkind with no self-awareness, but I haven't done anything dumb like forbidden the books. (And I do read with her, on occasion.)

Last night I remembered, however, that my favorite character in Charlotte's Web was Templeton the Rat, who was selfish, rude, petty, and gluttonous (although redeemable). And my favorite character on Buffy was Spike, who shared all Templeton's traits. And my own character Heidi will never be Miss Congeniality. So, okay, the poison apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I guess the important thing is that, no matter how much we delight in reprehensible characters, we endeavor to behave honorably in real life. And Tweetie does. And so do I.

I've been looking for cooking odds and ends to encourage Tweetie to play and experiment outdoors. She already loves making "earth soup" and building "forts," which resemble tepees to me. We got her a used hand-crank grinder and she's been grinding up seed pods, leaves, flower petals, dry pasta...basically anything we suggest or approve. She also liked the idea of washing out some old bubble tubes to use as "vials." I thought she might like some tongs, but I haven't found any good ones yet. (we'll go to the secondhand shop this weekend) Also, a cheapie kitchen scale.

Any other ideas for cheap, repurposed tools conducive to the budding environmental scientist?  : )

I'm so glad that my governor, in the infinite wisdom of his unmarked state, is protecting pink slime because it's a civil rights issue.

No, really.

Arguing that lean finely textured beef shouldn't be called pink slime, that it's a vicious smear campaign, he said, "We don’t let people call people names because of their race or religion, and we shouldn’t let them smear a quality product."

Okay. Good to know. Products have rights, and detailing production is equivalent to hate speech.

I am really bad with phones. I hate talking on them, answering them, even looking at them gives me imaginary hives. When it was time to replace our home phone, the one we use for increasingly rare landline calls, J asked me if I'd be more willing to answer the phone if it was cute. I said I'd try, and so he bought me this one:



Even in this blurry photo, with a mess of wires and the message box, you can see, I think, that it's a cute phone. The receiver sits at a jaunty little angle. It has a pleasant, rotary-style ring, too. (I am, however, even at this moment, ignoring an incoming phone call.) But the best thing about this phone is the quirky little under-its-breath chime it gives out now and again. Our electricity is flaky, so we get these pulses throughout the day, and they seem to jar a chime from the phone. So, I'll be going about my business and hear the phone cheerfully remind me of its presence: "I'ma phone!" Or maybe it gets so little use, it's reminding itself: "I'ma phone!" In any case, it's so happy sounding, I've taken to repeating it: "I'ma phone!" And now Tweetie does, too.

This entry is my perhaps less endearing version of that declaration. "I'm here. I'ma writer. And kind of a dork." :D

I hadn't planned to go to WisCon this year, but that's where the The Moment of Change anthology will be launched. And so many members of the Secret Poetry Cabal are attending. So I just registered. Now I need to figure out how to get there...and where I'm staying...and all that good stuff.

J and I went to see Murder by Death in Des Moines and It. Was. AH-MAZING. Along the way, I deployed poetry cards of stealth. I came home to find my story "The Pearl in the Oyster and the Oyster under Glass" sold to the Fungi anthology coming from Innsmouth Free Press. Last night I woke up to write three related moon ku. And now I am off to Effigy Mounds National Monument to do some research for a story. And probably deploy some more poetry cards.

ZOOOOOM!!!

Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam by Pope Brock

Pope Brock's writing style is perfectly suited to this story of the heyday of American hucksterism. Ebullient and seemingly effortless, his account of "Doctor" J.R. Brinkley, who became a millionaire by performing goat-gland transplants in the 1920s, is wide-ranging and in-depth, replete with period slang and so many wonderful words that don't get used nearly often enough. Brock includes an extensive bibliography, endnotes, and an excellent index. I could've used more signposts indicating the exact timeline of events and more parallel conversions of past and current moneys (Brock might state the doctor's monthly salary but then refer to the modern equivalent as an annual salary), but I suspect the fault there is with me, being as numerically challenged as I am.

One of the reasons Brinkley was so successful was that he exploited radio like no one before or perhaps even after. In the 1920s, radio stations were such a new and marvelous medium, few folks could conceive of "polluting the airwaves" with advertising. But Brinkley was the most ambitious of those greedy few, and when the FCC kicked him off American airwaves, he established a border blaster in Mexico that, at one million watts, was the most powerful in the world. So powerful, it invaded phone lines and Canadian radio broadcasts. Brinkley could be heard in Alaska, Finland, and the Java Seas! While peddling his colored water and "rejuvenation" procedures, Brinkley inadvertently changed the music scene, introducing listeners worldwide to country music and Tejano.

Brinkley's bogus promises of endless rejuvenation, although entertaining in themselves, triggered provocative philosophical considerations. People worried about the fate of introspective poetry: What would become of the sonnet if poets weren't sublimating angst over their mortality? Insurance companies fretted over their soon-to-be-defunct actuarial tables: one company even told a client who had a monkey-gland transplant: "...you are younger today than you were when you signed the contract...In view of this fundamental change we find ourselves obliged to cancel the contract with you."

Brinkley's adversary was Morris Fishbein, quackbuster extraordinaire of the American Medical Association. Brock characterizes their decades-long game of cat 'n' rat with a term used by military strategists, "replication." The idea, new to me, is that over time, great opponents become more and more alike, though neither would ever admit it. I recognize this thesis-antithesis-synthesis process from the Cold War, and from Nietzsche's quote about looking into the abyss. I hope it's not happening to the characters in my WiP. *frets*

The last bit too good not to note is from Brock's epilogue, wherein he demonstrates the similarities between Brinkley and his clients' obsessions with current, equally desperate youth-pursuits:

"In 2001 a form of bovine collagen was blamed for an outbreak of Creutzfeldt-Jakob syndrome, a potentially lethal disorder linked to mad cow disease, yet this did nothing to slow the stampede for fuller lips and smoother skin. 'Most women find the prospect of dying wrinkled a lot worse than the prospect of dying of dementia from collagen.'"

Sticking goat and monkey nuts in *our* nuts? That's insane. But how about injecting our faces with botulism and sticking cow tissue in our wrinkles? 



 

I did not bring up the children's religious dispute with the other mother--although there was an awkward moment when she asked if we were doing anything special for Easter. "J & I are going to a Murder by Death concert," I said. Then felt obligated to explain that Murder by Death was not a heavy metal group (which was weird, since I listen to heavy metal too and see no problem with that) and that Tweetie would miss school on Friday and we'd all get a long weekend.

Um. Yeah.

Anyway, the kids played together after school and got along fine, as usual. Meanwhile, the mother and I talked about my dye job. Then in the evening, Tweetie told me she'd broached the Hell topic with her friend earlier in the day. I was astonished. I thought I'd steered her in the direction of genial avoidance. But no, she asked her friend to explain what she'd meant about her dire warning, and her friend said she'd talked to her mom and her mom said that that was not how it worked after all, and then Tweetie shared *her* family's beliefs.

Um.

"What did you say?" I asked, slightly terrified.

"I told her about the candle thing." 

Okay... That morning I'd told her that J & I believe human lives are like candle flames, and once they're out, they're out. The lingering smoke is the memories and good you leave behind, and the more you contributed to the world, the longer that smoke lasts. I don't know how well that translated in the lunchroom or playground or wherever our kids are having their philosophical inquiries, but I don't suppose this is the worst metaphor we could have representing us. I'm glad I didn't talk about decomposition. Especially since about a week ago, Tweetie and friend were imagining ghosts populating the playground, and I said, "Well, the dead do outnumber the living," which seemed to startle the other mother. (They DO!)

So I praised Tweetie for discussing a sensitive topic so well and told her many adults could not have had that discussion without getting upset or hurting someone's feelings. I told her I was proud of her and her friend. 

And then I had a Kraken Rum & Coke. Whoo doggy!




"On a bender," said the Angel of the Lord.

~~

My apologies to those of you who've seen this announcement elsewhere. My social circles are small and overlapping. Think of them as hugs, rippling. 

My short fantasy poem "The Messenger Ensnared" is now available at Polu Texni: A Magazine of Many Arts. It is very different from "we come together we fall apart," which went live at Stone Telling yesterday. But it too has plants and magic and transformation. Enjoy!

~

This morning Tweetie told me, tearing up, that one of her best friends at school had said that people who didn't believe in God went to Hell. (Note to new friends: spouse and I are atheists, and we're raising Tweetie to be a tolerant skeptic.)

Initially, Tweetie thought her friend was kidding, but she'd come to realize the girl was serious. She said she didn't know if she could be friends much longer with someone who talked like that. We worked through her hurt and I pointed out that these discussions don't and shouldn't come up often at her (public) school, and that people's beliefs change over time, etc. I think Tweetie's okay now and knows how to change the subject when necessary.

My question is, Am I done? Should I speak to the other child's mother? We get along well, and I think the mom would be dismayed that her child had caused anyone any hurt. Or do I let it go? In the grand scheme of things, I don't know that this incident matters much, and Tweetie's going to have to get used to having a nonconformist family. I mean, I have pink hair right now.

My instinct is to let it go. But I'd like to hear all ideas.

Thanks!