The Amazon Iowan

Some thoughts on quitters, fools, and pig-heads

2009-07-09T16:30:06Z

I've heard it said that stupidity (and, alternately, insanity) is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results, but I think after some reflection I have to disagree. At the very least, I would argue that doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results is ALSO stubbornness. And honestly, I think somebody who was nothing more than a quitter thought up the insanity/stupidity argument, and other quitters everywhere have taken up the mantra so that they, too, will look cooler when they give up and go turn on the TV, leaving we who are still ramming our heads into the wall to look like utter fools.

The doggedly determined, the iron-willed, and, on our less glamourous days, the pig-headed: that is what we are, we who, in the face of all logic and an inviting distraction, keep doing something we shouldn't. Sometimes even we can see the idiocy of it. For example, right now, I'm drinking a cup of coffee. I shouldn't be drinking it, because my stomach is upset and has been so for days. It's working through something, or my colon is collapsing under the strain of poor workouts for ~~two weeks~~ over a month (they really are related, which blew my mind), and every few hours I experience white hot pain and go to embrace the patiently waiting toilet. Well, I say embrace, but it's my ass doing the embracing. (The toilet, bless its soul, will accept you in whatever way you come, including whatever noises you chose to make.) Coffee is a bad idea just now. It should be nice soothing herbal tea, and hot water bottles, and maybe a gingersnap. But the trouble is, coffee smells so good. I drink more coffee than I should--far, far more. People love to tell me how I drink too much coffee, all except my husband and my father-in-law, both who spy the empty pot and ask, hopefully, "Does anyone want any more coffee?" to which the answer is always "Of course!" (The king of too much coffee is my father, but he has an unfair advantage: he runs a cafe. Can you imagine?  Coffee, on spigot, all day. This is the stuff of heaven.)

I shouldn't have coffee, but I am. I'm drinking some now. I have a huge mug of it, hot and wonderful, brewed from beans in my fancy, free from a posh coffee club machine, with lovely beans roasted right here at home, and there's a full pot downstairs. Twelve cups. I'm capable of drinking that, all of it, in the space of an afternoon. The only time I can't drink it is before a workout, and believe me, I was pig-headed about that, but there's something about feeling your heart race in your ears that makes even the most determined mule back down. But right now?  Right now, coffee is good.  Right now coffee is warm and thick and bitter, and it makes me go ping, and as my digestive system sends up alarms, my brain in the shape of a pig is saying, "Look, you can just bloody well cope.  (My brain thinks it's a bit British.) The coffee is good, and honestly, aren't you bigger than this?  Don't you enjoy coffee?  The rest of us do. Suck it up." It turns a deaf ear as my intestines try to explain that this, actually, is part of the problem, and my brain shuts its ears completely as my stomach sends up memories of the sharp pains felt less than half an hour ago. That's past, my brain says. Ancient history. We live in the now, in the Zen of now, and now is coffee and determination!

The thing is, sometimes pig-headed works. Yes, sometimes we're the sad sots other people shake their heads at as we bang ours against the wall for what seems a shocking amount of time, but what most people fail to notice is that, every now and again, the wall cracks first. And the true tragedy is what they miss when the wall doesn't crumble. When they see us stumble back, bloody, dizzy, and vomiting, or when they see us clutching our gut as we run to the bathroom--again--what they miss is what goes on in the head of the pigheaded. Only those who truly don't understand "quit" and who would never demean their favorite activity by calling it insane understand what it's like to pull back from the immovable object and realize that, honestly, they don't want it anymore. Not at this price. It isn't quitting: it's leaving.  There's a big difference. I suppose some people just get their faster than the pig-headed, but I suspect a lot of those people never really wanted it in the first place. The true beauty is in clawing to attain something you want enough to abuse your soul to get it, only to discover during the abuse that actually, no. At this point it isn't a loss. It isn't a cowed defeat, a sad surrender to a greater force. It's a loss of interest. Abandonment. If you fail to quit, you don't lose dignity or pride. You just change your goal.

But really, most times, being determined lands you far more in some grey area between. You don't walk off consoling yourself with platitudes or abandoning, but you achieve a different sort of success than you'd imagined. For example, if you put a bit of milk in the coffee, this somehow helps. If you only drink one cup, this helps a bit more. If you make sure you had something heavy in your stomach first, the problem is nearly solved. It's the little things. If you just keep going, even when most people would be folding up and heaving a sigh, you learn the ways around, the modifications, and myriad other adjustments.    You stop caring, even, about the quitters glowering down at you from the peanut gallery, fingers itching at the rail as they track your every movement, waiting for a mistake, because you're too busy watching what happens when you keep trying, when you do it anyway, when you ask for the impossible and find sometimes that you get it, but most of the time, actually, that you get something even better, that only you can see.

I am a pig-head, a mule, and probably, a fool. You should see the things I see.

Also, the coffee's just fine so far. You see? Sometimes even your colon is wrong.

I was supposed to be cleaning.

2009-07-08T03:44:20Z

Or maybe putting in Dan's copy edits on HERO. Or researching self-publishing for TSV, or putting together a synopsis and such for HERO. Or anything, really, except writing new story. So I guess that's why I'm publishing a Tuesday Teaser (this time actually on Tuesday), even though it's raw and new and worse, the BEGINNING, which means it will not, under any circumstances stay. At all. And yet, I kind of like it. And since I wasn't supposed to write it anyway, and since I'm feeling feisty: Here are the 300 words I wrote tonight, so they would stop bugging me. (Except it didn't work. If I weren't so tired I'd be writing more right now.)

Sorry, jeffreyjingles . If the toilets are gross when you come tomorrow, it's all Sam & Mitch's fault.

This one might actually keep its name, but for better or for worse, right now it's SPECIAL DELIVERY. It has about 40k in bad draft sans antagonist which I am shelving, and as soon as I did that, this had to come out.

Sam was staring past Aunt Sharon’s head and out the window as she lectured him, which was why he saw the delivery man as he pulled up to the back of the pharmacy. At first he just noticed him in the same way that he noticed the truck he was driving, and the tree across the alley, and the clouds above the tree, and everything else that he could see beyond the glass. Well, everything within a four inch radius of Aunt Sharon’s head. He had learned, over the years, that if he went any further than four, he was liable to get jolted by a sharp, “Look at me while I’m talking to you!” And at first, the man was just another Something New Going By, and Sam didn’t think anything more of him—until the man got out of the cab.

Sam shuddered. Mostly inwardly, he hoped, and from Aunt Sharon’s failure to comment on it and perceive it as “more laziness and ingratitude,” either it was, or she wasn’t looking at him at that particular second. But Jesusgod, the delivery man was worth more than just a shudder. Ripped was such a gross word, and he hated it, but this guy was. Sam thought (and hoped) his thin grey t-shirt was going to peel away from him in shreds as he pushed up the rolling door in the back, but it only stretched to its maximum, revealing muscles that said to Sam, “This man you are looking at could lift you in the air and bench press you with no problem. No problem at all.”

Sam swallowed and sat back in his chair, letting the air go out of his lungs in a silent sigh.

There was a sharp rap against the desk, and he jumped.

“What are you looking at?”

Review: A Strong Hand by Catt Ford

2009-07-06T15:06:53Z

I picked this book up because I'm trying to suss out where I want to submit HERO once Dan is done giving it a once-over, and in so doing I have been very heavily surfing publishing sites for places that publish m/m fiction, reading submission calls and weeding out publishers by their formatting/presence/type of work offered. I'd seen A Strong Hand reviewed on a few sites, so when I found it again on Dreamspinner I decided it was time to give it a try.

Obviously from my garbled squee last night, I was blown away. It isn't so much that this is some amazing, earth-shattering book that the whole world must read, but more that it hit all the right spots for me and succeeded in doing what mainstream NY published romances have utterly failed to do for me for years: carry me off. Ford has a beautiful, easy style: she knows how to use words, but she doesn't beat you with them or pause to bask in her own power (the reason I usually retch when I read lit fiction). Nice, clean, sharp style that gets the hell out of the way and lets the story shine.  But more important than this (though I do adore clean style) is that she just nailed, nailed, nailed character.

The two heroes, Nick and Damian, are real people, with real motivations and real reservations, and the plot is, essentially, their navigation of their relationship. Ford pulls off what is so damn hard in a romance: the reader knows the whole time that these two belong together, knows they both love the other, but we have to wait until the end to see it happen. And it works. The distance between the two men is something that needs to be navigated, and it needs to take the time Ford gives them. My favorite part is that Damian's fears regarding Nick's potential affection are particularly spot-on: Nick didn't even consider that he might be gay before Damian, and he is a lot younger. There's a lot of sense in thinking that while the relationship means a lot to Damian, it might just be a stepping stone for Nick. And so the novel feels like the space and struggle the two of them need to find themselves, and one another.

I am a sucker for well-explored vulnerabilities, and this book is full of that. But the real treat in this story is the BDSM angle. I have run into a few BDSM stories in my day, and generally I have needed to run away. I hesitated on this book because I was afraid of that element, but one of the reviews I read made it sound like it was very BDSM-light, and since the premise was that we would be watching a young man's exploration of this lifestyle, I hoped I would be able to "experience" a bit of this without feeling unsafe. This is, very much, what A Strong Hand was for me. The story took me right to the edge of my comfort zone, but never pushed me over. My favorite parts, actually, were when Nick used their safe word, "London," and when (even better) Damian prompted him to use it, recognizing when he didn't that it was time to stop.  The thrill here wasn't the danger or naughtiness of BDSM but the beauty of it, and the display of love and trust that the heroes' relationship revealed.

A Strong Hand is an incredibly sensual story, but the most erotic and exotic aspect of it is the exploration of the two male characters, who, after two hundred pages, we leave quite convinced they are a solid and nearly perfect match. Along the way we get a titillating, thrilling, and satisfying ride.

What more do you want?  Buy it here. And consider her backlist. I know I am.

OH MY GOD THANK YOU CATT FORD

2009-07-06T04:53:50Z

I will post a more coherent review tomorrow, but in the meantime GO AND BUY THIS BOOK. Well, unless you don't like m/m romance and/or don't want to hear anything, at all, not even a little, of BDSMish stuff. Except I hate to say even that, because what I want to say is, if you secretly want to read/learn/know about BSMish stuff but are scared to death to even read it, but still wish you could, then get this book NOW. This book is a goddamned safe word.

And I am in love with Catt Ford, a bit as a writer, a whole heaping ton as a reader. I threw my writer hat off into the fire in chapter one, and I soared to the end with my heart pounding. Thank you, Ms. Ford. I only thought of London when you mentioned it.

(That will make more sense tomorrow, when I actually review.)

Anyway. I bought it in ebook because I couldn't wait. I'm going to buy the hardcover because I want to have it in my hand. And I will tell you why tomorrow, because now the book is over and I can finally get to bed.

ETA: Link now actually goes to the book.

The HERO has arrived.

2009-07-05T00:54:59Z

60,602 words, which is 600 more than what everyone seems to want. So now I print it out, make Dan read it, and do a copy edit/logic sweep. Then I have to figure out where and how to shop this sucker. I would gladly take suggestions.

I think I schmaltzed out a bit on the end, and I definitely dragged on too long, but I LOVE books that drag on, so long as it's either entertaining or wraps up unfinished stuff. So I'm leaving it. For now, anyway. I really like this story, actually. When I finished the beta draft, I liked it too, but it felt a bit off. I like it a lot more now. And thank you again to those of you who gave me feedback.

It's not Tuesday (and it wasn't last teaser, either. Oops.), but I'm posting chapter two anyway.

Happy Fourth of July!

CHAPTER TWO

The Glass Palace

Hal dropped the book again and looked at his guardians to see what their reaction to this appearing/disappearing woman would be. They didn’t even look at him this time, though. In fact, they were so still they looked like they weren’t even moving. It was almost creepy, so he turned away, and by that time the woman had finished crossing the street, come down the sidewalk, and was now not even fifteen feet away.

She’d looked pretty enough from afar, but as she came closer, Hal found that she was nothing less than stunning. Beneath the fur coat she wore a pristine white silk dress, and she had pearls in her ears. She had a strand at her throat as well, a string of white orbs creamy and perfect, all the same size except for one large one in the center of the choker. She was Asian, and her black hair was chin-length, smooth and sleek and shining. Her eyes sparkled, and her mouth was not pouty, not thin, but some magic harmony between, and when she smiled at him again, he saw her perfect, white teeth. Her face was narrow, and her eyes were close-set, her cheekbones high, and her eyebrows thin. Her nose wrinkled a little, too, when she smiled. Which she was doing now.

“Hello,” she said to Hal. “Lovely afternoon, isn’t it?” She had a perfectly flat, American accent, though even with that, Hal couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something extremely foreign about her.

Hal glanced at the goons again, but they were still just standing there, not moving. He looked at their chests, and found himself letting out a relieved breath when he saw their chests rising and falling, albeit very shallowly, and very slowly. He couldn't see their eyes behind their mirrored glasses, but he was somehow sure that they weren’t looking at him, or the woman. He was pretty sure they weren’t seeing anything at all.

Hal turned back to the woman, who was looking at him patiently, but expectantly. He gave up. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“As a matter of fact, you can.” Her smile widened as she held out her hand, revealing manicured nails and a glittering diamond bracelet. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Howard Porter.”

Hal accepted her hand uncertainly. So, they knew his name. He looked back at the now empty site again. “Look, if this is about the project, you really should talk to Gerry. They just fired me.”

“This is a different project.” She kept his hand captive, stroking it casually as she studied his face. Hal had to work not to yank back his hand. He looked again to his guardians, almost willing them to wake up now. But they remained frozen, and silent.

“Howard Porter,” the woman said, her voice full of silky wickedness, “would you like to hear your destiny?”

Hal glanced around. “Is this some sort of reality show or something?” God, that almost made sense, and as the idea bloomed in Hal’s mind, he knew a moment of hope. He pulled back his hand and raised it with the other in front of his body defensively. “Look, lady, whatever this is, whatever your movie or TV show is about—I’m sure it’s great, but I’m not interested, not today, and not ever. I really just want to get back to work.”

She laughed, and the sound was like a quiet cascade of bells. “I’m not from a TV show or a movie.”

“Whatever it is, I’m still not interested.” Hal turned away, first right, then left, then gave in and ducked between her and the goon at the right and headed for the sidewalk to find himself a bus stop away from the insanity.

And the vision hit him.

The Santa Monica street faded, vanishing almost entirely, and Hal saw instead a strange, surreal landscape of clouds, and light. Not just light, but the purest, whitest light he had ever seen—brighter and sharper than the light of the sun, because it didn’t come from the sun. It was simply there, in everything. And in the center of the clouds of light he saw a palace, made of glass, with a high, high tower in the center. The glass palace shone in the light, reflecting it, like the diamonds on the woman’s bracelet.

Someone was standing at a window in the tower. A man, a woman—he couldn’t tell, and he didn’t care. Whoever stood there was looking right at Hal, a hand held out towards him. Hal couldn’t see the person’s face, or anything about them, but something about whoever it was tugged at him, and made him yearn.

Hal’s breath caught in his chest, and he reached out, too.

But as if his movement had broken the spell, the vision faded, and Hal felt the loss like a blow. His hand was still extended before his body, reaching into empty air. The world seemed darker now, and not just because the vision of light had gone. The sky above had only one cloud, but it had moved over the sun, and Hal was cast once again into shadow. He blinked, then lowered his hand, but he kept staring at the place where the glass palace had been.

The bus stop was gone. The goons were gone. He was standing in the middle of foggy mist, and the woman in the fur coat was beside him, watching his face carefully.

“You had a vision,” she said, a statement, not a question. “What did you see?”

The most beautiful person in the world, reaching for me from inside a palace of glass. Hal shut his eyes again, took a breath, then shook his head. “Nothing. I didn’t see anything.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He looked around, trying to decide which way to go, but all he could see was fog. Well, he’d just walk away then, and hope he went out of it. He nodded gruffly at her. “Have a nice day,” he said, and walked off.

This time he managed about four steps before the vision came back. It was the same palace again, but this time something was wrong. The light was wrong, and the clouds were too big, too dark. Ominous.

Hal looked to the glass tower again, and he saw the shadowed person once more, reaching, face was full of loss, and hurt, and pain. Hal reached back once more, and once more the vision disappeared. But this time, when it went, Hal stepped forward, trying to follow—he stepped off the edge of the sidewalk and onto the street, twisting his ankle, and he went down in a great crashing heap.

He didn’t fight the fur-coat woman when she bent down to help him up, but he was breathing heavily now, and looking around in apprehension. The palace was gone, and so was the mist. The pair of goons were still at the sides of the bench, frozen and silent, but this time, everything else was, too. A bird hung eerily in mid-air above him. A car that had been barreling down the street, aimed at him, was stopped in its lane, the driver’s mouth open in mid-sentence as he spoke into his cell phone. Back at the site, a backhoe’s cascade of dirt had paused in its descent to earth about half-way down. Only the woman before him moved.

“Drugs,” Hal rasped, as sweat ran down the back of his neck. “Someone slipped me drugs.”

“You are having visions,” the woman said, gently. “You are having visions of your destiny.”

Hal was sitting on the curb, facing the empty lot where the bar had reappeared again. It was a strange, sagging building, and it didn’t look right, like it was a flickering light that might blink out at any second. Hal rubbed at the back of his neck, at the sweat that was gathering there. “This is some sort of joke. Gerry or somebody is pulling a prank.”

“There is no prank. Now, tell me, Howard Porter, what you saw in your vision,” she said.

Hal stared ahead at the building, watching it swell and loom before him. “A glass palace,” he said, quietly. “I saw clouds, and a palace made of glass, with a tower.” He swallowed hard. “And a. . . . somebody.” He shuddered. “Someone very beautiful.”

“Somebody who?” she dogged, as if this were the important part.

“Just somebody.” Hal shut his eyes and tried to remember. So beautiful. “I couldn’t see who it was.”

“Was it a man or a woman?”

Hal flushed, a deep heat that seared his skin, and he braced automatically. Oh, it had been a man. He would only have that kind of sensual longing for a man. But he’d just, out loud, said the someone was beautiful. And he didn’t like the edge to this woman’s voice, the urgency in it. Why did she want to know? What business was it of hers? What was she going to do if he admitted it was a man he’d seen? Who would she tell? After everything that had happened to him today, was he really going to take that chance? Panic and shame made his flush deepen. He wasn’t out, not to anyone, and he wasn’t about to change that for this stranger.

He ducked his head. “I don’t know.” He swallowed, and then, because he knew he couldn’t call her off any other way, he lied. “It was a woman.” He blushed, again, this time from the falsehood, but he made himself look up at her. “A woman. Standing there like a princess in a tower.”

That much was true. It was just that the princess, actually, was a prince.

She stared back at him, her dark eyes boring into him. She looked sort of stunned, and then pained. Then she wiped her face clean and turned away. “The glass palace and tower are before you. And your . . . princess . . . is inside.”

Hal raised an eyebrow at the bar. “It doesn’t look like a palace.”

“The trouble with visions,” the woman said, quietly, “is that while their general idea is almost always true, the actual details are, alas, a bit off the mark.”

Hal stared at the building. This was weird, too weird to be real. It wasn’t really happening. If he wasn’t drugged, then he was asleep. This was just some dream. The woman wasn’t real. The building wasn’t real. It was too shitty of construction, to start. The thing could come down at any second, by the look of the foundation. It was the sort of thing your subconscious put together. It wasn’t real.

The woman bent down beside him. Hal could smell her perfume, something soft and sweet that made him think of movie stars. He tried to remember if he’d ever smelled in a dream before.

“I’ve been watching you, Howard Porter,” she said. “You’re a hard worker, and you’re loyal. You treat other people with respect, even when they don’t deserve it.” She stepped a little closer, and he caught her scent a little clearer: cinnamon, and something woody. “You have a greater destiny than building condos. You want to build dreams. But you are so alone, Howard. So alone.” She pointed to the bar. “The one who is inside that tower is alone, too.”

Hal shifted uncomfortably on the curb. His ankle was killing him, and he wished he would just wake up so this could be over. Because it was so obviously a dream. Even if that sort of thing were real—him? Nobody would ever go to him to rescue anybody.

But even as he thought this, Hal remembered the way the man had looked, and he shuddered. Guilt swamped him, and he wiped at his mouth to try to clear it. When that didn’t work, he turned away.

The woman beside him leaned closer. “What’s this?” Hal caught her peering at his throat, and before he knew what she was doing, she’d reached out and taken the charm on his necklace between her fingers. “St. Thomas.” She looked up at Hal with sudden misgiving.

“Patron saint of construction workers,” Hal said, pulling it back. “My mother gave it to me.”

“And architects, and cooks,” the woman said, but she was still frowning. “The apostle who doubted.”

Hal backed away. “Look,” he said, trying to be firm, but not mean. “I gotta go home. Or wake up, or sober up, or whatever it takes to end this.” But then he looked around him, and stumbled.

The bus stop was gone. The sidewalk was gone. The street was gone. He was standing in the mist again, but this time it was as thick as clouds, so thick he couldn't even see his feet. And the clouds were full of darkness.

Hal reached up and clutched at his medallion.

The woman took his shoulders gently in her hands and turned him towards the bar, which reappeared as she aimed him at it. It still looked the same, dingy and shambling and half-ruined. He looked up at one of the windows, thinking for a moment that he saw a face at one of the windows, but when he blinked and tried to look more closely, he saw that it was only dingy and black, cracked and broken, the glass taped clumsily in place.

“I’d like to wake up now,” Hal whispered, his throat raw. “Please.”

“You are not dreaming, Howard Porter,” she said, gently. “You are, in a way, awake for the first time.” She urged him forward gently. “Come,” she said, “you need to go inside, and sit down. Have something to drink.”

“Who are you?” Hal whispered, as she led him towards the door. “What’s happening?”

She inclined her head towards him. “You may call me Shinju,” she said. “And I am here to guide you.”

“Into hell?” Hal asked, looking again at the dilapidated building.

She looked amused. “To your destiny.” She reached up and touched Hal’s medallion again, and Hal felt it give, then slide like water into her hand. Before he could protest, she held it out in front of him, and he watched, stupefied, as it melted into a golden pool in her hand, then reformed. She closed her hand before he could see what it was, then lifted his hand and pressed the melted medal into his palm. Hal opened his hand, tentatively, and saw that his St. Thomas medal had been turned into a small golden coin, with the image of a fox on the face.

“There are dangerous people inside, so take care. So long as they only think you are a radom stranger, they will only play games with you, but if they discover who you truly are, they will try to harm you. Tell them as little as possible, and above all, listen to your heart.”

Hal stared blearily at the door, which was going in and out of focus. Sometimes it looked like a door, and sometimes it looked like a great black chasm, with nothing more than a tiny silver strand bridging the gap between the sides. “I don’t want to do this,” he said. His words were slurring.

Shinju sighed. “I wish you had not been Thomas. I wish you were anyone but that one—well, I suppose you’re better than Judas.”

“Hal,” Hal corrected. “My name is Hal.” He felt very, very lightheaded—almost drunk. Over. He wanted this dream to be over.

“No. Your name is Howard Abner Porter, whose patron saint is Thomas the Apostle. But whatever you are, you are all that I have,” Shinju said, sadly. “You are all we have.”

The prince, Hal thought. Or princess. Someone. He looked up at the door again, watching it flicker between plank of wood and gaping chasm.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked. He turned to Shinju, but he decided there was something really wrong with his eyes, or this dream was getting very, very weird because she didn’t look human anymore. Her nose looked longer, and darker, and she looked . . . . furry.

“Go to Morgan,” Shinju said, her voice soft, and strange, echoing oddly in Hal’s mind. She pulled his face down and pressed three kisses onto it, one on each eye, and one in the center of his forehead. “To Morgan,” she whispered, and let go.

Hal opened his eyes, and saw that she was gone.

He looked up at the BAR sign, at the sagging building that sucked light, at the clouds that surrounded it. Then he looked at himself, plain and boring, covered with concrete dust, holding a golden coin in his hand.

It was a bad, bad idea, going into this building, whatever it was. It was a mistake, too—it had to be, because there was no way he was going to be able to help anyone. The strange accusations of the man in white paled to the insanity of this, and for a moment doubt consumed Hal, making the world even darker than it already was, and for a moment, he almost turned back, to run wherever the clouds would take him. Then he touched the gold coin in his pocket, and he saw the prince in his mind again, smiling down at him from the tower, his beautiful face fixed on him, and Hal forgot that he wasn’t good enough to save him, forgot that he’d told the fur-woman that he’d seen a woman, forgot that this sort of adventure never happened to him, and the next thing he knew, he was opening the door to the bar and stepping inside.

His head was a little clearer as soon as he stepped inside, and so Hal took a steadying breath and stood in the entryway, assessing. The bar looked a lot better inside than it did from the outside, but it was still a sorry sort of place. The foundation had some pretty significant cracks, judging by the way the floor sloped to the large fissures in the walls, though someone had tried to cover those up with plaster. There were several brick pillars throughout the main room, which Hal could tell had been added after construction, and rather clumsily at that. They couldn’t be doing much good. Instead of being placed to bear the lode, they were just sort of scattered about, obviously pleasing someone else’s aesthetic instead of actual architecture.

It wasn’t even that great of an aesthetic, either, in Hal’s opinion. The place was gloomy and dark, painted a rich honey-brown which should have made it look elegant, but it just made the place dark. The lights were dim, and there were too few of them. There were too many tables crammed in, and the place was smoky, which was going to get the owner one hell of a fine if the police found out.

Of course, something told Hal that the police weren’t even going to see a building here when they drove by.

Thinking this made him nervous again, and he tried to refocus on the structural defects because they were familiar and strangely calming. But the patrons inside the bar had started to notice him, and it was getting hard not to notice them back. They were staring at him and moving slowly closer, not unlike, Hal thought uneasily, dogs to the kill.

There weren’t many people here, but they were weird. They were, technically, very beautiful, but they were also strange, even for California. Everyone was tall and lithe and lean, which was pretty standard, but there was something about their faces that put him off. They were too perfect, too sculpted. And they all had weirdly colored hair, and strange clothes that looked like they belonged in some glamour version of Lord of the Rings with their tunics and glittering beads and skin-tight leggings.

Hal wondered, a little hopefully, if this was maybe some sort of movie set, but he didn’t see any cameras.

Three people were approaching Hal, and he couldn’t have told you if they were men or women if you’d have put a gun to his head and told him his life depended on his answer. All three were lithe and all and wore the loose tunic-like garments; one had gleaming blue shoulder-length hair, one had short bright yellow hair, and one could have doubled for David Bowie, but their faces were not definitively male or female. He wasn’t even sure they were human. He wasn’t sure what that left, but “human” just didn’t seem to fit.

Magical. They seemed magical. But whatever they were, he was pretty sure they didn’t like him.

“Hello,” the blue-haired one said, wrinkling a nose at Hal and casing amused glances at his companions. “What have we here? A stray?”

The yellow-haired one giggled and put hand on hip, cocking the latter to one side. “It could use a bath.”

Female—Hal would swear that one was a woman. He tried, surreptitiously, to check for breasts. Yes—a woman, definitely. The David Bowie one, too. Maybe. Probably.

Hal cleared his throat and gave a curt, Midwestern-style nod. “Hello.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. He tried to remember what Shinju had told him to say and not to say. He couldn’t remember a thing. Just that name. Morgan. He was supposed to go find Morgan. “Uh—is Morgan here?”

The three exchanged glances, their penciled eyebrows lifting high into their brightly-colored hairlines.

“Who wants to know?” the blue one asked.

Hal checked the urge to reach up for his medal and clutched at the coin in his pocket instead. What was he supposed to say? The truth? If not the truth, what lie? What was he doing here, anyway? What was he trying to do? See Morgan—why? Who was Morgan? The princess? That made so little sense now, standing here—clearly there was no princess, or prince, and if anybody did need rescuing here, he couldn’t help them.

Oh, Jesus. Hal took a quiet breath, then let it out. “A friend,” he said, because he had to say something. “Morgan is . . . a friend.”

This amused them a great deal, and Hal stood, patiently, waiting until they finished laughing. The blue-haired one recovered first, waving his hands at his companions in a wait, wait motion.

“No, I think this could be fun,” he said, breaking into laughter again at the end of his sentence. He wiped at his eyes, careful not to disrupt his eye makeup, then nodded off to his right. “Take him over. I want to see what happens.”

“Should we take him without Eagan present?” the yellow one asked, a little hesitantly.

The blue one sneered at her. “When Eagan is gone, I am in command of the Oasis. And I’m bored. I want to have some fun.”

Eagan? These people were in league with the bastard from the building site? Hal managed to contain his expression, but his hands balled into fists. Eagan wasn’t good news, but he wasn’t here just now. That was good.

Except he still didn’t know what the hell was going on.

The David Bowie woman came up beside Hal and linked her arm in his. “Come on,” she said, her voice full of false sweetness. She made a face at his dirty clothes, then winked at the blue-haired man. “I’ll take you to Morgan myself.”

“I hope you’re good with locks,” the male one said, and they all three burst out laughing again.

Hal glanced over his shoulder at the door, wishing he dared just turn around and leave. He wondered if he even could.

Most of the room was watching them now as Hal’s escort made a parade of their walk across the room; more strange, beautiful people with odd hair and painted faces laughed and pointed as Hal passed by, or whispered behind their hands. The blue-haired one went before them, clapping his hands and calling out, “Attention, attention!” to make sure their audience was as full as possible, and the yellow-haired one lingered behind, sniggering and occasionally goosing Hal to make the nearest tables laugh.

Hal, for his part, tried to remain as non-responsive as possible, but while he managed to school his exterior, his interior wasn’t so manageable. He wondered what kind of trouble, exactly, he was in. Was he going to die? He tightened his grip on the coin inside his pocket, taking comfort in its smooth heat against his sweaty fingers.

The David Bowie woman let go of him as they approached the bar where a door led to what Hal would guess was a kitchen, and he saw movement on the other side.

“Morgan!” Hal’s escort called out, her voice sharp and mean, full of the sing-song of playground teasing. “Morgan, someone’s here to see you!”

Their audience laughed. Hal looked around to see who this Morgan might be, but all he saw was the bartender, bent over inside an open cooler, fetching drinks, leaning so far in that her skirt nearly tipped up over her bottom. Little silver chains dangled from the sides of the black leather garment, the only part of her visible beyond her legs. The blue-haired man leaned on the bar, bending sideways as if to speak to someone on the other side, though he kept his eyes on the eager crowd. “Yes—we think he might be your prince, come to set you free!”

Oh God, Hal thought, trying not to wince, feeling his face heat as the laughter swelled around him, and he braced, waiting for this Morgan to come through the door. But instead, the bartender climbed back out of the cooler and turned around.

And he saw the prince in the room of his tower, looking down at him in surprise, and a little confusion.

His face, his beautiful, perfect face . . . .

Hal blinked, and the vision faded, and he found himself staring face to face at the bartender instead. Except he had been wrong. This was the person from his vision—he could feel it in his bones—but this person wasn’t a man at all. She was androgynous, yes, but she was decidedly female. She was looking at him warily, though she cast occasional, irritated glances at the crowd. She was very cute, in a comfortingly normal-looking way. She had dark brown, almost black hair, not weirdly colored at all. She wore a black leather vest and the black skirt full of chains, and she had silver bracelets on her wrists, and another silver circle at her neck. She wore no makeup, though her lashes were very long, and just a bit curly. She was slender, but slightly muscular, and she was normal sized, not impossibly tall like the other creatures in the room. The only thing odd about her was that her hair stuck out at crazy angles—it didn’t look artful, just messy.

She wore only a vest. No shirt. No bra. And when she moved, he could see beneath it, and—yes. Absolutely, she was female.

And for the first time in Hal’s life, the sight of a woman made him aroused.

The bartender glared at the blue-haired man. “Very funny, Talin,” she said, her voice curt, but Hal thought he heard vulnerability underneath.

The blue-haired man pouted. “You’re no fun anymore, Morgan. No fun at all.”

“She’s sore because Eagan’s gone,” someone shouted from the back of the room. “Or, rather, she isn’t sore, not anymore, because Eagan is gone.” Everyone laughed. Everyone but Morgan, and Hal. But for Hal, it wasn’t just because he didn’t find the joke funny, but because he was tugging at his ear; there was a strange ringing in it. It was a hum, and he realized now it had been coming and going for several minutes. It was driving him crazy. He looked around, but no one else seemed to notice it.

The blue-haired one raised an eyebrow. “Is it Eagan she misses?” He leaned over the bar, reaching out to stroke the bartender’s cheek. “Or is it what he puts between her cheeks? Because that we can see to ourselves.”

The humming started again, aggravated by the crowd’s roar, but Hal’s blood was already boiling at the mention of Eagan’s name. This woman was that bastard’s girlfriend? Maybe not girlfriend. Maybe that’s why she needs to be rescued.

The woman who needed to be rescued slapped Talin’s hand away. She turned to Hal, still glaring. “Well?” she demanded.

Hal swallowed, trying to put moisture back into his mouth. His ears, blessedly, were calming again. “Ah—can . . . can I have a drink? Please?”

“Oh, Morgan would love to give you a drink, honey,” another heckler called out, and Hal tried to keep himself still and blank as everyone roared again, and the bartender turned a deep, angry red.

But she was still glaring at Hal, and everyone else was laughing so hard, not paying him any attention, so Hal leaned forward just slightly and looked her in the eye as he mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to do, but he certainly hadn’t expected her to look startled. But she recovered quickly, busying herself by reaching up above her head to pull down a glass. “What do you want?” she asked.

It took Hal a minute to register that she meant, “what do you want to drink.” This was in part because the lapels of her vest gaped as she reached up, giving him a clear view of one very small, pert breast. And once again, he felt a rush of heat.

Well, he thought, as the vest fell back into place and the lust rolled away. This is something different.

“Beer,” he said aloud, a little hoarsely. He glanced at the taps, but he couldn’t see any labels or logos to let him know what this place served. “Please.”

“Coming up,” she said, pulling down a glass. She cast several glances at him as she drew his drink, still giving him that odd look.

The laughter had died down now, and Talin was leaning against the bar. He looked first at Hal, then at Morgan with naked disdain and arrogance that both infuriated Hal and made him feel self-conscious.

“This ragamuffin, Morgan, says he is your friend,” Talin said, once again, loudly enough for his audience to take in, and he paused to let the titters die down before he continued. “We thought we should bring him to you right away.”

Morgan gave him a humorless smile. “How kind of you.” She shoved the beer in front of Hal, then turned back to the cooler and whatever it was she had been doing before. But Hal saw her glance at him several times from beneath her arm, as if trying to make out who he was.

The David Bowie woman crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. “Morgan, you spoil-sport! We want to see him try to free you. No one’s tried in ages, and we’re bored.”

“Yeah, we want to see if he can break your chains!” someone shouted from the back.

Chains? Hal frowned, and looked at Morgan again, specifically at her skirt and the silver chains that dangled there. But this time he saw her ankles, too, and her wrists. And that was when Hal realized the silver bracelet she wore was not a bracelet, but a cuff, attached to a long chain leading to her other wrist, which was in turn attached to another chain which then dangled towards the floor, and her ankles, to cuffs that circled her there as well. They were delicate, as thin as string, and they were joined in the center by a long silver chain that snaked across the floor, though what it was attached to, Hal couldn’t quite see.

“Those are her marks of shame,” the yellow-haired woman said, leaning in close to Hal’s ear. “But then, you know that, don’t you, since you came to save her?” She spoke in a mock whisper he was pretty sure they could hear on the other side of the room. The humming sound was back again, and Hal set his teeth against it. Maybe it was something with their voices?

“It’s the prince, come to save the princess!” another heckler shouted, and they all laughed.

Hal couldn’t help it. He reached up and pressed his fingers against his ear, shutting out the humming sound, which was now so loud it made him want to scream. It was when they spoke—sometimes some of the words cut into his teeth. “It’s the prince,” was fine. But “princess” echoed too loudly in his head. It hurt. His eyes were burning, too. He blinked at Morgan, who had turned around again. She looked angry until she saw him, and then she came forward, worried.

Are you okay?

The others were laughing, but Hal heard the word inside his head. It made the buzzing quiet down, just a little, and he lowered his hand again. He cast a careful glance at Morgan, fairly sure that was her voice he’d heard, but honestly, he wasn’t taking anything for granted anymore. She was watching him back, and as their gazes held, she lifted an eyebrow. Then he heard her voice again.

You can hear me? she asked.

Hal startled, and blinked. His eyes darted to Talin, but he was too busy playing to the crowd.

You can hear me, Morgan said, sounding surprised. That’s . . . unusual. And you don’t feel like a magician, though there’s something magic about you. She narrowed her eyes at him. Your mind feels strange. You aren’t laumu, and you can’t be a hunter. She frowned. What are you?

How was he supposed to answer? Hal glanced nervously around, but the others were too busy enjoying their own jokes to pay him any attention.

Morgan’s eyes widened, her expression leaning less towards confusion and more towards horror. Oh, no. You’re human.

Hal glanced around once more, then, very carefully, nodded.

Talin clamped a hand on Hal’s shoulder as he addressed the crowd. “I think it should happen on stage, don’t you? He’s already in costume.”

More laughter. Morgan was ignoring them all now, studying Hal with an intensity that made him want to squirm, but he held still, waiting to see what she would do, because he was fairly certain she was about to do something, and every survival instinct he had told him not to get in her way.

He did, though, reach out and take a very deep drink of his beer. Then he took another.

She watched him drink. They don’t know you’re human? she asked, once more inside his head.

Hal paused, then very subtly shrugged.

She looked relieved, though only slightly. Just don’t try anything rash—just do what they say, and let me guide you, and you’ll make it through okay. I still don’t understand how you can mind-speak with me as a human, but we’ll sort that out later. Tell me your name—just think it, very, very loudly. Don’t close your eyes, she added, when he did. Just look into my eyes, she instructed, meeting his gaze, and imagine you can write the words on the inside of my head with your mind.

Hal did as she asked, but he was a little distracted by how beautiful she was. He was thinking of her breasts, too, and her waist, and her legs, which shocked and unnerved and aroused him all at the same time. Maybe I’m not, he thought, confused, but relieved, too. Maybe if it’s the right woman. Or maybe if it’s just this woman. He stared into her eyes, lost in them. Once again he saw the androgynous figure in the tower, only this time she looked like colors on an evening sky, or stars in the heavens.

It’s not the body I’m attracted to, he thought, dizzily. It’s the soul.

Her lips curled up in a wry, but soft smile. Your name, she reminded him. And he knew, then, that she had “heard” every thought about her beauty, and her body, and her soul, and he blushed.

He forced himself to focus. Hal. His name was Hal. Except, as he let go, he felt himself going formal. Howard. Howard Abner Porter. My name is Howard Abner Porter.

Hello, Howard, she whispered back. The words felt like a caress inside his mind. My name is Morgan, and I am the Oasis.

Someone gripped his shoulder again. “Performance time!” Talin shouted, and abruptly the world went dark as a heavy, stinking cloth was wrapped around his head, and he couldn’t hear Morgan’s voice, or see her, anymore.

It's Britney, bitch.

2009-07-03T21:54:09Z

So, I won't get ANYTHING done on that list today, not completely. Well, if I included "get stuff for neighborhood potluck" on there, I did that. I did SOME exercises. Not enough. I also worked on HERO. And in doing so, I am listening to "Gimme More" by Britney Spears, over and over again.

I understand that there's a lot of retching going on as I say that, but I have a few things to say in reply. First of all, grow up. Second of all, you don't fuck with the muses. When they want it, they want it, and you give it to them. And they want this song for the chapter of HERO which is, so far, called "The Dangerous Human." I think the beat is a lot of it, but the lyrics (so complex! so deep and full of meaning!) are part of it as well. The spirit of Britney probably has a lot to do with it, too. People pretty much treat Morgan like they treat Britney. And yet, like her, he's pretty down with his sexuality. Oh, and for everyone but the hero in this scene, he looks like a girl. So, a lot in common.

I found two videos for "Gimme More," both on Youtube and both without embedding, which is frankly dumb as hell. I like the deluxe better than the official version, though the official is more set like the scene. I like the dancing in the deluxe, though. Anyway, you can check these out, if you're inclined. Or not. Whatever you do, I'll be off listening to the song over and over and over while a male shapeshifter lap dances and makes out with his lover, a very shy Catholic boy who, at this moment, looks like a satyr.

Good times.

I need a TARDIS

2009-07-03T13:41:33Z

Or a time-turner, or something. Because this is my list today:

1. Finish editing HERO. I only have three chapters left, but these are the chapters that need the most revision, and I'm just now arriving at them.

2. Do all my PT exercises, especially the hip/leg/ab ones. I haven't been, and I'm starting to pay.

3. Write up some information I said I would get out to someone today.

4. As Joan would say, CLEAN UP THIS MESS!!!!

Only number two is a necessity, but I really want the other three, especially number one. I want to keep my word on #3, but I am really thinking it's going to get bumped to Monday. If it weren't the Fourth of July tomorrow, I could do it then, but it is, and Ames is full of parades and picnics and fireworks, so it will not happen tomorrow. And I feel horrible about the house. But it really isn't going to happen, either. Sigh.

I guess the most important thing is that I get HERO off my desk. I am very serious about shopping that one, and I can't do it until it's edited. Well, until it's edited, checked again, and some submission materials are created for it. But at any other part I could do it while I was working on another story. And that's the bottom line for me right now. I want to move on to SOMETHING ELSE. Either TEMPLE BOY or SMALL TOWN BOY, probably the latter. But I want to move forward. Desperately.

So I'm going to go downstairs, eat, and do two exercises, then come up and write. Except I think I may have to extricate someone's bike from the garage first. And something else will probably happen, too. That's okay. I'm a tree, I can bend.

Head trip

2009-07-02T22:15:37Z

You may recall I had a car accident in the middle of May.  Very minor. Bad for the car, but I had no troubles.  This, it turns out, is not so true. There is this damn neck issue.

Something about the SCM muscle. Something about scalenes, and C-5, and first ribs. All I know is that it started hurting a few days after the accident, got a bit grisly on the road, and has been a right bitch since we got home. I go to chiro.  I go to PT. I take a damn lot of Vicodin, which is irritating because I was nearly off the stuff before this happened! And now I'm back to a bazillion appointments.

I just got home from PT, and there was also chiro earlier in the day.  The chiro adjusted me, I think everywhere there is to adjust in my neck. (Likely an overstatement, but wow.)  It felt good, for an hour. I went to PT. She worked on a few things, then did some energy work, then made for me to go. And when I stood up, I felt my scalenes. Though they were fine before the appointment, somehow the work on the other areas has made them swell. There are three distinct, swollen lumps on the side of my neck.

"Are they supposed to be like this?" I ask.   She feels them. "Huh," she says, and then, "No."

So I'm going back next week. I keep hoping this will even out. I'm irritated at the scalenes, because they WERE fixed.  It's like she squeezed one part of the balloon and it went somewhere else. I'm trying to be patient, but I'm getting tired of it. I cannot believe such a minor, no-big-deal wreck could do this. Obviously, I am wrong, but still. Arg.

That's it.  This post was just a whine. And now it's over.

The very rare Tuesday Teaser

2009-07-01T14:12:54Z

I do not normally do these, because I change my drafts so much and because I don't like to post things until I know they're done. But I have so many things I want to work on that I am CALLING this one done so that I can get through and finish. I have a plan for the whole of this story, and I'm going to finish it, then try to shop it to five or six places, and failing that, I'll add it to the SP kitty.

This story is formerly known as SHINING LIGHT on this blog. It's still that in my head, but I think that's a terribly unmarketable title, and if I keep up the way I'm going in revisions, it's not going to make a ton of sense with the story. So, for now I'm calling it HERO. It's a short novel coming in at around 50k at the moment, but it could go a bit longer as I shift things. Or shorter. It has romantic, paranormal, and urban fantasy elements. Mostly, though, I think of it as an m/m fairytale.

For those of you who've read former teasers here or the beta draft, you won't recognize much of this at all. Maybe none of it--I've already lost track of what was what draft. There's also been a shift in the protag. I am a huge, unabashed fan of what is apparently called "gay for you," but after some consulting with Hal, it worked better for his character to be gay but quite closeted.

Anyway, don't get too attached to teasers, but for today, there is one.

CHAPTER ONE

The Disappearing Bar

Hal Porter was just finishing up his shift for the day at the Santa Monica site, hauling tools back to the shed, when he saw the bar appear out of nowhere.

It was in the lot adjacent to the construction site, in the patch of land which Hal would have sworn was empty just that morning. Granted, it was only his second day working on this site, but Gerry, the foreman, had stood glaring at it as he chain-smoked furiously less than an hour ago, grousing about how some “hippie weirdo” owned it and wouldn’t sell, how they had to work around that one damn lot and what a bitch it was going to be. It was hard to forget that lot, after hearing Gerry complain about it. And yet, as Hal stood there, he was not looking at an empty patch of ground, nothing but weeds and sand. He was looking at a building, three stories tall, looking like it had been there for one hundred years.

A woman was standing in front of it.

She stood beneath the awning, a sagging, battered green and white striped overhang and a dingy plastic sign that read, simply, “BAR.” The woman, however, was not dingy or saggy. She was sleek and expensive: small, dark-haired, decked in a pristine white dress and heels, and of all things, a thick fur coat. It was Los Angeles, and it was an eighty-eight degree day in July, and she was wearing a fur coat that would have kept her warm in Juno, Alaska.

The woman was looking at Hal, her dark eyes full of suspicion, but after a few minutes she turned away from him and towards the building, studying it carefully. She paced up and down the sidewalk in front of it, slowly, like a tiger, but aside from occasional glances at Hal, she didn’t take her eyes off it. Hungry, Hal thought, as he watched her. She looked hungry. It wasn’t a hunger for food, either. She was hungry for . . . something. Shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun with his free hand, Hal stopped and stared, his eyes shifting from the woman to the building and back again. There was something she wanted. Desperately. Something in that building.

Something, a voice whispered in the back of his mind, she’d wanted for a long, long time.

She turned towards Hal again, and this time their eyes met. She wasn’t glaring any longer, and in fact, she looked surprised. She took a step towards Hal, tentatively, and Hal waited, still watching. He began to feel strange, as if he were falling asleep with his eyes open. Or maybe, he thought, his head spinning, so light now that he had to hold back the urge to laugh, I’m just now coming awake. He didn’t laugh, but he did smile, and when the woman saw this, she smiled back.

Then she lifted her hand, and blew him a kiss.

Light flashed. It was a small flash, so subtle it could have been the flash of sun off a mirror, but it came from her hand, and when the light hit Hal’s eyes, he stepped forward. He dropped the tools he was holding and started towards the woman standing in front of the imaginary bar, the woman who was now beckoning for him. I’m coming, he thought, and started walking faster. The sites and sounds of the construction site faded away, becoming blurs and distant tink, tink, tinks as the world narrowed to that woman, that building, and the space between them. I’m coming.

I’ll go inside, he thought, his gaze shifting to the door of the bar. He could see it now, tall and dark, taller and darker than it had a right to be, but he knew, somehow, it didn’t matter. He would open the door. Nothing could stop him from opening that door. And when I’m inside, I’ll find it. I’ll find what she’s looking for. What I’m looking for, too.

I’ll find him. I’ll find him, and I’ll bring him home.

“Hey!”

The shout jarred in Hal’s head, but it wasn’t until something jutted him hard in the elbow that he stopped. He turned, dizzy, and annoyed, then stifled a wince when he saw who it was. It was Todd, the shift manager. The other crew members had warned Hal about Todd—he didn’t do much work, they said, because he was too busy watching everyone else. Some thought he was some sort of spy for the investors. Whatever he was, he was strange. Todd was short and stocky and had the complexion of a toad, but he had oddly bright blond hair that he wore, for some inexplicable reason he wore in a pageboy bob. The bob was gleaming at him now, as Todd glared at him.

“What are you doing?” Todd demanded. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

Hal looked at him strangely. “They just called end of shift ten minutes ago,” Hal reminded him. You were the one shouting through the megaphone. Remember?

Todd glared and nodded at bar, making his gleaming hair dance again. “Then why are you heading back into the site?”

“I’m not,” Hal said, pointing to the bar. “I was just—” He stopped. Then he stared.

The woman was gone. The bar was gone. The lot was empty again.

“You were just what?” Todd demanded.

Hal ignored him. “I swear, I saw—” He leaned forward, squinting, as if somehow this would help. It didn’t. He stood up and ran a hand through his hair. “Nothing,” he said, trying to sound casual. “I thought I saw something, but I didn’t.” He shook his head, then bent to retrieve the tools he’d dropped. “Forget it. I’m just tired. I’m seeing things.”

“This heat will do it to you,” Todd said, conversationally. But he was watching Hal like a hawk. “You should go home. Get some sleep.”

“Or get drunk,” Hal murmured, then shouted and dropped the tools again when he looked up.

The bar was back, and so was the woman. She was looking at him with wide, angry eyes, and she was beckoning to him furiously.

“What is it now?” Todd demanded, but he didn’t sound impatient. He sounded wary.

Hal rubbed at his head, pretty sure there was something wrong with it. He glanced at the shift manager. “That lot over there, the empty one—you see anything in it?” The woman shook her head and began to motion to him more frantically. Hal added, carefully, “You see anybody standing there?”

Todd laughed. Nervously. “It’s bed for you,” he said. “Either that or you need to get laid.”

Hal turned to Todd, frowning at him. “What do you mean, I need to get laid?”

Todd drew back. He looked suddenly strained and held up his hands. “Hey, it’s you hallucinating women, buddy.”

Hal raised his eyebrows. “I never said it was a woman that I saw.”

Todd’s complexion went from ruddy to pale. “You did. I remember.” He took a few more hurried steps backwards. “Hey, look, I gotta—” He turned, abruptly, then waddled off towards the office trailer.

Hal watched him go, more confused than ever. So Todd had seen something. He wasn’t hallucinationg—or, at least, it wasn’t just him hallucinating. But Todd was upset by it. Why? And what did it all mean?

The woman, and the bar, were still there. She was gesturing to him again, no longer angry, just desperate. Hal felt the pull, the strange, surreal longing to go to her, to go inside, to seek. He took a few steps towards her, hesitant, and he watched the world fade away again. He saw, this time, even the bar fade away, and for a moment, he could see inside.

He saw a man, tall and slim and beautiful, reaching down to him from a glass castle in the clouds.

Hal drew in a sharp breath. No, he thought, and stepped back.

There was a loud crack, another flash of light, and then the building and the woman were gone. The lot was empty. The world was normal again. And somehow Hal knew that it wasn’t going to change again.

For several minutes, Hal stood there, frowning, trying to figure it out. But nothing made sense, and in the end, he told himself he didn’t care. Whatever was going on was none of his business. He didn’t want to get in trouble, and if Todd wasn’t a spy, he was at the very least a little strange. And so was this mystery woman who appeared and disappeared at will with a bar at an empty lot. He ignored them all and went towards the bus stop, heading for home.

But he couldn’t shake the strange empty feeling in the pit of his stomach that whispered, urgently, that he had just made a very big mistake.

The nagging feeling faded, though, by the time he made it back to Hollywood, because on the way he’d stopped at his post office box in Culver City and picked up his mail, which had included a package from his mother. It included, as it always did, a lengthy hand-written letter, a week’s worth of The Emporia Gazette, a dozen peanut butter cookies, and a copy of the latest Catholic Digest. He nibbled at a few cookies as he perused the papers on the bus, and he read the letter while he heated a can of soup for dinner. Once he’d done the dishes, he sat down on his sofa, put the Digest on the footlocker he used for a coffee table, went back for a few more cookies, then began, page by page, to leaf through the magazine.

He didn’t read a word, but occasionally he stopped turning pages and reached into the binding to withdraw the dollar bills his mother had hidden inside. Most were ones, but there were a few fives, and as he found a pair of twenties around an article about the sanctity of marriage, he frowned. When he came to the last page, he started at the beginning again, double-checking. Once he was convinced he’d gleaned them all, he counted the stack, then rose and crossed to the markerboard hanging by the door, picked up the dry erase marker that hung on a string beside it, and wrote, carefully, “$67 extra to Mom.”

Then he went back to the couch, pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and dialed a number.

“Howard, I was just thinking of you,” his mother said, warmly, when she answered. “That nice Janice Holford was just here to drop of some Avon. She asked about you—how were you doing in the big city, and if you were coming home sometime this summer.” There was excitement in her voice as she added, “She’s still single, you know.”

“I just got your package,” Hal said, deflecting. “Thank you very much.”

“Did the cookies make it?” she asked. She always asked.

She also always cased them in enough bubble wrap to ship a raw egg. “Tasted like they just came out of the oven,” Hal assured her.

“Oh, good. I’ll send some more next week, so don’t be shy about eating them up. Has work been well?”

“A lot of overtime.” Hal leaned back into the couch. He thought about the hallucinations and thought to himself, Maybe too much. “I’m going to send you another check, Mom, and don’t put it all into your savings again. Go buy yourself something nice.” And stop putting money in the Catholic Digest.

“Sweetheart, you work too hard,” she scolded. “You need a vacation. When are you going to come back home?”

“When are you going to come to Los Angeles?” he countered.

“Oh, Howard! I could never.”

“You could,” he pointed out, “if you quit letting the airfare vouchers I send you expire. You’d like it here more than you think, Mom.”

This was not exactly true—she would hate Hollywood, which was where Hal currently lived. But he always had his eye out for decent housing in a better area, and he figured about the time he found some he could afford would be when his mom would actually get on a plane.

That would also be around the time he actually read the Catholic Digests.

“I just wish you’d come home,” his mother said, sadly. “All you do there is work. You could do that here. We still have construction in Kansas.”

“Better opportunity here,” he replied, but weakly, because anymore, it wasn’t exactly true. He’d come here hoping to get some good experience and work his way up the ladder, certain that the good old boy network that frustrated him in Kansas wouldn’t be as impervious in such a large city. But it turned out that the only thing different about Los Angeles and Emporia was that the town was bigger. If anything, the ceiling of success here was even thicker and higher above his head. And now there was Todd the company spy, messing with his head.

“You work too hard,” his mother said again. “And they don’t pay you enough. I googled that apartment complex you live in. It isn’t safe.”

Hal thought of the gunshots he’d heard the night before and had to agree, though he did so privately. “Soon, Mom,” he promised. “Things will break, soon.” He thought of the disappearing woman and bar and hoped that it wouldn’t be his mind that broke. He reached up to his neck, fingered the necklace that hung there, and sighed. “I’ll come home before the year is out,” he promised. “But once I do, then you have to come here.”

“I don’t like airplanes,” his mother said. “And I can’t drive in that place.”

“Then I’ll drive you,” Hal said, but that was an empty promise until he had a car that would make the 3000 mile trip there and back.

“I just want to see you happy,” his mom said, with a sad sigh. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Hal. And you’re not happy there, I can tell.”

“I wasn’t happy in Emporia,” he reminded her.

“You won’t be happy anywhere,” she said, “until you start believing in yourself. You can do anything you put your mind to, Howard. You’re a smart, capable, handsome man who would be an asset to any job and a good husband.”

Hal grimaced and stared down at the magazine lying open on the footlocker. It had turned itself to the marriage article again, where a wholesome, happy woman in white was sailing down the steps of a cathedral, cherub-like girls with flower crowns at her feet and a clean-shaven, handsome man in a black tuxedo looking fondly over her shoulder. You could almost see the suburban house and shiny SUV reflected in her eyes, and the board meeting in her husband’s. Hal glowered at them both and shut the magazine.

“How’s Aunt Lottie doing?” he asked.

“Oh you know her,” his mother said, bitterly, then launched into a recitation of all the wild and strange things his maiden aunt had done in the past seven days. Hal shut his eyes and leaned back in the cushions, letting the words wash over him. But he kept seeing the bride and her husband in his mind’s eye, and when he pushed them aside, he saw the vanishing woman from the lot again.

When he finally got off the phone, he flipped through the channels on the television, but nothing caught his interest. By nine he gave up, showered, then went to bed. He set his alarm on his phone and plugged it into the wall, laid out his clothes, pulled off his towel, and climbed into bed.

He lay there on the sheets for a long time, hands behind his neck as he stared up at the ceiling.

He couldn’t stop thinking about that bar, or the way he’d felt when he’d looked at it. The woman unsettled him, but the bar had been . . . hypnotizing. Every time he shut his eyes, he saw it, and in his state of half-sleep, half-waking, he kept seeing the figure inside. He kept waking himself up, so couldn’t make out who it was, but every time the shadow appeared, he ached for it. And if he slipped deep enough into the trance, he felt it coming closer.

Once he’d seen the eyes, and they burned into the back of his brain. And when he stared into them, other parts of his body burned, too.

At ten-thirty, Hal sat up. He turned on his bedside light and reached into a drawer, digging beneath the old Emporia Gazettes that had made their way between the editions of Time his mother sometimes sent, fumbling for the thin, brown paper bag at the bottom. He pulled out the magazine inside, rolling his eyes at himself for his flash of guilt as his eyes took in the sea of flesh. He flipped through the pages as carefully as he had the Catholic Digest, but with much more attention this time. There were no articles about marriage in this magazine, and nobody who looked like they were about to whisk off to suburbia.

There were no women, either.

By eleven he wasn’t feeling any guilt at all as he fumbled for the tube of lotion on his bedside. By eleven-fifteen he had a pile of dirty tissues in his garbage basket, and by eleven-thirty he was asleep.

He dreamed of the bar, of course. But this time he saw a window above the sign, and someone was standing there, watching him, surrounded by mist. He still couldn’t see who it was, but he knew somehow that whoever he saw was beautiful, and very sensual. Hal felt himself grow warm, and then aroused, and with a soft cry, he reached out into the fog. He woke with a start, his hand outstretched towards the ceiling, his sheets sticky.

Shaking his head at himself, but smiling, Hal tossed the sheets into the washer, downed some toast and coffee as he dressed, then grabbed his backpack and headed out the door to catch his bus.

The site was already busy when he got there, more than usual, and when he came around the corner and saw the series of dark, expensive cars parked along the curb, he winced. The days when the investors showed up to poke around were the worst. Well, he thought, at least today maybe they’d find out of Todd really was a spy. Thinking of Todd made him remember his hallucinated bar again, and he glanced towards it to see if it was still there, but the lot was nothing but weeds and sand. Hal was trying to decide if he was relieved or disappointed when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder.

A tall, blond, and very chiseled man in a white suit was aiming a finger angrily at his face. “You,” he spat at Hal. “You, boy, will come with me.”

The man had a thick accent that sounded vaguely European, and he looked foreign, too: polished, chic, and slightly out of place, even for LA. The white suit didn’t help. The only other person Hal had seen wear a white suit was Boss Hogg in The Dukes of Hazzard, though admittedly Hogg hadn’t worn a delicate, exquisitely expensive purple silk paisley button-down beneath his. There was also nothing Roscoe P. Coltrane about either of the dark-clothed, thick and angry-looking men that flanked him. Their skin was dark, too, though every now and again when the light shifted Hal could have sworn it was red. Really red, like an angry tomato.

Hal had his hard hat in his hands, and he flexed his grip against it as he frowned at the man in white. He glanced around as surreptitiously as he could, but there wasn’t anyone else for this guy to be addressing. The man had turned around now and was striding across the site towards the trailer, leaving Hal little choice but to follow. The dark-clothed escorts sniggered at Hal before falling in behind him, and this time he knew he didn’t imagine their faces turning briefly, brilliantly red. It didn’t make sense, and it made him even more uneasy than he already was.

Gerry was waiting inside the trailer, but he was moving agitatedly around the narrow office, and when he saw Hal enter, his mouth flattened into a grim line. “Hal,” Gerry said, then glanced at the man in white long enough to nod gruffly. “This is Mr. Eagan, the largest investor we have for this project.” Gerry pulled his hand over his chin, grimaced, then shook his head. “Hal, I’m going to have to let you go.”

Hal blinked. “What?”

Gerry kept his eyes on his desk, and his voice was gruff. “Mr. Eagan says a guy he hired to keep an eye on the site caught you stealing.”

Stealing? Stealing what? Hal looked at the man in white, but he was poking idly at his Blackberry and not paying any attention. This didn’t make any sense. He’d just gotten here. He’d hardly been anywhere—his whole first day had been spent here in the trailer. He’d only been out yesterday, and he’d been stuck on that damn wall for almost all of it, until finally he’d volunteered to put everything away, just to walk around.

Which was when he’d imagined the bar. And seen Todd, who’d acted strange.

A guy he hired. Hal replayed his encounter last night with the shift manager before he left, and thought, Fuck. Todd was a spy. But this was horseshit! He didn’t take anything—what was there to steal? He hadn’t stolen anything, and what the hell was there to steal? Money? There was no money at the site! Why the hell would they keep money here? Concrete mix? Rebar? He hadn’t so much as lifted a pen, and he wouldn’t. Ever.

Todd had acted strange when he’d heard that Hal saw something on the empty lot. What, did they think he’d taken the missing building?

“I don’t understand” he said aloud.

Gerry looked at him, at last, with an expression that made it clear he didn’t, either. He glanced again at the man in white, opened his mouth, then shut it again, resigned. “I’m sorry, Hal.”

Hal didn’t know what to say. I didn’t steal anything itched at the back of his mouth, along with What the hell is going on, Gerry? He and the foreman weren’t close friends, but he’d thought the man respected him, at the very least. Why else would he have picked him for this site? This doesn’t make any sense itched at his lips, too, but something in Gerry’s expression made him pause. The foreman kept staring at his desk, head down, not looking at Hal, and not at Eagan, either. Gerry, who liked to stand on top of the office trailer, surveying the site like God from the heavens. Gerry, who barked orders about this operation being “his ship” and how everything was “his call” and how anybody working on “his watch” wasn’t taking any pussy tea breaks. But now Gerry was still, and small, and almost bent, and it was the man in white and his pair of goons who were looming.

Ah.

Hal turned to the stranger, still confused, still angry, but he felt himself fold up a little inside as he saw Eagan staring back at him. The man looked irritated, but in a bored way, as if he were willing to be patient for now, but not much longer. Languid, Hal thought. The man in white was like his mother’s cat that liked to lie across the back of the couch, tolerating Hal’s presence as he dared to sit on it until he was bored with the novelty of the invasion, and that was when he would lash out with his paw like a lightning strike and try to take out part of Hal’s cheek. I didn’t do anything to you, he wished he could say to the cat, and to the man in white now.

It was wrong. It was a mistake. It was really damn stupid. But it wasn’t something, Hal could see, that talking or arguing or having a fit over would change. He looked down at the hat in his hands, staring at the dark stains in the creases of his fingers from the grease gun he’d worked with the day before, at the grime still caked on the edges of the hat brim. Then he set the helmet down, carefully, onto the desk that Gerry was still staring at.

“I won’t keep you then,” he said, speaking slowly and deliberately to keep his pent-up emotion from leaking into his words, “because I know you’re pushing up against that deadline. But someday, if you get a chance—” His jaw tightened, and he couldn’t keep neutral as he added, “—I’d love to hear what it was I stole.”

Gerry looked up at him then, his round face ruddy with indignation, and Hal felt reassured, a little, because he could tell it wasn’t him the foreman was angry with. Then he cleared his throat and returned his focus to the desk. “Good luck, Hal.”

And that was that. Hal took care not to look at the man in white as he turned around, and he headed towards the door, not sure what he was doing now, but knowing he was damn well getting out of that office. But he hadn’t taken four steps before Eagan spoke.

“I want him escorted off the property,” he said.

“Look,” Gerry said, in a tone that could have sliced concrete block. “I did what you wanted, and I fired him—but like he said, this is a busy day. I don’t have time for this horseshit.” The man in white raised an eyebrow at him, and Gerry glowered as he added an acid addendum. “Sir.”

Eagan gave Gerry a thin, bemused smile. “I wouldn’t dream of troubling you, Mr. Harper. My men will see to his removal, but you will inform your crew not to allow him anywhere near the site.“

“I’ll take care of it,” Gerry said, then sat down and started shuffling through paper.

Eagan turned to Hal, his smile dying away entirely. “As for you—I don’t want to see you within so much as a mile of the site again. You will be escorted all the way to your vehicle, and we will inspect it for any further missing items before you leave.”

Hal bristled, but he managed to push his anger back down. “I don’t drive to work,” he pointed out. “I take the bus.” Which wouldn’t be by for an hour, God help him.

This did not please Eagan, and for a moment, he almost looked alarmed, but then his expression shifted back into a sneer. “It will be my pleasure to hire a taxi on your behalf, simply to see you off the site immediately.”

“Keep your money,” Hal said. “I’m taking the bus.” He nodded to the goons, then resumed his march for the door.

“If you are found anywhere near the site,” Eagan called after him, “anywhere, my men will take action against you.”

You couldn’t pay me to come back to this site, Hal thought, but said nothing, only kept heading for the door, down the stairs, towards the street, and freedom.

But the goons followed even as he crossed the street and walked down the block, keeping just behind him. They stayed with him all the way to the bus stop, and when he sat down on the bench, they stood at either end of it like sentries, and it was clear they weren’t going to move anytime soon.

Hal hunkered down on the bench and glared at the sidewalk. He wanted to pace, wanted to wander up and down the block, kicking and cursing under his breath while he tried to sort this out, to try and understand or at least to get rid of his anger, but he wasn’t going to do that with these idiots here, so he just sat, stewing, and hating. But after ten minutes even this got old, so he sat back, opened his backpack, and pulled out a book. He wasn’t sure how he was going to focus enough to read, but he might as well try.

But when he saw the cover of the paperback he pulled out, he stopped. He had put a new murder mystery in there, he’d been sure of it: something he’d picked up last week at the grocery store but hadn’t started yet. This book was not that book. It wasn’t a book he had ever seen before, and it certainly wasn’t something he’d ever buy. It didn’t have a title, just a picture: a white fox standing in front of flowering tree. The cover was golden and embossed with all sorts of symbols he didn’t know.

Hal glanced down at the backpack, worried that he’d picked up the wrong one somehow, but no, it was his—when he double-checked inside the flap, he saw the saftey pin wound with thread he kept there, just in case. Hal shut the flap, then looked up at the pair of goons uneasily as he tried to hide the book with his arm. Was this what they thought he’d stolen? But the goons only gave him stony stares, then went back to gazing straight ahead.

Hal looked down to frown at the book again, and when he saw it, he startled, and immediately dropped it. The strange fox book was gone, and his own paperback, Cold Case in Cleveland, tumbled over his knees and down into the gutter.

Shaking, Hal slid forward on the bench and reached down to pick it up. Something damn weird was going on, that was for sure. He grabbed the book, watching it carefully to see if it would change again, but it didn’t. He settled back onto the bench with tentative relief and glanced up the street in the vain hope that the bus had decided to come forty-five minutes early today.

The bus wasn’t there. But the bar was, standing innocently in the middle of the empty lot, as if it had never left. And the woman in the fur coat was standing in front of it again. She saw Hal, smiled, and waved.

Then she crossed the street and came towards him.

This is what procrastination looks like.

2009-06-29T22:32:57Z

Actually, it's more what a scattered Heidi looks like. Dan was off today, but only today, and so today had this faux-weekend feel to it, though it wasn't. Anna had a friend over, too, and I went to the gym and a chiro appointment, and I did laundry, so it's one of those days when I sit down at 5:30 and ask myself what I got done today, and the answer is "chores and errands." Which always makes me want to drink. Today, however, it isn't true. Because today I did this.

As whiteboard outlines go, it's pretty wimpy (it's also backwards), but this story is blissfully short (for me) and straightforward (for me). It used to be called Shining Light, and it still sort of is, but I'm thinking of calling it "Hero." Not sure if it can hold up the one-word title, but I might give it a try. (Gilly, that's the one I sent you notes on.) I want to send it here. I think. Not yet, though, because I'm still sorting it out. jl_merrow and munchkinian beta'd for me, and thanks very much to them again, and now I am chewing on it. I got all the way to act three, had a eureka moment, and now I know everything that needs to happen, almost, and I just have to do it. But now I have to tweak, here, and there, and elsewhere, and I have to stew. So what I need is a nice long, quiet day where I do nothing but wrestle with it until I get another rhythm going. And then a bit more beta-ing, and then proposal, and then: submission! Because this one is going to a publisher.

THE SEVENTH VEIL, however, is at an editor. It is still going to be self-published, possibly with a bit more oomph than I previously thought, but that cake is still in the oven. More on that later. The editor stopped by today to drop something off, and from the sorts of comments she made, little things she's caught and that she's noting, I got excited. So that's good.

But I need to email/call my brother, and I need to finish this book, and I need to clean the house, and the list goes on and on, and in the meantime, I am just itching to get back to drafting.

What I'd like out of this week would be to get a handle on my schedule. What I hate about the way my life works is that while I'm here all day, I often get nothing in particular accomplished, just lots of bits of lots of things. I really hate that, and I want it to stop. And this is something that I can stop. So, I'm going to make this week the Week I Figure It Out, and if I fail, I will make next week the Week I Figure Out Why I Couldn't Figure It Out Last Week And Then Will Get It Right Now. There's probably more I should be blogging about. Well, "should" is a strong word--there's more I'd like to be recording here. But I will put that on the list of things to work in, and away we will go.

You should watch Virtuality

2009-06-29T00:54:20Z

I think. I'm still watching on Hulu, but so far I'm liking it. Interesting situations, interesting characters. Maybe you all know about it already and I'm the last person on the blue boat to know. But, in case I'm not:

Learn the deets here. And enjoy! I'll update this post with a verdict when I finish. So far it's winning out over Sims 3 and editing. Apparently, if we like it we're supposed to lobby Fox for it to be a series. There's a Facebook group or something.

(Found out about this from erastes , and I will admit that I started watching because she said that 1: that it was like Firefly and 2: there was a gay couple in it.)

UPDATE: Just finished. Verdict is that it's quite good. Reminds me of Lost in that you don't quite know what's going on, and that's part of the premise. What's real, what isn't? It seems like a show that would have a lot of cool risks and interesting character development. Great situations. So far I'd say the writers are smart, but not so sharp they cut themselves, and the premise would get me to turn in again. This is the Facebook fan page. There's something about sending postcards to Fox. I think Twitter and just general net viral exposure is a good start, too.

Six months on

2009-06-27T17:17:35Z

I've been meaning for awhile to write a six-month reflection post, since it's now officially six months since my body blew up on me, and I felt the blog deserved a marker for that. Right now I'm feeling like the blog deserves so much more than I am giving it in general, but more on that later. For now, I'll do the body stuff, because it's time.

This is actually hard to break into, this round-up. It's too easy to lapse into clichés like "six months ago everything changed" or something else that's borrowed or pat, or overstated. That's been the trouble with this gig all along. I didn't get cancer. I didn't have a debilitating accident. I didn't contract or express a disease with a sexy name or high profile or even really visible symptoms. Essentially, I just folded in on myself. I hurt, but I could fake it and look okay. I couldn't really function, but I could move around appearing like most people. It was like this condition I went and had in secret. The pain very rarely came on in a hard bite; usually it came (and still comes) like a slow fog, until all of a sudden it's everywhere, and you realize the fog is poisoned, and oh shit, where are the pills?

I have learned a lot in the last six months, and I have changed a lot more both physically and mentally than I have in any other six month period. I was not able to do much work that paid, and in fact I was a serious drain on the family purse. But I did a lot of work in my body, and a lot in my head. A lot of work in my head. I have come to a few conclusions, most of them not terribly profound, but they're nice and centering, and I'm happy with them. I'll share them here.

Maintaining a body isn't something you can do for a little bit. You have to do it forever. I took two weeks off to go on the trip, and I was very active on the trip. I also did a lot of sitting in the car. The cost for those two weeks off and all that sitting is amazingly big. I lost a great deal of my core, and my stamina is way down. I've spent a week trying to get back, and I'm not yet where I was when I left: I'm guessing in another week I might be close. Today I'm feeling for the first time almost like I want to feel again, but not quite, and it's really hitting me today that it is not that I will work out and do weights and train until I'm at an ideal point and then I can slack off. This is what I will do forever. All my trainers and therapists have said as much, but today I fully grasped what a marriage this endeavor has been.

Fitness and health are addictive. I was upset a lot on the vacation when I couldn't exercise, and I got frustrated at the realization that while I was willing to stop and do the work, time didn't often allow it, and so it had to be put aside. This week I have been rabid about getting my workout in. Yesterday I got caught up in revision and didn't get to the gym, and this morning I didn't even let myself open the document. The gym had to come first. Quite simply, I like how I feel when I exercise. Or, rather, I like how I feel once I have exercised. And there really is a zen to my routine. I have come to find the time on the elliptical comforting, and I look forward to it. I'm sometimes cranky about having to push myself, but I like the feeling I get when I complete a set. Not only is it helping my body, but it made me feel I accomplished something.

Getting fit takes so much more effort and so much more work than anybody ever told me it would, and losing weight is even harder. I work out at least six hours a week. I spend half an hour on the treadmill. I do weights and pushes and planks and all manner of tightening, strengthening, and firming exercises. They do work. I have gone down a bit in size--but not much. I still see pictures of myself and feel like I look way, way too big. I still have thighs that alarm me when I put on a bathing suit. I still look at other women and feel jealous and angry because I don't understand why they get to be so much thinner than me when they don't even work out. I get mad sometimes because all that work didn't make me in a size twelve by this time. I can't decide if I wish people would have told me it took this much work, or that managing food is even harder, or if I'm glad they lied and told me how great this was going to make me look. It has made a difference, but it's a lot slower. My trainer last fall told me she gets frustrated with how easy our culture paints weight loss, and I'm starting to agree with her. It's not something you can cheat on. It has to become your religion, or you need to make peace with where your body is and be done with it.

The work is hard, but what it gives your mind is worth even more than what it gives your body. I have learned that when a pain bit hits me, I find out fast what issues I have been avoiding in my life. If there's something I haven't dealt with or processed, it will surface, and it will be ten times worse. If I'm feeling upset or low or vulnerable, a pain episode will magnify it. It's those moments that are the most dangerous, because it's then that it's so tempting to hide behind the pain, to use it as an excuse for not doing things. It gets tricky, because sometimes the pain means that I truly can't. It's hard to know when I'm rationalizing and when I'm recognizing. I'm not always good at sorting the two out. But when I chose to examine what the pain dredges up, when I accept where my body is, I can often find it easier to accept where my mind is.

There is a zen to pain. I can't really say that I'm glad or sorry that this condition happened. This is, actually, how I have always been, but for whatever reason, this is when it's chosen to go critical. This pain, this weakness, this condition: it is who I am. It is me, and I am it. It is my teacher. It is my demon. It is my lover, and it is what I fight. It is as much a part of me as my arm. It is something that I can use to change myself and mold myself and discover myself, or it is something that I can use to hide and make excuses. It is, as my physical therapist says, my gift.

I'll end this by saying that I'm happy. I'm good with where I am. I do not resent my condition. I want to keep working with it. I want to keep exploring and challenging, and changing.

And that, pretty much, is where I'm at.

Pimping SA's Reading Quiz

2009-06-26T14:11:08Z

Every day I read Shelf Awareness, an email newsletter put out by the executive editor of bookselling at Publisher's Weekly. I learn more scanning this daily document than I do any other industry info, and this sucker is free. (And advertising in it isn't so high it's impossible either, though it is high.) Sometimes I read, sometimes I skim, but I always enjoy it. Today, though, they interviewed an author and gave a book quiz as part of it, and I'm pretty sure they've done this before. This is the first day, though, that I've decided to steal it and answer it here. There just aren't enough quizzes about books.

Here are the questions if you want to pimp it for yourself. Answer in the comments if you want to play, or even better, on your own blog and spread it virally.

SHELF AWARENESS READING QUIZ:

On your nightstand now:
Favorite book when you were a child:
Your top five authors:
Favorite book of all time:
Book you've faked reading:
Book you're an evangelist for:
Book you've bought for the cover:
Book that changed your life:
Favorite line from a book:
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Earliest book you remember:
Favorite book read to you by your parent:

On your nightstand now:

I actually can't read well in bed; I'm famous for planning to but end up falling asleep. Currently I am listening to Wyrd Sisters on audiobook (do NOT like this narrator!) and am carting The Well-Fed Self Publisher around the house and to all appointments/car trips.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Any fairytale, though I particularly loved ones that were also romances. I also enjoyed Heidi (for obvious reasons) and briefly wanted to change my name to Adelheid.

Your top five authors:

Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Henry Fielding. If I only had three, these would be it. But I can't do five: I have to do six, if I do more than three, and tier two is Michael Chabon, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Jenny Crusie.

My favorite book of all time:

It waffles between American Gods and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and I honestly don't know which one I'd pick if I had to chose. Probably American Gods, but whatever one I picked, I'd immediately miss the other one.

Book you've faked reading:

War and Peace, when I was in tenth grade. I've often thought of rereading it since, though.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Anything by Pratchett, and also American Gods and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Not sure. I pick up a lot for the cover, but I never buy without reading the back copy and the first few pages, and even then sometimes I get burned.

Book that changed your life:

Knight In Shining Armor by Jude Devereaux. My high school music teacher lent it to me, and it marked my twenty year voracious reading of romance novels. I've all but stopped now, but it was a very important period of my development as a writer, and as a reader.

Favorite line from a book:

I aen't dead.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Any of them. If I wait long enough on a good one, it's close. Hoping to do that soon with Tom Jones.

Earliest book you remember:

A board book that I could "read" when I was three. It was green and had a farmer and apples. I remember wishing I could be in the picture, and also all the adults who would coo and beam when I read it out loud like a good monkey.

Favorite book read to you by your parent:

Little Lulu and Oh What A Busy Day, both of which my mother saved and gave to me, and which are now my daughter's favorites, too.

Get your ticket right

2009-06-26T05:26:51Z

I did not get into Michael Jackson during the Thriller era. It had something to do, I think, with the fact that the rich girl in school (the only one in town who had cable) had a tape made of the huge video special of the lead song and brought it to class to show. For one, the video scared me a bit (I was eleven, but still a wuss), and for two, I was really jealous of Patricia for having the attention. But I knew about the songs, because you couldn't not, and I knew about parachute pants, and I'm pretty sure my little brother (very little at the time) had a red jacket with eight zillion zippers on. However, it wasn't until Bad came out that I got into MJ, and it was entirely because of the "Smooth Criminal" video. I liked the visuals of it, and I liked the sound of the song. I liked it so much that I bought the whole album, and checked the Thriller LP out from the library and listened to it over and over. Then I saved up my money and bought Moonwalker.

Moonwalker is the weirdest "movie" you'll ever see. It's nothing more than ego masturbation, but it is so disjointed and weird and full of such oddities that it becomes good in the same way that Mommie Dearest is good. No one in my family can hear "It's just a plug" with out doing it in MJ falsetto, and we all laugh, and anyone not in the family wonders what drugs we're on. (Go here, and scroll to 9:20. Or watch the bizarre transformer/ascension bit too. No one will know.) If I got rid of the VCR tape, it was recently, which means I have hung onto that thing for close to twenty years.

Jackson has been, though, since those days when I was eleven until now, a strange, surreal persona. I didn't understand him in my adolescence, enjoyed him (with a bit of hesitation) in my mid-teens, and then watched him drift out into stranger and stranger waters as I aged. For a long time now I've seen him as someone very, very talented who is also quite likely the most surreal person I've ever seen. I'm sure he was a very real and true friend to many people and that a real man is being mourned today, and my thoughts are with them. I'm also relieved for him, though, that after all these years he is, finally, free from that gargantuan persona.

Everyone is posting concert footage video or classic cool stuff. I of course am going to post one of my favorite bits from Moonwalker. This is the "Speed Demon" sequence, where Michael, after running away from many too-adoring fans, dons a rabbit costume and runs off into the desert. Hijinks ensue, as does extreme oddity. My favorite is the rabid grandmother.

Good night to the prince of pop, and may you rest, deservedly, in peace.

Slave to a hula hoop

2009-06-25T20:06:44Z

This is Grace Jones, singing "Slave To The Rhythm" as she hula-hoops. Through the entire song.

It's a sign of how body-focused I've become that after I got done being amazed, I found myself thinking, "Hula hoop. That's good, cheap core exercise."

This does not mean, however, that there will ever be Youtube footage of me singing anything while hula hooping.

Probably.

The Wednesday state of my head

2009-06-24T14:59:25Z

I just realized that the 10:30 hair appointment I thought I had is actually at 12:30; it's telling that my reaction to that was not, "Oh, good, now I have time to write this morning after all" but "Oh, shit, I have time to write now after all." I'm in that hard place where you want to write but haven't returned to a groove, and worse, whatever I'm picking up right now is a start: start back into redrafting STB, which has sent me back to the beginning, AGAIN, or begin revising SHINING LIGHT, which is what I think I'm landing on, but it's the starting bit, and I'm angsty. All I want to do is play Sims 3, which I will do at some point because it's good brain release, but it needs to be a reward for two hours of work, not the avoidance of two hours of work. And even when I make that resolve, I think of the dirty house (cats make a hella mess after two weeks alone, largely in hair tumbleweeds with some sick for accent) and mountain of laundry, and the yard that should be weeded and the scrapbook I should start. Ah, so many things I could do besides write.

This morning I did make it to the gym, and by morning I mean six AM. This is because I don't want to try and go with Anna along, but because she's home from school, I need to go before or after Dan goes to work. I went after on Monday, and it was a real disaster, one because it was my first day back and two because I'm more tired at the end of the day. Today was much better. I still feel like my midsection is made of jello, though. Thinking seriously of purchasing a medicine ball for now and a Bosu very soon. My arms and shoulders are already happier, and my hips/glutes are slowly groaning back into place, but my belly is still just lost. It was this way before I went, and now it's just awful. I became so uncomfortable on the trip, largely because of my middle area. Once you're accustomed to feeling some strength there, it's truly awful when it goes. Thus the motivation to wake at 5:15 and get to the gym. I would do it again in a heartbeat: it's truly wonderful to feel like your body can hold itself upright. I plan to make this state continue and improve as much as I can.

The rest of my brain that isn't trying to write or get out of writing is thinking very hard about publishing. At this moment I am leaning on trying SHINING LIGHT on some small presses I've been seeing hither & yon on the net while at the same time preparing THE SEVENTH VEIL for Lulu. I've done a lot of research on self-publishing and the current market, and while I'm convinced SP is the way to go unless you're feeling very lucky or have golden connections (and even then is no sure thing for more than the next few months), I'm not comfortable with the investment portion. It would take several thousand of capital, possibly up to ten, and I do not have that. I waffle on whether or not having the pressure to perform would help push me if I did have it, but since I don't, it's a moot point. I'm going to keep educating myself, and if I get any traction on book one of the Etsey series, I'll consider fully self-publishing in my own press for subsequent books. In the meantime, I will learn more by trying through other publishers and hopefully build up some sort of visibility through the same. In an even deeper portion of my hindbrain I'm toying with marketing strategies. Watch this space, because it will probably involve freebie things via this blog. Also, by the end of the summer, I'm going to have a website.

That's me. And now that I've procrastinated another half hour, I should really hang it up and go write.

Freakishly accurate

2009-06-23T14:25:34Z

Someone aimed me at this numerology link, and for fun I plugged in my full name and gave it a whirl. Jesusgod, it is freaky.

This is probably only a fun game to read the whole thing if you know me, via this blog or real life, with some depth, but if you want to play, click under the cut.

You entered: Heidi Anne Cullinan

There are 17 letters in your name.
Those 17 letters total to 83
There are 8 vowels and 9 consonants in your name.

What your first name means:

German	Female	Noble. The German form of Adelaide. Famous bearer: heroine of Johanna Spyri's classic children's novel 'Heidi'.
French	Female	Variant of Adelaide: Nobility. French form of the Old German Adalheidis, a compound of 'athal' (noble) and 'haida' (hood). Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, was named after Queen Adelaide, 19th century King William IV's consort.

Your number is: 11
The characteristics of #11 are: High spiritual plane, intuitive, illumination, idealist, a dreamer.

The expression or destiny for #11:
Your Expression number is 11. The number 11 is the first of the master numbers. It is associated with idealistic concepts and rather spiritual issues. Accordingly, it is a number with potentials that are somewhat more difficult to live up to. You have the capacity to be inspirational, and the ability to lead merely by your own example. An inborn inner strength and awareness can make you an excellent teacher, social worker, philosopher, or advisor. No matter what area of work you pursue, you are very aware and sensitive to the highest sense of your environment. Your intuition is very strong; in fact, many psychic people and those involved in occult studies have the number 11 expression. You possess a good mind with keen analytical ability. Because of this you can probably succeed in most lines of work, however, you will do better and be happier outside of the business world. Oddly enough, even here you generally succeed, owing to your often original and unusual approach. Nonetheless, you are more content working with your ideals, rather than dollars and cents.

The positive aspect of the number 11 expression is an always idealistic attitude. Your thinking is long term, and you are able to grasp the far-reaching effects of actions and plans. You are disappointed by the shortsighted views of many of your contemporaries. You are deeply concerned and supportive of art, music, or of beauty in any form.
The negative attitudes associated with the number 11 expression include a continuous sense of nervous tension; you may be too sensitive and temperamental. You tend to dream a lot and may be more of a dreamer than a doer. Fantasy and reality sometimes become intermingled and you are sometimes very impractical. You tend to want to spread the illumination of your knowledge to others irrespective of their desire or need.
Your Soul Urge number is: 6

A Soul Urge number of 6 means:
With a number 6 Soul Urge, you would like to be appreciated for your ability to handle responsibility. Your home and family are likely to be a strong focus for you, perhaps the strongest focus of your life. Friendship, love, and affection are high on your list of priorities for a happy life. You have a lot of diplomatic tendencies in your makeup, as you a able to rectify and balance situations with an innate skill. You like working with people rather than by yourself. It is extremely important for you to have harmony in your environment at all times.

The positive side of the 6 Soul Urge produces a huge capacity for responsibility; you are always there and ready to assume more than your share of the load. If you possess positive 6 Soul Urges and express them, you are known for your generosity, understanding and deep sympathetic attitude. Strong 6 energy is very giving of love, affection, and emotional support. You may have the inclination to teach or serve your community in other idealistic ways. You have natural abilities to help people. You are also likely to have artistic and creative leanings.
If you have an over-supply of 6 energy in your makeup, you may express some of the negative traits common to this number. With such a strong sympathetic attitude, it is easy to become too emotional. Sometimes the desires to render help can be over done, and it can become interfering and an attitude that is too protective, rather than helpful. The person with too much 6 energy often finds that people tend to take advantage of this very giving spirit. You may tend to repress your own needs so that you can cater to the demands from others. At times, there may be a tendency in this, for becoming over-loaded with such demands, and as a result become resentful.
Your Inner Dream number is: 5

An Inner Dream number of 5 means:
You dream of being totally free and unrestrained by responsibility. You see yourself conversing and mingling with the natives in many nations, living for adventure and life experiences. You imagine what you might accomplished.

Most beautiful visual orgy ever

2009-06-22T14:04:46Z

This is apparently in some elevator at a fancy hotel, using over 400 clips to show a descent to hell or rise to heaven, depending on your direction. Mostly I think it's the most beautiful visual orgy I've seen lately.

Via Boing Boing.

Civilization by Marco Brambilla from CRUSH on Vimeo.

Full trip photo roundup

2009-06-21T22:31:19Z

Where I last left off, if you've been following along.

Full album one.

Full album two.

Thereyago.

amazoniowan @ 2009-06-19T23:32:00

2009-06-20T04:39:55Z

This is the distance we traveled today. 850 miles, by car, in one day. We woke in Glenwood Canyon, with clouds hanging low over the valley, shivering in our shorts and wrapping blankets around us in the car, and we ended the day in Iowa, sweating and damp at 10:30 as the jungle-like air pressed down upon us. We only spent 45 minutes of the time between 7AM MST and 10:30PM CST out of the car, and we have the sore asses to prove it.

I am so happy to be home. The cats are weirded out by us, but they all lived, and so did the fish, and everything in the house is fine. We are back. I'm reeling, but I'm so happy. As we came into Iowa, we all cheered, and as Ames appeared on the horizon, I nearly cried. It was a fantastic trip. It was epic. It was wonderful. It was something I'll never forget. But while there were many, many wonderful moments, the hands-down best one was coming home.

More photos tomorrow and a proper wrap-up. But all posts now are coming from Iowa, home sweet home.

It's a Small World after all

2009-06-19T04:10:21Z

I've had plans every day to update, but we keep getting in at 10 or later to the hotels, and we're always too busy in the morning. So you're going to get several days at once. The cut doesn't work, so apologies in advance to your friends page.

Sunday

Dan's sister Wendy came in late Saturday night from Canada to Santa Monica; she's been splitting time between Yellowknife & LA for some time now, but on Saturday she came to Cali for good. And so on Sunday we went to see her and her boyfriend Andrew at their apartment in Santa Monica. We quickly set out for the bus to a favorite restaurant, then walked down the boardwalk to the pier. After a brief swing on the muscle beach, we hit the carnival, having a few rides on the carousel, a wade in the ocean, and some cotton candy.

We hit the promenade for awhile, where Dan met a friend for coffee and we helped Andrew pick up a new Macbook before we went home to play with it. He delighted Anna by making movies in Photobooth, keeping her completely entertained while Dan, Wendy & I went to the store and picked up a few snacks. We were sorry to leave them and are already planning on when we can see them again.

Wendy, however, was free the next day, and promised to come with us to Disneyland.

Monday

We picked Wendy up at nine, then headed down to Anaheim. We'd gone on a weekday in hopes that it would be less populated, but it was so packed that by the end of the day it was declared "full," and no one else was admitted. The lines were very long, never less than forty-five minutes. So we chose carefully and made the best of what time we had.

We started with Star Tours, then parted while Dan & Wendy went to the Haunted Mansion while Anna and I toured the Princess area. She wanted to meet the princesses, but all the characters are walled off in special sections now, and you have to stay in line to meet them. The princess line all day was over two hours, and we just couldn't waste the time. So we played paparazzi over the fence & took stealth photos and then got Anna's face painted instead.

After meeting back up, we all went to It's A Small World. I had been to Disneyland when I was Anna's age, and I don't remember much, but I remembered that ride as soon as I saw it. The exterior is so big, and so beautifully retro--it's like stepping back in time. The ride itself has been updated some, but not much, and it was easily my favorite moment of the day. So much so, that after going on Alice in Wonderland and having lunch, when Dan & Wendy went to Space Mountain, Anna and I did a spin on Peter Pan's Flight then went on It's s Small World again. Both times I felt all choked up at odd times--I don't know why, but it was just so . . . much. I think it was the music and the dark and being there with Anna, remembering being young and seeing it for my first time. The seal on the deal was finding an Its A Small World mug at the end of the ride, which I've been having my morning coffee in since.

Space Mountain's line had promised to be 75 minutes, but ended up being over two hours, then broke down just as Dan and Wendy were about to get on; while they battled that, Anna and I wandered down to Pixie Hollow because it was near to them, and would make a good last right. But to Anna's delight we realized half-way through the 45 minute wait that it wasn't a ride but a chance to meet the fairies. And so Anna met some yellow fairy and the famous Tinkerbell, and even got the latter's autograph.

After meeting up again at last, we headed to Red Robin to meet Kim & her husband, a friend of mine who lives near Anaheim. They treated us to some great burgers & bottomless fries, and then we headed back to LA to collapse into our beds.

Tuesday

We headed out on Tuesday to give us an easier way back, but first Kari took us to lunch in El Segundo to get us tanked up for the road. Unfortunately, we lingered too long and ended up in LA traffic, which brought us into Las Vegas around 9:30. We decided to stay up a bit, going up to the top of the tower at the Stratosphere (our hotel), then taking a cab ride through the strip.

Our hotel was chosen because Dan found a room for $30; we worried that it was going to be a wreck, but it was only sparse, with no real surface spaces and no frills at all. The bed however, was great, and we wished in the morning we could linger longer. But after a stop at the amazing breakfast buffet, we hit the road for Glenwood Springs.

Wednesday

We had a ten hour trip from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, and it was made more complicated by the fact that we lost an hour due to a time change and that we lingered too long at the buffet. We were tired, and I just couldn't drive well, which left most of it to Dan. We canvassed the entire state of Utah, which was beautiful but barren, and when we hit the rainstorm at the top of the pass, we wondered if we were going to lose it completely. But we made it through, and finally arrived at Glenwood Springs tired, strung out, and ready for bed.

Thursday

Today was our resting day; we slept in, then headed to a ranch just east of Meeker up in the mountains where we'd reserved a trail ride. It rained on the way there and poured on the way back, but the weather fairies blessed us yet again and made sure we had a (mostly) dry ride.

Our guide was great, too; as Dan put it, "That was a real cowboy."

We came back to the hotel in Glenwood Springs, ran a few errands and grabbed some dinner, then headed for the hot springs. It's a natural phenomenon funneled into a pool and a therapy pool; the regular pool is the size of a football field and 90 degrees, and the threapy pool is the size of a regular pool (or perhaps a bit smaller) and 104. Both are cooled with non-spring water, because the spring itself is 122! We swam there for hours, came home and showered, and now we're getting ready for bed.

Tomorrow we're going to head back to Iowa; we're going to try and make it all the way home, but it's a 15 hour drive and might prove a bit much. The lure of sleeping in our own beds, though, is a strong siren song. You'll have to tune in Saturday morning and see what we ended up doing.

In the meantime, here's the link to the photo album starting at the Santa Monica day, and here's the second volume I had to start with Disneyland, as I couldn't fit it all in the first volume. Watch for our tweets tomorrow, and wish us good weather for the way home. Especially as Dan tackles the Loveland Pass tomorrow and more winding, winding roads.

See you soon.

Leaving Las Vegas

2009-06-17T17:42:24Z

A quick post as we leave Vegas: we stayed at the Stratosphere last night, where the cost of internet was almost half the room. This sounds bad until I tell you that the room only cost $30 for the night.

Las Vegas was an impromptu stop devised around Saturday when we were trying to suss out the way home. Dan discovered that we could stay at the Stratosphere for only $30, so he booked it. We feared it would be a real dive, but outside of a strange bathroom, it was actually just fine. As all Nevada hotels are, it had a bed, a TV, and a bathroom, but that was it. No coffee maker, no fridge, no nothing to keep you in the room. We got there at 9:30, so it wasn't much of a night, but we managed to get to the top of the Stratosphere Tower & took a few pictures.

It was high! I was really nervous, but I was also really tired and didn't feel particularly safe walking, let alone standing 800 feet in the open air. Dan considered riding the Big Shot, then got a close look at it and decided, ah, no. So we went back down, took a cab ride down the strip, and went to bed.

Yesterday was our last day in LA; we packed up, hit the grocery store for the ride home, then had lunch with inkgrrl before heading out. We ended up in rush hour traffic and added 2 hours to our trip, but we eventually made it through, and made it to Vegas . I drove through LA and Dan did the mountains into Vegas.

Dan's driving again today, where we will hit four states: Nevada, Arizona (briefly), Utah, and Colorado as we head to Glenwood Springs. The cabbie last night tried to convince us to hit Bryce Canyon, but between the sheer cliffs by the road and the promise of many tunnels, he hit both of Dan & I's panic buttons, and we decided to never go there, ever.

So that's us. We'll report again tonight once we get to the Springs. Photos then, too.

Sunday update

2009-06-14T16:31:59Z

Sorry, would have put this under a cut, but LJ just went bonkers and ate half my coding. You'll just have to scroll past me if you don't want this update.

Well, it's Sunday, and a week from today we'll be home; by the way things look right now, it should be the either the first or maybe second morning back. I have been having a blast, and vacation has been wonderful in so many ways, but I admit, too, that home is sounding so, so good.

I think most of all I miss my workouts, if you can believe it. Dan swears I don't look much different, but I completely feel the effects of not working out and of eating crazy, and I don't like it. I'll ride it out until we get back, but it's renewing my determination to not just resume my fitness stuff but to ramp it up a bit. Some of the photos we're taking are okay of me, but a lot of them remind me I'm still not standing straight, and that I really could stand to keep pushing at this, because I will not just feel better but look better, too. In the meantime, though, I'm eating leftover Du-Par's for breakfast.

I can't believe it's been Thursday since I last "reported in'! Well, we'll fix that now. And the last rounds of postcards will get addressed today as well, and mailed tomorrow.

Friday:

On Friday we woke up and headed to Los Angeles. We'd intended to get going by 8, but we were actually ready to leave by 7:30, so we did. Our goal was to experience as little of the LA rush hour as we could manage, but our early departure did mean we enjoyed Phoenix's morning commute jam. But we muddled through, and soon we were cruising at 80 down I-10, heading for the border.

I swear, I'm never going to complain about fields of corn & soybeans again. I can't stand driving through desert. It's so barren and horrid, and ugly, even when it's pretty. I miss the green so much. Believe it or not, I will rejoice to see Nebraska on the drive back. Mountains are lovely, and the ocean is breathtaking, but there is nothing that says home quite like huge green deciduous trees rustling in a June breeze while the humidity index rises.

/rant

The drive was not bad. I did all of it, which did make it long towards the end, but it still wasn't bad. I didn't like the wind at Palm Springs, and I had to stop an hour into LA and put eye drops in because I couldn't blink out the blur (bad, in six lanes of traffic), but after that and a Starbucks Iced Cappuchino (sp? I give.), I was ready to roll again. I was glad I drove, because it let Dan gawk, and gawk he did. He had to occasionally help me unsnarl Lady G, who got confused by LA's habit of shoving sixteen highways/interstates/whatevers into one road, but with some faith, pixie dust, and frantic texts to inkgrrl , we made it to her door.

We were greeted by her husband and two excited dogs, and then inkgrrl herself; after some visiting, then unpacking, we settled in. Anna became fast friends with Emma and Angus (the dogs), and the rest of us chatted until we realized we were hungry, at which time our hosts ordered Thai, which was very, very yummy. Dan, Anna & I then made a quick venture down to the beach, dipped in our toes, then came back to pass out.

Saturday:

This was the one unplanned day, which of course meant we tried to shove everything into it we wanted to do but hadn't booked. In the end, we spent some time in the morning planning the trip back, adding a stay in Vegas and leaving a night earlier to help us ease the passage back and add some time in Colorado. Then we made a quick trip to the Culver CIty Hello Kitty Store, where Anna was, frankly, stunned to speechlessness. We came back, ate lunch, then went with Kari & Stephen to Manhattan Beach, where Anna discovered all the interesting places sand can get stuck in one's person. After coming home, de-sanding, then plotting some addresses into Lady G, we set off for Hollywood.

Dan's main ambition was to see the sign and snap a photo, but since we parked in the Kodak Theater ramp (ALWAYS the way to go if you're heading into Hollywood), we also browsed the mall, the Hollywood Boulevard shops, and of course, the walk of stars. Anna found another Hello Kitty store, and this time was apparently acclimated enough to rush about wanting everything there, but settled on a pin and a stamper. We got our photos, and also two Oscars (Best Family, and Best Daughter), and a lot of photos of the sidewalk.

Anna was both fascinated and terrified of the actors dressed up in front of the Chinese Theater; some of them scared the crap out of her, but some were her favorite characters, and she frankly didn't believe us that they weren't real. When she saw Willy Wonka (from the Depp version), she couldn't stand it, and decided she had to go tell him she was a fan. Except by the time we got parked, pushed through the crowd, and reached him, he was gone. She was crushed. But then, on the way back from an aborted attempt to walk to Joan Crawford's star, she suddenly began bouncing and shrieking incoherently, and eventually I realized she had spied him sitting in a restaurant. So, armed with a five dollar bill, we went in, asked if he would mind, and not only was he very polite and kind, he gave her a golden ticket to hold for the photo and played Willy Wonka to the hilt during the entire exchange. When I passed him the five, he was visibly shocked, and I realized he'd done the whole thing expecting not to get paid. It was worth it, though, for Anna's smile.

We'd been on a mission to find Joan Crawford's star, as I mentioned, but it was very far down, and the neighborhood was degenerating as we walked, and so was the sunlight. We decided we'd try it by car, and if we couldn't park, so be it. But the spirit of Joan was with us, and not only did we find it, but there was parking right beside it, so we got out, had Anna snap the photo, and now the pilgrimage is complete.

On the way home, we hit Du-Par's, a local diner from Farmer's Market which has now become a chain in the area, but still looks like it did in 1938. We had the famous hotcakes, failed to finish them all around, then brought home an order for inkgrrl . Her husband poured me a Scotch when I got home, and shortly thereafter, I was in bed.

Today we meet up with Dan's sister & her boyfriend, and hopefully can meet up with some other LJ users as well. Tuesday we begin the trip home. We're going to stay in Vegas on Tuesday night, then head to Glenwood Springs on Wednesday, do some mineral springs swimming and horseback riding, then wake up early Friday and ride hell-for-leather for home. If we can manage to head straight there, we will, but we reserve the right to collapse in the middle of Nebraska if need be.

This is the Sunday report. Hope you've enjoyed it. Here's where we left off, I think, in the Picasa, and here's the whole album. I'll update again when I get a chance, and in the meantime, keep thinking safe thoughts for us, especially when we're on the LA Freeways.

Trip update

2009-06-11T18:03:17Z

First of all, if the photos in the previous entry weren't enough for you, here is the full Picassa album so far. We'll keep updating this puppy as the photos come in, but I'll link when we get another good chunk uploaded.

Currently we're in Phoenix, at Dan's brother's house. Dan's brother is a dentist, and he just started a brand new practice here in Chandler. It's fun to listen to Ryan talk about both dentistry and small business, because he cares a great deal about both. It's a shame so few of you are here in Arizona, because truly there can be no dentist who cares more about patients. He's a full-service dentist, doing everything from standard cleanings to dental implants, and he's also one of the rare few certified to put people under while he does the procedures. I don't require that myself, but as a true Princess of Dental Work (seven or eight root canals, two implants, countless fillings, two extractions), I can tell you he is The Shit. He's finishing off the crown for my second implant today, as a matter of fact.

Ryan and Olenka always make us feel at home, as only family can. We've spent the last two days lounging in their pool, living room, and taking many naps. They took us out for dinner on Tuesday, as it was Dan's birthday, and last night we had Costco pizza and killer salad. It's just nice to catch up with them, and to relax.

But I haven't really given you a detailed description of the whole trip so far, and Ryan & Olenka aren't the first family we've seen. So let's start this at the beginning, shall we?

Saturday

We left Ames at 7:30AM, in pouring rain. We had to load the car in it, too, which wasn't any fun since it was a tight fit and needed some serious finesse to get the job done. We managed, but the first effort really was a bit slapdash. I hadn't slept well the night before, which made for a less than auspicious start, and the rain didn't help. But we lifted our chins and carried on, and by the time we made it out of Iowa, the rain had stopped.

The big joke around the midwest is that driving through Nebraska is driving through hell; after driving from Cortez, Colorado to Flagstaff, I can tell you that Nebraska is paradise in comparison. And to be honest, this time it was very lush and verdant, and we enjoyed watching the Platte River follow us along. The only real problem with Nebraska is that it is so very wide, and you begin to worry that you'll never get through it. And when you begin your day at 5AM, it's especially long.

Our real coup was the cooler. I had packed a full-sized cooler plus a smaller collapsible full of meat, cheese, yogurt, milk, pop, pudding, and juice, and I also packed bread, cereal, crackers, almonds, protein bars and other such nibbles in grocery bags. As a consequence, we bought nothing but gas until Sterling, Colorado, and there all we got were some chicken strips for something warm. Prior to that we had milk and cookies, cereal, sandwiches, applesauce, coffee--everything. And we've done that every day we've been on the road. I think I spent about $100 in groceries for the trip, and so far they've lasted us six days. They'll carry us to Los Angeles tomorrow, too, and at best I'll need to do a bit of replacement in LA before we head home.

The first trip crisis, though, was the camera. I had broken our good one last year by accident, and we've been using Dan's mother's; for Dan's birthday (which was Tuesday) they gave him a new one. But we didn't use it much before we left, and on Saturday morning we realized it really didn't take that good of photos, that they were always blurry. So we knew that on the way or in Denver that night we'd have to pick up a new one. We ended up picking up a Canon Power Shot SX110IS at the Englewood Best Buy, and we are absolutely pleased with it. Most impressive to me is how well it takes photos out the car window--even at high speeds they aren't blurry. Well done, Canon.

Saturday ended in Denver, with us arriving at my aunt and uncle's house around 7:45 MST. Anna played with their dogs while Dan & I ran to Best Buy, and then we all sat down for some grilled pork chops & killer salad. Anna & I took a dip in their hot tub while Dan played with the new camera, and then we all passed out in my cousin Scott's bedroom. In the morning my aunt fixed us a lovely breakfast, we had a bit of a visit, and then it was on to Cortez.

Sunday

On Sunday we were travelling to Cortez, Colorado, which is very near Mesa Verde National Park. We weren't sure if we'd get there in time to tour the park or not; turns out decidedly not, both from arrival time and how long it ended up taking us to tour the park. But the drive was beautiful. No one could read or watch anything; we were too busy gawking. Anna declared she wanted to move to Colorado, and began to weave herself a life where she lived in a mountain valley and raised horses. The most interesting part of all this was that we wouldn't have taken this route if it weren't for the Garmin GPS system we borrowed from Dan's parents; we had planned on going south on I-25, but the Garmin took us through the mountains themselves. (We've nicknamed the Garmin Lady G because it's a female voice, and we gave her a British accent.) We could have lived without Wolf Creek Pass, though. Dan did the driving, and I kept my eyes shut tight and tried not to hyperventilate.

We arrived at Cortez around 8PM, got ourselves situated in the room, then set off for some dinner. The Pizza Hut seemed to have very bad service, so we aborted and went to Nero's Italian Restaurant instead, which was absolutely perfect. We headed back to the room, and after a quick dip in the hot tub for Anna, we passed out in bed.

Monday

On Monday morning we toured Mesa Verde, or at least a portion of it. We had no idea it was such a vast park, and we didn't realize we'd have to drive an hour up into mountains to get to it! As a consequence, we had to content ourselves with just a portion of the park due to time, so we saw the Spruce Tree House, the most preserved and accessible monument in the park. After a quick picnic, we got back on the road and headed south to Arizona.

The drive quickly became desolate, and shortly after that we entered the Navajo Nation. The landscape was beautiful in a strange way, but there was no real life, and it was just emptiness after emptiness, with a lot of roadside stands offering jewelry and Native American crafts. We did stop at Four Corners, but otherwise we just drove as fast as we could, trying to get out of it. We did stop at Cameron Trading Post, which we wished then were our hotel, as it would have put us just as close to the Grand Canyon with an hour less drive. But we had a reservation at the Best Western of Williams, Arizona, so we had to keep going.

The funniest part was that we saw a family at Cameron Trading Post who we'd seen at Mesa Verde, and we found out we were both going to the canyon the next day, too. They were from Ohio, making much the same trip as we were, though they weren't going all the way to LA. We thought of the extra driving necessary to come from Ohio, and we shuddered.

Eventually we made it to the hotel, after a bit of a kerfluffle with Lady G in Flagstaff as she insisted we take an onramp that wasn't there. But we sorted it out, got to our destination, had some Pizza Hut delivery, more hot tub, then passed out.

Tuesday

During the night, sadly, I had my worst pain day yet, which I think I blogged here. Or tweeted. Anyway, it was a grim bit of business, but I tried to slough it off as it was Dan's birthday. We gave him a present (a Trix t-shirt), packed up again, then headed to the Grand Canyon. It was raining on the way, which made us worried, and it was misty as we arrived, but within a half hour it was beautiful and sunny, and we got to see it in all its glory. It really isn't something you can capture in photos or video. You have to stand there and see it to fully grasp how huge it is, and even then you can't quite believe what you're seeing.

We also saw the Ohio family again--both of us, even though at the time we were in different parts of the park!

After the Grand Canyon, we pressed on to Phoenix, though we made a detour back to Cameron because there were a few things there we'd decided we wanted to pick up. We were glad we did, because the drive that way was beautiful. First we drove through a pine forest where we saw some elk, and then we hit several additional lookout points for the canyon, then watched it fade into almost nothing as we headed back into the Navajo Nation. We had lunch at Cameron, too, then went south into the desert.

And since then we've been here, with Ryan and Olenka, resting, relaxing, and enjoying the company. We're thinking of heading out to the mall here in a bit, and I'm going to address some of those postcards with Anna, if I can stop getting her to write them out to friends from her class whose addresses I don't have. Tomorrow we head to Los Angeles, to see Dan's sister & boyfriend and to stay with inkgrrl . We plan to see the beaches, Disneyland, and anything else that trips our fancy. Then Wednesday we begin the trek back to Iowa.

This is the report so far. I'll get you more when it's been a few more days, but keep watching twitter & Picassa if you can't keep until then.

A few photos

2009-06-09T14:01:17Z

The mountain we drove up yesterday to get to Mesa Verde

Spruce Tree House at Mesa Verde

Anna & I at Mesa Verde

Anna & I at Four Corners (getting snacks)

Dan & Anna at the Four Corners monument

Running out of time again this morning. Once again, slightly more detailed updates on Twitter. Sometimes life is easier in 140 characters.