Guest Blog: Why I'm not coming out of the closet

Not me!

It's dark in there. I like the dark. And when I don't like the dark, I know that Rick will be there to bring me out of the dark. The closet is warm and cozy. I sleep on the folded towels, and I love when they come from the dryer, because they are so nice to be on top off, and the warmth oozes into my body. The closet is huge, and there is so much to explore with its secret corners of stuff untouched for year after year after year. I'm tempted to chew through the lids to find the treasures within them. The only downside is that there is no food in here. Other than some chewing on the wooden shelves and drywall, the pickings are fairly slim. But, I can sleep just fine in here until I hear the writing chair squeak, and I know that Rick is working on something wonderful. That's when I scream bloody murder, and I know he will come. He always does.

Me. I am the People Whisperer!

I've trained him well. Because, after all, I AM the people whisperer.


Next week...exciting news. I can tell. He keeps me up until 2 in the morning working on something. If I could read, I'd tell you about it.

I am, Sydney!

I'm Just Following Orders

Guile told me to do this for reasons I'm not sure, but I've been tagged to show, from my current WIP, page 77, beginning with 7 lines from the 7th line.
- - -

"Yes, a screw. He'd been screwed. Move on. Do you have anything more conclusive?"

      Norm pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat. "I found a small bat that fits the mark on his head. I bagged the bat. It wasn't near the body and was unlikely to have struck him with sufficient force to kill him when the meteor crashed through the office. He was hit hard. Doc needs to take a liver test, but from my experience, he was dead three to five hours before he had his close encounter."

      Jerry's close encounter wasn't close. It was dead on. I popped an aspirin for my growing headache,
- - -
Conclusion: Sometimes you feel like a nut; sometimes it's confirmed.

Breaking Dawn - There's a story in all this.

It's breaking dawn, no, not the movie, the time of day. I was sleeping nicely after a frenetic Thanksgiving Day when my presence was requested at the local Home Depot by my wife to come and get "my" ten poinsettias for $1 per plant. Dutifully, I slip out of my heated waterbed and trundle outside to the frost-covered car and drive to the store to help out.

Upon arriving home, I scan the disaster that is my home. After eight hours of cooking two turkeys, 20 pounds of potatoes, making home-made stuffing (3 batches), and enough gravy to float a small boat, I washed and dried dishes for four hours. Sadly, there's still four hours of dish washing to go. I guess that's what happens when you have 26 relatives for the meal and everything is homemade and no automatic dishwasher. The turkey carcasses are being boiled down into broth for the next turkey day in April. We did bag 2,000 caramels in bags last night much to the chagrin of my visiting Wisconsinite nieces. And the Sheepshead card game was lively. It was nice to watch the 85-year-old Alzheimers-afflicted patriarch beat the pants off of his daughter, son, two grand-daughters, and a great-granddaughter (more interested in chewing and drooling on the cards than playing the game). Alzheimer's, such a weird disease. He can't remember what he ate two hours earlier (turkey dinner on Thanksgiving), but knew what each player had in their hand instantly and counted trump without fail.

The sun's up, and now I won't be able to sleep until the circadian rhythms overtake me around 2 p.m. It's a perfect fall day and there are plenty of leftovers for sandwiches, but not for at least a day, I'm full, and I have words to write before I sleep; words to write before I sleep.

The Big Bra

Every now and then, a story pops up that catches my eye for no good reason. This model is wearing a bra advertised as costing $2.5 million. Have I even made $2.5M in my lifetime? I mean I could have read about Paterno (sad in so many ways) or Lindsey Lohan (just sad) or even the big Alaskan winter storm (bad, real bad). Yes, the model is cute, but I bet after this gig she eats a whole turkey like a Viking returning from the sea so that her body doesn't shut down from malnourishment. But a $2.5M bra! Who buys these things? Some how, some way, there's a story waiting to be written about this bra. And, at what point did wings become part of a bra? I must have missed that when Mr. Hayes taught Sex Education and Leon A. kept asking questions to which he already had the answers. But I don't think he asked about bras.

TOO MANY PASSWORDS

I should be blogging about NANOWRIMO (I'm doing it), revising (I'm doing it), marketing my novels (I'm doing it), cleaning out the garden now that veggie season is over (I'm doing it), doing household chores (I'm doing it), fixing the cars--new battery for one; tires for both (I'm doing it), critiquing some chapters (I'm doing it), writing Sydney's biography (I'm doing it), spraying anti-deer stinky stuff (I'm doing it, although the last time I sprayed myself and even the mosquitoes didn't come near me), and cleaning house (I'm doing it).

However, what has taken top priority is getting my passwords and accounts in order. The computerized world has just gotten a bit out of control. I now have over 100 places that want me to have a user name/ID and password. And they all want me to change it on a regular basis. Yeah, I'm doing it, but it's taking a long time. Perhaps there's a story in it, but who has time to write it.

Book Launch Party, ahoy!

Saturday is my first ever Book Launch Party (BLP). I invited Stephen King, Amy Tan, Salman Rushdie, Clive Cussler, and many others in my head. But, knowing that they are busy writing, hobnobbing with the rich and famous, and the famous who are famous for being famous, think Kim Kardashian, I'm excited that my friends, family, and boosters of my career are going to be there with me. It's amazing what you can do when you have support and encouragement. Make sure you encourage someone who has a dream today, tomorrow, and every day. That's how dreams really come true. Yeah, I'm sloppy with sentiment this morning, but I'll fix that. I've got to put my protagonist in harms way, and it's not going to be pretty. Someone dies. You'll find out who in about 18 months.

Get out there and make this day count.

To Kill A Mocking Herd

Me and the four Ms. Daisys returned from a Ham Hock and Blood Sausage eating marathon (I had chicken.) at Dixie's Dinner in Antigo and found both doors to the cabin locked and us keyless. So I call sister-in-law. "Oh, there's no hidden key to the cabin." I've been searching around the cabin for five minutes while the Ms. Daisys (85, 84, 83, and 78 years old) unfold themselves from the car, gather canes and walkers, and uneaten food in boxes. They're conspiraring: the usual multi-decibal chatter has dulled to the click-clicks of some African tribe that you catch on a public TV special. Eventually, the decision is made. Bust in the screen on the only window left open. After retrieving the ladder from the garage, the fight is on for the honor of making like a second-story criminal on a one-story house. All had reasons to want to go: "I'm the oldest." "I'm the youngest." "Well, I take yoga." (She bends to pick up her cane to demonstrate her flexibility.) "It's my cabin," my mother-in-law screeches, making her way with her walker from the outhouse. Thank goodness we still have the two-seater. I'm no spring chicken, but I'm up the ladder. I win. I didn't want to bend any window parts, so I work on the screen methodically while wondering how theives would get it. Finally, brut force wins. The screen pops inward, and I tumbled in through the window. The geese honk; chipmunks chatter; loons call; the heard does some weak redition of Arsenio Hall's "woo-woo." No one asks if I'm hurt.

I find the keys in the pocket of the shorts I changed out of just before we left hours ago. It is my fault, and now, I'll never be able to live it down. Too many witnesses. Unless...

How does your antagonist go about getting rid of unwanted witnesses to a crime and what's the best way for me?

Nothing about Nothing and That's Something

I'm going to rest today. I'm going to build an arch under my loofahs, weed whack weeds, finish mulching a section of the bush bed that is 95.34% complete, and I may even cut some errant small trees and the one that feel during the windstorm the other night. I may go to the dump. I may even move some of the dirt pile at the end of my driveway...yeah, right...dirt. It's good old, heavier than gold, red clay. I've got to have a day away from the computer. Will I be successful. Probably not. My name is Rick. I'm an addict. It has been three hours since I last touched my keyboard. The shakes aren't too bad, but...

A Moving Experience

The deed is done. The truck full of my in-laws possessions is emptied. 7-9 a.m. at my house, 9-11 at my nearby sister-in-law's house, and 11-12:30 at the assisted living center where my in-laws now reside, happy to have a modest portion of their worldly goods at their side. Then, the drive to my other s-i-l's house to unload the rest of the "stuff" that she gets. Thankfully, the third s-i-l said to leave her meager portion at the second s-i-l's house. Got that? Then, it was a mad dash to the rental dealership to turn in the truck and an even crazier drive to get the #2 s-i-l to work, which is the same place as my wife. So, after slugging it out in upper 90-degree heat, I slump in the passenger seat of my wife's car. She says, "Well, let me tell you about my crazy day." I pass out. There's bliss in the eternal darkness of an exhaustive blackout. No dreams. Sweet bliss.

This is a test.

This is a test of the emergency blogging capture device. This is only a test. If this had been a real blogging emergency, you would have been redirected to the previous blog on this site. However, since you are already here, you might as well read your Monday Morning Wake-up Call anyway. This is only a test.

Rihanna fire, Mila Kunis, Mario Lopez, Monica wedding, gas prices.

Fish Humor

Two fish are swimming upstream. One bumps into a concrete wall. He raises a fin to his forehead and says, "Dam!"

Hello, again.

Hello? Anyone in there? I'm older, grayer, still unpublished, but my cockatiel, Sydney, still loves me. Still writing. Still critiquing. Still waiting to find a decent job in an economy that sucks worse than my misuse of action verbs.

God versus the Chicken

It's 7 a.m. I don't have to pick the garden vegetables, because I did so last night. Living large off the garden in summertime. To get chickens next or not get chickens is the question. Free eggs aren't free, I argue. Aside from the small cost to buy the original four or five chickens, it's the daily chore of scooping up the eggs while being pecked to death by a lethal weapon. While the poop is great fertilizer, I bet the deposits will be like Sydney, our pet cockateil, presents--distributed indiscriminately and often on my shoulder. I swear I can hear him chuckle, "I want more mashed potatoes!" Then there's the foxes, raccoons, and wild dogs. One more reason, they do not need to climb over or burst through the fence that seems so impregnable at the moment. And I know they will be named, and there goes any hope of a free Sunday dinner.

Nope. I have to draw the line at chickens once again and enjoy the guest bedroom for a few days will I chicken scratch a few more words on the topic of God's grace in my next novel.

Recorders versus Blogging

Hard to blog at 28.8 modem while downloading massive YouTube recorder concerts for your wife. The tropical storm fizzled and missed us. No large amounts of rain as desired. Now the furnace is turned on for the next two days, 100 or so. Time to hibernate inside after picking vegetables, chopping wood, pullling weeds, moving mulch, stacking concrete, running from moisquitoes, slapping at horseflies, shooing away deer, drowing squirrels, feeding fish and birds, and weedwhack the weeds. Hey, at least the late summer corn crop is growing like a weed. I cannot believe it, eight days planted and six inches high. Must be the potent squirrel poop in that part of the yard. Oops. Gotta go throw the laundry in the dryer and pretend I've written 500 words today. "Really, Mr. Barretta. It's all in my head."

The Mafia and My Garden Wall

76 days to go...Hauling concrete chunks from a nearby construction site so I can continue work on my garden wall is my equivalent to working out at the gym. I just wonder when I'm going to find an arm or a leg or a decomposing Mafia hit. Why do they always show up buried in concrete?

Snakes? I've seen a few. One or two brown haired rodents, also. Mice or rats or muskrats, I don't know. The wall is starting to take good shape after years of working on it. And yes, three days ago she approached me with the inevitable, "Can we move this thirty foot section of the wall six inches in this direction so I can put in more daises?" I'm beginning to understand the Mafia a whole lot better.

Come on rain. I don't want to water tomorrow.

Road Trip

98 days to go...Heading to Phoenix in nine hours to drive a car back to North Carolina. (Doesn't this family ever drive cross-country in say, October! My mind is occupied by road songs and novels.

"Radar Love" by Golden Earring comes burst to the front for the songs. "I've been drivin' down the road, my hands wet on the wheel..."

As far as novels, "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac jumps in front of "Blue Highways" by William Least Heat Moon. Never read "Travels with Charlie" so I can't compare it. My character in "Turning 51" (223 rejections) takes a trip from Raleigh, NC to central PA to Boulder, CO in an effort to unravel a mystery. Yeah, I've done that route more than a few times. Lots of memories, but not any exciting romantic interludes with six-toed blondes with eyes of blue ice. That only happens in Germany, but that's a story for another day.

Got one to share...either novel or song?

P.S. Decided the southern route I-10, I-20, and I-85 since I've only hopscotched that area of the country versus the northern route I-40. I've been on every mile of I-40 from Barstow, CA to Wilmington, NC, and most of it several times.

P.P.S. Obviously this means no entries until I get back home. I know, I know. Disappoint is cluttering the pipelines of the Internet.

Scoring New Jersey

1oo days to go...Hard to believe. Better get cracking' soon.

Seventh grade New Jersey students are still trying to persuade me at work where they should go on their field trip, and I continue to score those papers. So where does a 7th grader want to go on their field trips when they think know one will ever know? Six Flags Great Adventure (I'm shocked, not), Dorney Park, Hersey Park, Franklin Museum in Philly, and the Science Museum in Newark, surprisingly large number for Ellis Island with a side order of the Statue of Liberty. Of course, the Jersey shore (or beach) gets many nods, Clementon Park, Stokes, Wildwood, Seaside Heights, Sandy Hook, but surprisingly few mention Atlantic City, except the 13-year-old that knew about the assortment of alcoholic beverages dispensed there. It is nice to see the Natural History Museum in NYC getting copious nods along with the Museum of Modern Art. NYC, in of itself, garnered numerous papers because, by gum it, it's just one fun town.

Some of the more geographically challenged youths opt for day trips to Washington, D.C. along with an afternoon jaunt to Mt. Rushmore. In fact, outside of the tri-state area, D.C. gets quite a few nods. But I won't slight Baltimore. It's aquarium gets mentioned often. Boston gets some nods, along with Niagara Falls. Some local colleges get the nod for a day field trip: Princeton, NYU, Rider, State College of New Jersey (which I believe used to be Trenton State where I spent three semesters in the dark ages).

Even more geographically (and time management) challenged were students expressing the desire for day trips to Disneyworld, California, Texas, Canada, Slovakia, Uzbekistan, Paris, Rome (multiple times), Italy (yes, I know Rome is in Italy), Greece, Guatemala, and Finland. The country of Africa gets mentioned once in a while. It's only a few hours away.

Smarter kids realize that they can't do these foreign trips in just a day. Persuasive students have suggested longer stays in Canada, California, Hawaii, Australia, the country of Europe, Portugal, Spain, and China. An enterprising lad thought a multi-week trip around the world would enlighten his classmates to the multiplicity of cultures. The teachers could pay for it all. I want a job on that staff.

Of course there are kids out there who are smoking the wackyweed a bit younger than my generation did. I've read to outstanding arguments for a trip to the moon, and one that made a passionate case for being the first school kids on Mars. (Not to mention the first people.)

There were many financially conscientious students who indicated that their schools didn't have the funds for a trip and that we should just have a nice day in the cafeteria or the field next door or the park down the street. They made me want to offer the school some of my meager funds to get these kids inspired to greater heights. These kids should go to the movies with the number of kids who suggested the movies were the correct field trip, and then bowling afterwards.

And then there were the more self-absorbed kids. "...to the MALL, and the school can give each of us $100 to spend." I'm surprised by the number of uninspired kids who thought the mall is an educational trip. Other uninspired educational trips included: 7th street (not sure what town), Burger King ("...so we can learn a trade..."), the skating rink ("...because it's fun to laugh at the kids who don't know how to skate and fall down a lot..."), a professional sport's game ("...because I love the [Phillies, Giants, Jets, Rangers, Yankees, Mets, Titans, Patriots, etc.]...") and I only noticed that one of these was a girl. Sorry guys, but 50-yard seats for a Giants-Patriots game in 2008-2009 isn't going to be had for $50.

It's been interesting, and don't get me wrong. Out of the 5,000+ papers I've read, I have read some brilliant essays by 12 and 13-year-old kids, written in forty-five minutes, that would have challenged any Pulitzer Prize winner to exceed.

"There is nothing more important than expanding our knowledge on a field trip to become better human beings and improve society."

Right on, kid, whoever you were.

13 Black Cats are under the Ladder

Where is eveyone today? Must be Friday the thirteenth that has them all spooked. Call me shocked. I saw no new advertisements for another "Friday the 13th" movie.
---
Jason uses his walker with deadly accuracy only to forget why he the elderly woman is at his feet and smashing his toes. When he remembers, it's too late. He's in his own worst nightmare on Elm Street relieving Halloween over again each night in his dreams. "Friday the 13th: 88 ain't Great"

Mulch Madness

One hundred and eleven days...

Yippee! My new pile of mulch arrived today. 19 cu yards of worm food and weed smothering delight. I know it has nothing to do with writing, but my wife has turned me into a farmer, so this is nearly as good as finishing a piece of flash fiction.
---
On April 1st, God smote Satan. Satan went to Hell. The damned wept; angels rejoiced. Gas prices still rose.

Rollcoaster Writing

One hundred and thirteen days...

Where is the love? Some of the persuasion papers I'm scoring at work from seventh grade students in New Jersey that they have to write in forty-five minutes are better than what I can do in a couple of hours with my dictionary at my side. But then again, I don't have a burning passion to convince my principal that Six Flags, Dorney Park, or Hershey Park are educational field trips to examine the extent of their knowledge of gravity, g forces, and the friction cohesion of roller coasters.

Oh yeah, and never forget about all the great and nutritious food you can get at those places that render the cafeteria food "...putrid and poisonous portions of poorly planned poop on a plate." Kid gets an A in my book.