Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Umph Gone

I tend to post in spurts. Not exactly an attractive thought, but there it is. Today I looked over my blog and realized I hadn't posted since September. Part of me isn't surprised.

My writing slowed to a trickle when my son Z was born in 2008. Now, with the birth of my twin girls in September of 2012, I'm afraid it's ground to a screeching halt. And what I've been thinking lately as I rock a child to sleep, fuss about toys that need to be picked up, corral dogs and worry about what I'm actually going to do in my day job that day; I've realized I miss the writer I knew. I very much feel like I'm no longer that person. She was a separate entity from silly little me with my permanent stress headache, far more gray hair and the worry lines around my eyes and mouth.

Even in the very rare moments of quiet I find I can't write even if the opportunity presents itself. I sit at the computer, maybe edit a page or two of one of the multitude of WIPs saved on my computer and can't find the umph to write. Forget romance. You have to feel romantic, feel loved and respected, feel sexy to write romance. Lately all I feel is tired and embattled.

So for those of you waiting for the next story in the series I had begun to come out, I apologize. There aren't many of you, so somehow I don't think I'll be disappointing many people. Readers have moved on, if there were any. I have the next story all mapped out, know what needs to happen, but right now my hero is sitting in a wheelchair, soaked to the skin and very drunk. My heroine is two rooms away trying to get some much needed peace and quiet while his music pounds away loudly. And they've been there for four years now.

Elyssa Edwards isn't doing much better. Her hero is stuck monitoring juvenile delinquents and she can't quite get him out of the scene.

So we plod onward, making no real progress and hoping and wishing for that magical moment when we'll feel like writing again, when we'll have time. Ah, the slippery slope that has killed many a potential writer's ambitions. But when I think of my former editor's admonition, "Butt in seat, fingers on keys" all I can think of is which fingers? The ones changing the diapers, feeding the baby, stopping the dogs from eating each other or the ones that long to go in my ears as I scream, "Lalalalalalalala" and pretend I can't hear the call of adulthood and responsibility shrieking in my face.

Computer Woes

Our desktop computer has decided to take a vacation of undetermined length. It seems to be stuck in hybernation mode. The little green power light keeps flickering, it won't respond to any attempts to wake it up. Even turning it off and on just results in it continuing to flicker once turned back on.

Our old Dell is a few years old, ancient in computer years. The sad part is that even if we replace it, if the repair guys can't pull the data off this one, we could loose a lot. Stupidly we didn't have a backup. We didn't think we needed one on the family computer. We did. All of Z's pics, my writing, lots of things of import are on that hard drive.

I have my flash drive with what I'm working on now, but it would be horrible to loose copies of my published books, the original manuscripts, etc. Worst of all, the pics of Z since he was born. We've kept up his baby book, but not kept up with hard copies of pics in photo albums.

All I can say folks is cross your fingers we can fix this puppy and spring for a backup.

Santa Baby

The past few years I've counted down the days to Christmas with a new sexy Santa pic every day. Well this year I decided to do something different. Instead of sexy, how about a whole different kind of warm fuzzy feelings?

It's Z's second Christmas, and his first one that he can actually participate in. He still doesn't know what's going on, but hey, half the fun is for us at this point. This first pic is of Z with Santa last year. He was only a couple of weeks old. Below it is this years, he's grown just a bit.

That's "Brown Bear" Santa is holding. Z doesn't go anywhere without Brown Bear except to sleep. Then it's all about Heffelump the musical elephant.

So to you from us, Merry Christmas.

I hate publishing

In the last month or so I’ve come to a realization that shocked me. I have recently discovered that while I love writing, I hate publishing. With a passion.

I had dreamed of being a writer as a little girl and when I got older I re-embraced that dream. I began writing again and enjoyed the creative process. I grew close to many of the people I met as I honed my skills and shared with other writers. Then one day, what I thought I wanted came true. I received an offer to publish my manuscript. I was going to be a real writer. A published author.

What I didn’t realize was all the shit that comes along with publishing. Like most people, I guess I had been under the impression that the bulk of the pr for a book would be handled, or at least orchestrated, by the publisher. I assumed there would be some support from the publisher related to marketing of the product they were publishing. What I discovered was that, at least in my experience, the bulk of the pr has been left to me. This is a recipe for disaster for someone like me. I know zip about pr. I’m not a “people person” who knows how to chat people up. I have no business experience and was left with little to no concept of how to promote the books that were being published.

Talking to other authors from other publishers, I’ve learned that it’s not just my experience. According to what I’ve been told even authors who are known find themselves responsible for orchestrating some of their pr, often handled by either a professional firm or by an agent; two things I have no involvement with and don’t think I want to.

During the few years I've been involved in publishing my work, I've heard again and again about writers being mistreated and cheated by their publishers. I can't say that's been my experience, but I can't argue with their experiences.

So while I’ll probably always write, I don’t see myself publishing again for a long time. If I do, it won’t be in the erotic romance genre. But that’s a whole other moment of confession.

Mystery Writers of America delists Harlequin

Harlequin Romance finds itself in more trouble as MWA follows the lead of RWA and removes Harlequin from it's approved publishers list. Read the full posting below.

Mystery Writer's of America delists Harlequin

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'Tis the TV season

It is the season for holiday specials. I love holiday special and movies, especially the older ones. When compiling my list of favorites I found that I had to separate them into two categories, specials and movies. So here are mine, and I’d like to know yours.

Specials:
1. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
-This is my favorite and I wait for it every year. I loveFred Astair and Micky Rooney.


2. Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
-This is a lesser known one, but it is sweet and charming. It's based on Frank L. Baum's book.


3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
-a classic, of course I'm talking about the animated version.


4. Charlie Brown Christmas

5. Year Without a Santa Claus
-"I'm Mr. Heat Miser, I'm Mr. Sun."


Movies:
1. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
-You can't beat Natalie Wood and Maureen O'Hara.



2. A Christmas Carol (1938)
-This one is a tradition with my stepdad and me. We watch it every year on Christmas Eve, even when we aren't in the same city.


3. A Christmas Story
-Ralphie brings to life the best and worst of a real family at holidays. We can all identify.



4. The Homecoming
-The original Waltons. This version had a different set of parents, but the kids were the same. It's a great story about what's really important at Christmas.



5. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
-Talk about being able to identify...Every family has a cousin Eddie.


6. The Santa Clause
-Tim Allen is surprisingly great as the man in the red suit.

7. White Christmas
-Danny Kaye was one of my all time favorite song and dance men. He and Bing make this a terrific movie filled with music and laughter.


8. Bells of St. Mary’s
-Bing again with the etherial and amazing Ingrid Bergman. This is on my list of top ten movies period.


9. The Bishop’s Wife
-Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven. It's hard to mess that up.


10. It’s a Wonderful Life
-If you'd asked me a few years ago, I'd not have listed it because Ted Turner nearly ruined it by colorizing it and running it every hour on the blessed hour the whole Christmas season. But through it all, Jimmy Stewart still gave us a classic.

It seems as if there is no holiday that happens this time of the year that doesn’t come with it’s share of controversy, especially Thanksgiving. The myth of early English/Native American relations at the Plymouth settlement may have wrapped itself around the Thankgiving holiday in the United States, but it isn’t origin of the holiday. If we look deeper we can find more than the cultural conflicts that work to separate us and find those things which draw us together.

Thanksgiving is essentially a harvest festival and those have existed as long as man has been actively cultivating the earth. The Canaanites and Phoenicians celebrated their harvest. The Egyptians celebrated in Spring with sorrowful displays as they wept and moaned while cutting down their corn, believing it necessary to show remorse for taking the “spirits” they believed lived in the corn. The Greeks honored Demeter with their multi-day celebrations. Much of the celebrations within the temples of Demeter were kept secret. Many scholars believe they involved “fertility rights” that may have been shocking even by Greek standards. The Romans thanked Ceres, Demeter’s alter-ego, in the festival of Cerelia in early October.

Native American tribes generally had multiple celebrations throughout the year depending on where they lived. Many Eastern tribes celebrated the Green Corn Festival when the first of the corn was ready to be harvested. The Harvest Moon festival in October rejoiced in the last of the harvest of the Three Sisters (beans, squash and corn)—the spirits of the earth whose gifts kept The People fed. Plains tribes celebrated the harvests, but also the movements of the herd animals.

In Africa, Asia, Europe and the New World we have celebrated the glories of the Earth’s abundance no matter who we thank for that bounty. With the economy the way it is, it is easy for us to lose ourselves in what we do not have and forget to be happy with what we do have. And in these times it is perhaps even more important that we take this time to be grateful for what we have.

Sorry little dude. I don't have any hotdogs and after today I don't have any money either...sheesh!

My car failed the emissions test that is required before I can renew my car tag. I ended up having to have over $1,000 in repairs to replace my catalytic converter and both O2 sensors.

I'm not complaining about my mechanics. These guys are actually quite awesome. We can trust them and they take good care of our cars. These are the same guys who, when our car broke down the day Z was due, their owner offered to loan us his personal car to use because he didn't want me to not have a car when the baby was that close. They tell us what has to be done and what can wait. One of the things they had said could wait a bit was this particular repair.

What I'm complaining about is the law that requires the emissions check. I'm not sure how helpful this is to clean air when you are forcing people who don't have a lot of money and need their cars to work to pay their bills and feed their kids, to pay for repairs they don't really need yet so they can keep their cars legal. Especially in these economic times. I can tell you it cleared out our savings just so I could keep my car legal.

Poetry

For the longest time I wrote only poetry. It was just the last five or six years that I've seriously turned my hand to prose. My poetry, like my short prose, always came out of a dark place inside me. If I was happy, I wasn't writing. This poem was previously published in an anthology titled, American Poets: An Anthology. There was a volume number, but I don't remember what it was.


On Becoming Invisible
by Jacqueline Roth

Invisible
The smiling faces
Gazing back
Eyes look through
Glazed and unseeing
Because no one is here

A silent scream
Begging to be recognized
Becomes a murmur
A part of the drone
A whisper unheard
Unimportant, unheeded, unneeded

Laughter surrounds
Oblivious to the torment
Concealed so well
Because no one is seen
No one is noticed
Grey space filled but vacant

A shadow
A movement
From the corner of the eye
Gone in an instant
Unregistered by synapses
Forgotten before known

Invisible
Filler for the background
A shape without form
A blur of grey
Indistinguishable from the crowd
The tree lost in the forest

Breathing stops
Heartbeat stills
Humanity slips away
Fading away in the silence
Lesson taught, lesson learned
On Becoming Invisible

Sometimes You Get What You Deserve

Excuse the naughty word, but hey' it's true.

End of the Line for Newspapers?

Today I had an interesting experience that brought center stage how much our world is changing from what it was when we were kids, to what it is for kids today. We can no longer take for granted that our kids know and understand things that we consider basic literacy and I’m not so sure that it is necessarily that much of a tragedy.

For those who don’t know, I teach reading/literature to middle schoolers as my day job. Right now we are working on a unit on expository reading. During this unit I teach my students, 7th and 8th graders, how to get the most out of reading expository and informational texts. Now this can range from better understanding their text books to how to wade through research sources for the right information to just being able to read the daily news and understand what is going on.

It was this last one that caught my attention today. For the first time I’m teaching “gifted” or advanced readers along side my average and struggling readers. It has been interesting. So today when I gave a mini-lesson activity involving reading a newspaper article that I expected to take no more than 10 minutes and wound up spending 30 minutes plus on it, I was dumbfounded.

My average and struggling readers who have been taking “reading” classes all along plunged right in. They took the stack of newspaper I had purchased that morning (and can we talk about the cost of newspapers? Wow…) found an article that interested them, cut it out, answered the basic questions on the worksheet, stapled it together, turned it in and were ready to go on. Average time, 10 minutes. So far so good.

My “gifted” kids floundered. This is the first time that our district has required “reading” be taken by those students who showed a proficient level. Prior to this, they had skipped reading and taken a foreign language. They didn’t know how a newspaper was divided, they couldn’t identify the parts of a newspaper article, couldn’t tell an article from a column from a letter to the editor from an ad. I was floored and frustrated. They’re eighth graders who can’t read a newspaper?

Then, on my long drive home I got to thinking. So what? Other than the fact that our lovely standardized tests will ask them to do such tasks, was it such a big deal that they couldn’t read a newspaper? As one of them said, “Who reads newspapers?” I spent my day teaching these kids a manufactured skill that they will not need except to pass some test. Boy was my day productive.

Our kids are living in a world that will most likely see the demise of the local newspaper and probably the demise of the printed daily newspaper. Magazines continue because they provide background and depth, but the daily newspaper is a dinosaur that is fast becoming extinct.

This makes me sad, on one hand. I know a lot of newspaper folks, people who work for or around newspapers. I myself spent a few months working as a copy editor/paginator. It was an interesting experience. Many of them are the last fish flapping in the drying up pond, trying to convince themselves that the rains will come again. But to be perfectly honest with ourselves, newspapers are out of date. The whole newspaper industry is the Amish cart and horse trotting along the road being whizzed past by the rest of the world-- romantic and nostalgic but not practical.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!

We took the hungry dragon to the mall to trick or treat. Okay, he didn't really trick or treat, he just played and watched all the people. Our mall has a kids area and he got to play with several other little kids.

Right now he's sacked out in his pack-n play. I need to wake him up soon to eat and go to bed. But you know the saying, never wake a sleeping dragon.

Ghostly ghosts

Do you believe in ghosts? In the western world we don’t believe in all the creatures that go bump in the night that we used to. Our ancestors once believed strongly in vampires, werewolves, ghouls zombies, and other dwellers in the darkness. Now of days, though many people do believe in angels and demons, the belief in most other creatures has gone away.

But many still believe in ghosts and that belief has grown more and more a part of pop culture. Several television shows now tout true “ghost hunters” and claim to investigate locations that are believed to be haunted.

I live in the Atlanta, GA area. Almost everywhere in the metro area was at one time the site of a battlefield. The city is very old and many places here are considered to be haunted. We even have our own “ghost hunters” who collect EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena) and recordings of foot steps and other evidence of ghostly activity.

In fact, a local morning radio station, Q100, is planning on spending tomorrow night taping an entire four hour show in an undisclosed location that is supposedly the site of tremendous paranormal activity. They will run that in place of their live show on Friday morning. All this week, they have been featuring “evidence” collected by the Atlanta Ghost Hunters. Scroll down on this page, to listen to some of the EVP’s they’ve collected. Or go here. You have to hear the “He panicked” one. There were no women on their investigation that night.

I have to admit that I do, in some ways believe in ghosts. I’m not sure they are the souls of those people who have died, but I do believe that some people see or hear things that are best described as ghosts. I do tend to take a more science oriented approach. I do wonder if, based on the theories of time put forth by Einstein and Hawking, if we are seeing overlaps in time.

You see science now believes that time isn’t a straight line, but exists in waves like many other forces in our universe. If that’s so, perhaps some of these waves touch, allowing us to peek into another time. To me this explains those hauntings that are called residuals, ghosts are seen doing things they may have done in life. It also makes me wonder if it couldn’t explain UFO sightings as well. After all, if time warps and we can see the past, perhaps we can see the future as well.

Far out, I know. Odd, I know. But it’s one of those weird things that floats through my mind on my hour and a half long commute in the predawn hours of the morning.



And speaking of ghostly things, don't forget to play Sam Cheever and Friends Halloween contest. It's easy, all you have to do is go trick or treating. Click on the link and get started filling your treat bag.

Don't Call Me a Gypsy

Did you realize the term “gypsy” was a pejorative term? In many languages it was synonymous with the term thief, demon, or whore. Millions of people were tortured, enslaved and killed because of the connotations of that word. To many of the Romani, or Roma, it is as offensive as the “n” word is to an African-American.

My great-grandmother immigrated to the United States in 1908. She was 8 years old. Her family came here for two reasons. First was to seek treatment for her older sister who had accidentally ingested a mixture of lye and water thinking it was milk. A bit of the mixture was inhaled as she coughed and gasped. The doctors in Hungary told my great-great-grandfather to take her on a sea voyage and the sea air would help her lungs. (The second reason had to do with the rumors of pogroms spreading across Eastern Europe-a place that had just, within the last 30 years, outlawed slavery for those known as “gypsies”.)

So my grandpa Karl, a widower with six small children, did the only thing he knew. He sold everything they had and booked passage for his family to join family members in America. There were several complications, one of which led to my great-grandmother Anna staying behind for a year with her oldest brother Josef (later Anglicanized to Joseph at Ellis Island) and her grandmother Maria. When Anna arrived in the United States she found her sister healthy and her family living a secret.

No one knew they were Romani. What people call gypsies. But in 1908 the United States and the people of that country weren’t thrilled to welcome “gypsies” into their midst. So they hid who they were. They became simple Hungarians, active in the Hungarian community. I found out later while researching, that this isn’t uncommon. The Romani who entered the country at the previous turn of the century either clung doggedly to their traditions, or shamefully hid them.

My great-grandmother took her secret to her grave. We only found out because her sister did not keep her secret. She told her children. At my great-grandmother’s funeral, her nephew told our branch of the family the truth. They had never spoken of it to any of us out of respect.

What causes someone to be so afraid of who they are that they would hide it for their entire lives?

*Rumors were spread in medieval times that the Roma were
descended from a sexual encounter between a Roma woman and Satan.
*Another belief was that Roma forged the nails used in Christ's
crucifixion.

*The Christian genocide against Witches during the late
Middle Ages and Renaissance was also directed against the Roma. The courts seized and imprisoned them in Witches' prisons, often without even bothering to record their names.

*The Diet of Augsburg ruled that Christians could legally kill Roma. Meanwhile, the courts were closed to Roma who were injured by
Christians

*In 1721, Emperor Karl VI of what is now Germany ordered total
genocide of the Roma. "Gypsy Hunts" were organized to track down and exterminate them.

*Roma were rounded up and imprisoned in Spain during 1749. They
were considered a danger to society.

*In 1792, 45 Roma were tortured and executed for the murder of some Hungarians, who were in fact alive and who observed the executions.

*During the 17th century many gypsies were forced to become slaves in Hungary and Romania, where their final liberation did not take place until 1855. It is believed that as much as half of the Roma in Europe were enslaved, from the 14th century until Romani slavery was abolished in the mid-19th century. In some parts of Europe it took even longer for slavery to be forbidden.

*In many places Christianity closed its doors completely to the Romani. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches refused to baptize “gypsy” infants.

Though it was after the fact, let us not forget that the oppression didn't end in the 19th century. Two million of the Nazi Holocaust victims were “gypsies” including these child victims. They were considered even lower on the hierarchy of hate than the Jews and the criminally insane.

The Romani or Roma are still considered one of the most oppressed people in the world. With these stories in her ears and fear for her family, a frightened little girl hid the truth of her identity to the day she died.

I ask that you consider this the next time you toss about the term gypsy, incorporate it in a title or use the term to make your heroine or hero seem more mysterious.

Two Books Down

My To Be Read list has grown smaller by two books over the last two days.

Yesterday evening I finished Dan Brown's latest, The Lost Symbol. (A couple of minor -and cryptic-spoilers follow, so read on at your peril) It was a perfectly respectable read that seemed to take me forever. Not because of it's length or complexity, or even because of quality. I would just set it down and find something else I needed to do and forget to come back to it. Well, I finally finished it, tucked up in bed with my cold medicine and it was good. I still think Angels and Demons was his best effort. The Lost Symbol continues the rather preachy tone that really reved itself in The Da Vinci Code. The lead character in this trilogy, Robert Langdon keeps getting bitch-slapped with Christianity. First he goes along with a church cover-up in A&D, then he ends up kneeling at the tomb of the "Holy Grail" after saving Jesus' great, great, great (on and on great) granddaughter, and now he ends up nearly dead because someone buried a bible in the corner stone of a building in Washington, D.C.

Sorry, but if I were Langdon I'd either become a contemplative monk in the mountains and take a vow of silence, or I'd slap the next person who showed me a Judeo-Christian-Islamic artifact until they begged for mercy and promised to leave me alone.

The second book I read today. I started it this afternoon and read straight through, even as my son used me for a jungle gym. He didn't mind, it seemed my only needed participation in the game was to sit still and not complain too much when he used my hair to pull himself up. This absolute page turner was Cindy Spencer Pape's Crazy for the Cowboy. And quite frankly folks, I enjoyed it a lot more than the above.

I've never been one for cowboys. The clack of cowboy boots and the smell of sweaty horses and dust just doesn't do a thing for me. That having been said, I find myself loving this series by Pape. The Cowboy's Christmas Bride is book one and all three books are available in either electronic or print formats.

The Love at the Crazy H series is filled with all the best parts of romance. Sexy, intelligent, gentle, alpha males who know how to make you swoon; strong, very believable and identifiable heroines who are not too good to be true; and hot, toe-curling, heart melting romance. And this is why I'm up, still coughing my head off, but unable to wait to buy the third book.

Now what to read until it arrives?

Empty Nest?

I’m suffering from an artificial empty nest syndrome. My SO and Z are visiting Grandma in Florida.

Now I admit the first day it was sort of nice. I came home from work, tended to my dogs and then lay down and took a long nap. It was glorious. But now, several days in on a Saturday I feel sort of lost. And a bit guilty. The SO has come down with a bug while on vacation and Grandma is having to step up and take extra care of Z.

The good part of the visit is that Z is loving Grandma’s swimming pool. The SO and Grandma have been letting him play in it every day. I hear he’s a bit pink, not burned, but getting some nice Florida coloring.

If only Grandma’s doggy was as enthusiastic. She is less than happy about this toddling little fellow who chases her around, sits on Grandma’s lap, plays in her water bowl and tries to take her toys. Lazy’s reaction? Run from the baby, try to push him off Grandma’s lap and take the baby’s toys, too.

Well, I’m off. Today is a busy day. I have an eye appointment and then an appointment with the local movie theater. The SO doesn’t like movies, so I’m planning a film festival. I hope your Saturday is as *cough**cough* productive.


UPDATE: Will NOT be having film festival except in front of own television. Must have new glasses and was floored by how much they will cost. YIKES!

You have to love Aussies

This video is making the rounds of You Tube and Facebook. But as a teacher, I fully believe it is time someone said these things. I don't know if it's true, but I do know the school it supposedly comes from is a real school in Queensland, Australia.

You see, a new policy making parents responsible for their children's absences and homework has not gone over well in Queensland, according to the story. In fact, the school is supposedly being sued to force teachers to change failing grades for students who missed excessive amounts of school and didn't complete enough course work to pass. If so, I hope this is real and I hope it really pissed off exactly the parents it was aimed at.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFTS18uUpgo

Hanging Out

The last couple of days have been lovely cool down here in Georgia. It feels a lot like autumn, which isn’t usual for this early in the year. K and I were able to enjoy today doing some of the things we did pre Z due to a dear friend, D, who kept him for us today. She and her son kept him today and a good time was had by all. D’s son is 16 and he is a pretty awesome kid. So Z got to have a big kid to play with for the afternoon.

K and I went to one of our favorite places in Atlanta, Little Five Points. This intersection of Euclid, McClendon and Moreland is Atlanta’s mini version of New York’s Village. It’s filled with dozens of fascinating shops and little restaurants and eateries that are amazing. There are several vintage clothing shops, some edgy little boutiques, tattoo parlors, piercing places, used book stores, the oldest feminist book store it the South, new age shops and lots of shops with hand crafted jewelry, vintage and hard to find music, and a farmer’s co-op with organic and hard to find raw and bulk foods.

We started at Savage Pizza. This is without a doubt the best pizza ever. The place itself is fun. Superhero action figures hang over your head and comic book style murals adorn the brightly colored walls. The variety of sauces is terrific and the staff are definitely as interesting as the décor.

After lunch we took a walks around. We stopped at Wax-n-Facts. This little hole in the wall sells records. Yes, records. They have some second hand cd’s as well, but the focus is that you can buy almost any vintage record album you might be searching for by any artist.

Vintage and artist are the key words for Little Five Points. The plaza is filled with musicians and artists displaying their skills. Shops selling vintage clothing line the small piazza along with stores that offer original jewelry. And then there are the more edgy places such as “Le Petite Mort”. Let’s face it, any store named for an orgasm will get your attention.


We spent sometime in Crystal Blue, the new age store. I love to browse the crystals, stones, incense and beautiful jewelry on display. They sell reference books, spell kits, meditation aids and all things relaxing and enlightening. After roaming about we headed to Charis book store, the oldest feminist book store in the South. The lavender colored house has been converted to a book store dedicated to the feminine. Books by women and for women adorn the wall and the Charis Circle community holds workshops and events intended to empower women.

Then back to the car past the Vortex where the smell of grilling burgers teases even a full stomach. The Vortex, whose grinning skull entrance turns heads and whose menu bears the words “If it ain’t on the menu, you can’t have it.”

It was a great day. We haven’t had the opportunity to just hang out there for some time. When Z’s a little older, we’ll have to take him with.

Banned Books and painful ignorance.

"What you are about to read is a true account of events. Trust me folks, I couldn't make this stuff up. No one is that creative."



This is National Banned Book week. The American Library Association (ALA) sponsors this awareness raising event every year to raise the issue of censorship in American schools and public libraries.

So today I went to school in a t-shirt that proclaimed “I’m with the banned”. First of all, several people tried to tell me I misspelled “band”.

I had a slide show going with the title “Banned Book week” and slide after slide of book titles of the most often challenged books. I thought I would simple raise questions among the students as to what was going on. But being the drama filled kiddies they are, they assumed it meant I was banning those books for the week. They were very upset, which I guess is good.

The most frightening thing was that as we discussed the books, my students displayed the most appalling lack of cultural awareness and simple knowledge about the world, literature, history and art. One of the books on the list is “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings”. I explained this was a book by an amazing poet, Maya Angelou and waited. Every year I have at least one student ask if I meant Michelangelo. I explain no, Michelangelo is the Renaissance painter and sculptor and Maya Angelou is a talented African American poet.

What followed however, resulted in my having to step into the hall and take several deep breaths to keep from banging my head against the wall.

Student 1: “The dog from Beethoven was a painter?”

Me: “What?”

Student 1: “Michelangelo is the name of one of the dogs on the movie Beethoven.”

Student 2: “No he’s not, he’s one of the Ninja Turtles”

Me: “No guys, those characters were named for the artist just like the dog Beethoven was named for the famous composer?”

Student 3: “What’s a composer?”

Me: “Someone who writes music. Michelangelo is famous for sculpting The David and painting the Sistine Chapel.”

Student 3: “What’s that sistinn thing?”

Student 4: “Is that like one of the places in Las Vegas where you can get married?”

Me: [groaning] “No, the Sistine Chapel is in Rome…[blank stares]…at the Vatican…[blank stares]…in Italy…[blank stares]…where the Pope lives…anyway, he was a Renaissance artist.

Student 3: “Oh, I know like Paul Revere.

Me: “Huh?”

Student 3: “He rode through the town yelling the Renaissance is coming, the Renaissance is coming.”

Me: [stunned silence]

Other students: [blank looks of confusion]

Me: "Noooo, Paul Revere road through the countryside telling people the British were coming…you know the American Revolution?”

Student 3: “Oh”

Student 5: “So are Michelangelo and Maya Angelou brother and sister?”

At that point I had to step out side or scream.

New video

I'd kind of expect to show this off at RomantiCon, but it feels nice and cozy to share it with you. This is the trailer for the lastest release, Jewels of Ursus. The book is a compilation of the the three novellas I wrote surrounding the Ursine family, a family of shape-shifters who transform...naturally, into Bears.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I enjoy the process of making these trailers, but it can turn a bit obsessive. I get lost in the amount of time that has passed.

Today was the first day back at school for the kids in the county where I teach. They had been out all last week because of the damage from the floods. We still had no drinkable water in the building and our PTSO provided bottles of water for the students to carry about with them since they can't use the water fountains.

I admit I'm exhausted today. So exhausted that I'm hoping I'm going to be forgiven for falling asleep.

Z and I have routine. His last nap time comes right about the time he and I get home for the day. I give him a bottle and lay him down. Then I get comfortable and take a few minutes to read or just rest. This afternoon I fell asleep and Z slept too right up until K got home. The dear let me sleep and I snoozed until about 11pm and will be going back to bed momentarily.

Problem?

It's our anniversary. I found a card waiting for me on the computer when I woke up. Crapmonkeys.

We have a date weekend this weekend. A friend is keeping Z for the day on Saturday so we can have some couple time. I'll have to make up for it then.