Speaking of Cats

Cal, the boy I seduced so long ago, has a cat who sent me an email. Cal's cat is very saucy and she actually talks. See Cal's cat talk to me.

Tagged and Bagged by Susan

Susan of Phantsythat has tagged me for a simple meme. Good thing this is a simple one, as I'm up to my eyeballs in contest falderal. For a woman who writes many hundreds of words a day with no thought at all about the need to put my best foot forward, I'm now paralyzed with insecurity.

But this just might be the palatte cleanser I need to clear my head. So, thanks Susan. I probably really needed this.

The Rules:

1. Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures.
2. Pick the 4th picture in that folder.
3. Explain the picture.
4. Tag 4 people to do the same.

This is a photo of my cat Rianna. I know, it's a horrible name for an animal, but she was given to me by a little girl named Rianna, and Rianna named the kitten before she gave her to me. So, Rianna it was. She was barely weened when I got her. A tiny red puffball. She followed me everywhere, like a very tiny dog that looked like a very tiny fox. Rianna was the daughter of a Santa Barbara feral mountain cat--these are the descendants of cats that have been abandoned in the mountains above Santa Barbara where I lived for a blissful while. I used to get phone calls from neighbors that a fox was following me.

Rianna was always a loyal and bonded cat, but she never lost her fiercely independent streak which expressed itself in an aversion to being held in certain ways. She was not a particularly affectionate cat, but when she wanted to be petted she sat on my lap and let me pet her. I say she let me, because petting when not sitting on my lap might elicit a warning claw-retracted slap, and if that warning slap was not enough to discourage the unwanted petting the next slap came with one extended claw and always drew blood. My friends who tried to pet her didn't get the kind warning--they got the one claw treatment. This was how she came to be known as Mean Kitty.

Mean Kitty bossed all the dogs. She was never afraid of a dog, no matter the size of the dog. Where did she get that confidence? My big dog Lucy was so cowed by Rianna that if Rianna was sprawled at the top of the stairs, Lucy could not go either up or down the stairs, and would either whine loudly for my help, or would find me to move Rianna. Rianna was a tyrant. Who could imagine such ferocity in a lovely little red cat? I once saw her chase a large yellow Labrador, that she must had taken a dislike to, out of our front yard. Where did she get that self-confidence?

She lived over twenty years--past twenty I lost count. She moved four times with me in that twenty some years. When we moved from Santa Barbara to Salt Lake she followed close on my heels as I unloaded the car and moved into the little house, trip after trip. She did not settle until I did. What a loyal companion she was. Rianna outlived three of my dogs. She didn't seem to ever like anyone but me.

She was never ill, never injured, always had a hearty appetite and never grew fat. The only reason I knew it was close to the end for her was a dramatic change in morning behavior. The last three or four mornings of her life she waited for me to awake, get my coffee and smoke, crawl back into bed to watch morning news, and then Rianna would crawl into my lap, settle deeply, and then pee on me. This change in behavior was so dramatic I called our House-Call Vet and asked him what he thought it meant. He told me it was a symptom of dementia in a cat. So after days of having to strip my bed every morning and wash all my bedding, I decided to let her go. The Vet came and we put her to sleep, and then into a very peaceful death. She seemed ready to go. But I have missed her terribly. Just looking at the picture of her makes me cry.

Okay taggees get ready:
Dusty
PENolan
YellowDogGranny
La Bellete Rouge

Tuesday Night Movie: Good Dick

Revolutionary Road has three Oscar worthy performances in Winslet, DiCaprio, and Michael Shannon as the truth teller. It is not a bad movie. It's an Oscar movie. It didn't seem like anything new or interesting to me, though.

As a counter balance to good movies of that ilk may I suggest Good Dick. Written and directed by and starring Marianna Palka, it's one of the best American indie flicks I've seen in a long time—not "shot on a cell phone" indie, it's got good production values. It's edgy, smart, and very funny. And a little painful. It also stars John Ritter's spittin' image son Jason. It has a cameo by Charles Durning that is pure money and one of the best "guitar riffing with effects" soundtracks EVAR. The first fifteen minutes of the movie have one song, three different musical interludes, and about three paragraphs of dialog. I think I prefer that to people saying stupid things trying to provide character development. Gran Torino I'm looking at you.

When the boy and girl sit down to watch an Annie Sprinkle video together. Priceless.

I will watch Good Dick again just for the soundtrack and to freak out on the 250 pound Carson Daly look-alike. Some kind of optical illusion, I think.

Now, about the name ....

Tuesday Matinee Movie

This is the best movie I've seen in a long time. Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio are perfectly cast in this story of 1950's alienation and suburban angst. It might have been written by John Cheever. It was actually written by Richard Yates and competed against Catch 22, by Joseph Heller, and The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy for the National Book Award in 1962 . I read both those books in the 60s and was bowled over by their brilliance. I've never heard of Richard Yeats. This was his first book. It was chosen by Time as one of the 100 best English Language books written since the 1920s. I've read everything by both Percy and Heller. I'm astounded I haven't read Yates.

The move is luscious, and drab. There is this New York landscape inhabited by men in gray suits and hats carrying briefcases. At home in Connecticut there is a discontented wife with a lovely home and two lovely children. DiCaprio plays Frank Wheeler who works for the same company where his father worked unhappily all his life. Winslet, as April Wheeler, has dreams of life in France. She will work and he can "discover" himself. She has done the research. She puts this dream into action and just as they are about to leap free she is trapped by an unwanted pregnancy and her husband's need for safety, normalcy, conformity.

One of the things I remember about the 50's and mid 60s was that in most states contraception was unavailable and abortions were illegal. And mental illness was a very shameful family secret. Kathy Bates has a lovely part as a real estate agent and the mother of a man who is likely bipolar. He was a mathematician before all the shock treatments. He plays the part of the truth teller. I know that role. It doesn't make one popular.

Phillip didn't like the movie. So maybe it's great and maybe it's just another Oscar Movie. But Nick and I loved it. I think remembering the 1950s helps.

I forgot Nick told me when I got in his car that John Updike died today. He was a writer in a class with Cheever, Heller, Percy, Yates.

Biographical Information? Me? Couldn't Possibly!

I have got my pitch together with a lot of help from some of you. I have finally come to the conclusion that there isn't much more I can say in 300 words or less about the novel. I know I'm supposed to be selling a product. I think I've gotten into the spirit of the thing. I think I might have a handle on it now. It's only taken me a couple of weeks. I started out with 750 words or so and cut and cut and cut. Kathleen Maher has been most generous getting me through the worst of it, now under 300 words and just a bit juicy, not too scary, and hopefully intriguing.

But now my task is to write about myself. As myself. Oh god, no! You might think this is funny since I do little else these days, but this has to be focused on me as the writer of this particular book which I am selling as fiction. Can I pull this rabbit out of this hat?

So what are my credentials? Really? Credentials? I have none. This is so sad. I might be one of the best read women in the world, but I have no credentials. I took classes at two universities from the age of 17 to 29 and virtually spoon fed my third husband all the reading he had to do to get his PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. I typed his collection of short stories, and edited them in the process. I read Peyps Diaries to him as we drove back and forth across the country. I swear to god I carried him on my back as we made those endless trips from Arkansas to Colorado over and over while reading aloud from sunup to sundown day after day. But he got the PhD. And happily for me, and sadly for him, he is now still an academic and I write. Ha!

The Little Things You Do That Can Drive Your Mate Crazy

I use the word "mate" here rather loosely. Really it could be anyone who lives with you. But you do things that you don't even know about that can make the person sitting across from you at the breakfast table want to run screaming from the room. Or merely endure it silently while adding it to that mental list of annoying things you do that will one day reach the breaking point, the last straw, the final outrage.

I have TMJ. I've always had it. My jaw pops just talking sometimes. It certainly annoys me, but it annoys me most kissing. And it seemed to annoy past mates most at mealtime. This is just for starters. Are you sure you still like me?

My first husband, Lyle, was appalled that I didn't know how to saute fresh mushrooms. I used my grandmother's wedding present The Joy of Cooking as my source. Irma Rombauer was, according to my grandmother, the only source, the best source, the bible of cookbook gurus. Lyle said the mushrooms tasted like they'd been cooked in scouring powder. I cried. I was nineteen and had never cooked a fresh mushroom before. So to this day, I have never thought of myself as a good cook. But I've never killed anyone with my dreadful cooking, yet.

Lyle was also the first person (but not the last) to accuse me of popping my jaw at the breakfast table (chewing cereal) on purpose just to annoy him. On purpose. Hell, he thought he got a bad deal? I was horrified to find that I was expected to have sex with him. I married him because he was my boss, he was gay, and we partied at the gay bars. We were friends. He was talented and fun and gay. And his Boss hated gay men. Most especially I married Lyle because he was gay. Safely gay. Do I need to stress that again? And he had a good job. And so did I. But that sex thing really ruined it for me.

I can't begin to list the many annoying things that I do, but I'm sure I've slept peacefully next to men who wanted to smash a grapefruit in my face in the morning over poached eggs, toast and coffee.

The last table-atrocity I heard about was from a woman. Her name was Eleanor, I'd known her ages ago, but she needed a place to rent and I needed someone to share the house with. I used four of the eight rooms. She was welcome to the rest of them. She moved some heavy furniture into the house, had her bedroom wired for her vast electronic, computing life. I cooked while she supervised the Comcast guys.

I fed her clam spaghetti, garlic bread, a salad and white wine. Simple enough, not so white trashy as I can sometimes get. But tasty. I was shoveling it in, in my usual fashion and she stopped, wine glass in hand rising to her mouth, and said, rather dramatically, one eyebrow cocked, "This will never work."

"Why?"

"Because you make sexual sounds when you eat."

"What kind of sexual sounds?"

"You moan."

She moved out by the end of the week.

I bet in certain cultures an appreciative moan at the table is considered a compliment to the host.

Skin Hunger

Here's the reason so many old people who live alone have dogs. Cats, too. It's skin hunger. We need touch and we aren't likely to receive touch from another person, so we enjoy the touching comfort of a dog or cat. I have had both pets at the same time and whereas a cat lets you pet her if she feels like it, a dog will lie there endlessly and revel in being petted. And I envy my dog that pleasure. I too would like to be stroked just that way, without need for reciprocation, just for the pleasure of the toucher: kind touch, gentle touch, firm touch, absent minded touch, a hand resting on my head, playing with the strands of hair with no worry that it will turn from a comfort to a need that wants being turned into something more than just touch. Or that I might get up to get a drink of water and in the getting up and walking away insult the person that pets this old cat. I want touch that doesn't require a thank you or come with an IOU.

This isn't just a new thought, or a new need, or something that just occurred to me on a whim. It's something I knew when my last lover and I lived together years ago. He was the dog in that relationship. He loved to be touched just the way I absentmindedly touch Roscoe when I'm baby-sitting him at night when he curls up next to me as I watch TV. I massage his face muscles and gently stroke his neck and soft ears, I rub the loose skin behind his ears and he just soaks it in. When I get tired of this or want him to move, I say, "move." He stands up on the bed, does a quick turn and lies down. There is nothing pushy in his acceptance of my touch or huffy or sulky at my desire to stop. With my ex, touch was almost always prelude to sex. If I were touching him, maybe not. But if he touched me with tenderness and a gentle hand it would almost always be about his desire for sex. I could ask for non-sexual touch, and he might agree, but it was as if he were watching his clock for the minimum ten minutes to pass so he could stop.

I'm probably dreaming. I doubt many men would want to lie in bed next to a woman and stroke her like she were a purring cat and leave it at that. But it's a nice dream.

Advice For The Elderly Embarking On Romance

Ever Since The Inauguration

I can't get this song out of my mind. And it started with the Inauguration. There were exact lyrics from this song said in the inaugural speech. And in trying to find the song on You Tube I was unable to find a decent recording. I googled it and found that both Nat and Natalie Cole had recorded it, but then saw the name DIANA KRALL and that did it for me. I can't embed it because it's a recording session and isn't out yet. Sorry, Tengrain, I know she's not your favorite, so I know what a kindness it was for you to post a clip of her for me. You are indeed a generous man. But for those of you too young to have heard this song, here it is. I knew the lyrics from about age nine or ten. It was a favorite of mine, as well as the Whippenpoof Song.

YouTube doesn't have a clip of Natalie or Nat performing the song, so you'll have to make due with the link. I hope you like it. I'm now going to go see if Itunes has it. Have a lovely Sunday afternoon. It's snowing here, and though I didn't get very far with my cleaning project yesterday, and I'm really inclined to go to bed with a book and then nap the afternoon away, I will clean that last shelf in my food cupboard because this song inspires me rise above my lazy assed instincts and get busy.

I Have A Question

I get in trouble now and then for making assumptions about men. I say things like "Men do this..." Or, "Men think that..." And when I do, my friend Phillip calls bullshit on me. Maybe I should say, "Men my age think this or say that..." But I am a woman with a considerable amount of experience with men, though unsuccessful and mostly unhappy, this experience does form my impressions of men. I know not all men are alike, and that the men I've loved and lived with do not represent all men, but they do all seem to have something in common with men in general. I can hear Phillip groan clear from San Francisco, since he finds such generalizations absurd. And I do admit, Phillip does not fit neatly into any of my male pigeonholes. So perhaps it's time I stopped making statement about men in general and started asking questions instead. Maybe I can say, "it seems to me that the men I have known..." Or, "Is it true that men...?"

Yesterday I wrote about bipolar disorder from my point of view, as a woman with bipolar disorder, and a visitor who always has something stupid and obnoxious to say, commented that it's only women who get bipolar disorder. I cannot quote him precisely, since I almost always delete his comments as fast as he posts them--I have no time or interest in debating anyone that ignorant. But his assumption that bipolar disorder is a female thing raised a point worth exploring. It isn't that bipolar disorder is more prevalent in women than men, (it's an equal opportunity genetic crap shoot) but it is true that men are reluctant to admit to needing help. It is obvious in my group therapy experiences that it's mostly women who are seeking help. It might be that their families have forced this help upon them, and it might be that women are more comfortable than men sharing their feelings in a group, since women are more open about their feelings with their own friends and family than men seem to be--especially men my age.

These men were raised in a time of rigid roles for men and women. Men my age had trouble finding solid footing during the early years of the women's movement, and feminism is still mostly a dirty word to them. Feminism forced many changes on these men. And they did not like what seemed to them a loss of power and control. Rigid rolls are easy to understand. The shifting ground of new ways of thinking and feeling made them uncomfortable, left them off balance, and pissed off about it. Often women in an attempt to rescue a marriage that isn't keeping pace with her needs suggests couples therapy (I've done it myself) and often the answer is a loud and emphatic "NO! You're the crazy one, not me." The reasoning is usually that if a woman is unhappy in the marriage the problem is hers, not his. If therapy can "fix" her, no harm. But if therapy leads her to the conclusion that her marriage is stifling and not meeting her needs, she will probably decide to bail on the marriage. So to a lot of men, therapy ruined their marriages. The fault is not theirs, but the therapists.

So why then do so few men with bipolar disorder seek help? Why are the waiting rooms of psychiatrists around the country filled with women and not men? My theory is that for a man to admit that he is ill or needs help is still seen as weak by other men. Especially if the illness is considered a mental illness. And there is still a large part of the population that has this stereotype about men. Men are still supposed to be strong and stoic, impervious to pain of any kind--physical or emotional.

So tell me you men, what is your reason for not seeking therapeutic help? Are you without problems, without psychic pain, mentally healthy? If you have sought help, has it helped? Inquiring minds want to know.

I Wish I Were In Love Again

Little Jimmy Scott

Love Me Like A River Does

Saturday Song

Crazy Talk

I've mentioned in the past that I'm bipolar. I'd have to research my own blog to find out what I've said, but I want to talk a bit about the symptoms, the treatment, and family. I use the term family loosely because who ever you love is your family as far as I'm concerned. And family is where I want to start.

Bipolar disorder is very hard for a family member who is not bipolar to deal with. Sometimes it's awfully hard to know what is personality and what is disorder and what's PMS. "Normal" is a hard psychological trait to measure. Too normal and we're dull as dust. But crazy has a big fat book with symptoms and graphs, and the weight of both law and medicine to measure how just how crazy is too crazy to function in the "normal" world. I'm so crazy I'm disabled. Legally disabled.

But you say, "You seem able to write every day. How can you do that if your disabled?" And I say, I always wrote. I just didn't have a blog. Sometimes I couldn't read the scribble that was my writing, but even bat-shit crazy I wrote, documenting every little thing, taking notes as if life were a class and there would be a test. I also read like it was a full time job and I was getting paid by the page. Both those occupations allowed me to be alone a lot. And the thing about being alone is the relief of not having to pay attention to someone else and their needs.

Another symptom is "inappropriate" sexual behavior. I think the word "inappropriate" means with someone too young, or too old, or just met. It also applies to what some call "sex addiction."

We tend to self-medicate. For most that means alcohol (legal and easy to get) for others it might be pot or heroine or meth. For others it means, a plethora of other drugs, but the one drug most Shrinks don't blink at is cigarettes. Nicotine is a good antidepressant and plays well with other bipolar drugs. I found it interesting that in the Bin, we were all sent out into the open air to puff away on our cigarettes. Mormons with bipolar disorder in the Bin with us were given nicotine gum.

The one symptom of my illness that isn't fairly well managed with two drugs twice a day, is my intense need to isolate. It is also what makes it possible to write and read to the exclusion of all else. I also engage in obsessive news watching, and then there is need for food cooking and cleaning up after cooking and foraging for food and feeding Cyrus. But, whereas most of you work full time, raise children, have a social life, keep your pets alive, and your spouse or lover happy enough to stay, I do none of those things. I make no room for anyone else. I keep all but one or two friends at arms length. I might be good for a visit from a close friend for an hour or two, but that's my limit. I can attend to the needs of another only that long. This makes me a big selfish asshole. But did you ever think it might be for your own safety? Maybe I'm doing you a big fat favor.

If my bipolar disorder where not well managed I would be signing up for every credit card company dumb enough to send me the invite. Then I'd go shopping. Compulsive shopping is a huge symptom. I was once a woman who really loved to shop, a woman who bought what she didn't need or even want, just because it was a great buy or on a whim I thought I loved it. All these shopping sprees create another problem that is common to those with bipolar disorder. DEBT. And in the end, in a bad economy, crushing debt leads to bankruptcy. This is not to say that all these things aren't done by perfectly normal healthy people, but add another symptom or two and Bingo! You might have a family member who is bipolar, and if you have one family member with bipolar disorder there are probably more. Moody? Life of the party one minute and sobbing the next? It could be PMS, or the boss, or the guy who dumped you, or it could be bipolar disorder. A child who everyone says is too sensitive? That was me. Too tired to get out of bed and feeling like you've been lobotomized? Could be a hangover or the flue unless it lasts for weeks or months or years. Occasionally having fits of rage? Dramatic and angry, exciting and too happy, too exciting? Finding life too hard to live? Well, welcome to my world. Do I enjoy this? Not that part. I do enjoy the fire in brain that keeps my fingers dancing on the keyboard. I do enjoy the complete and utter focus of the mind's creation. There is magic in the creative act no matter what the medium. But is it art? Who the hell knows? Probably not. It might just be a necessity. But the medical journals are full of histories and great stories of very famous creative types who were/are bipolar. We tend to be very creative people. We also tend to be very difficult. And finally we tend to commit suicide.

The really bad news for us and our families is that this disorder is incurable and genetic. It runs in families. Often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. Most genetic diseases have one DNA marker. Bipolar disorder has two. It gets worse with age. And though there are some very good drugs, there comes a point when the good old drug no longer works and you have to experiment with something new. It's hit or miss. And all the drugs have side effects. I'm currently on a drug that adds 20 to 40 pounds of drug weight. If I were to switch to Zoloft I'd lose some of the drug weight. But then I wouldn't be able to dream. The weight gain of so many of the bipolar drugs keeps a lot of women from compliance with taking their medicine. There are also problems with lowered sex drive (I say good riddance) but for many people this is a serious problem. And a big (pardon the pun) reason for men to be noncompliant with taking their medicine.

I think we're a pain in the ass to live with. I do not chose other people with bipolar disorder to hang out with. We're either too much fun or a real drag. Sobbing for no reason or hysterical laughter. Always out of sync. Would you chose to hang out with someone like that? I once asked Tom why he hung in there for so long. He said it was an interesting challenge. He could have just said he loved me.

You Thought You Knew Me

Even I thought I knew me. But I was wrong. Quizzie knows me and I am Ben Franklin. I'm a little bit insulted. I think of Ben as the practical one, not the brilliant, inspired one. Oh well, we can't have everything we want, can we?

Your result for The Great Minds Advice Test...

Do Something Worth Doing

33% Franklin, 0% Freud, 25% Teresa, 17% Wilde and 25% Leonardo!

"If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing." ~ B. Franklin

Your life advisor is Benjamin Franklin.

Franklin was definitely a doer. He believed that life should be lived to the fullest and that a person should never stop striving to learn. Once you have learned everything your life was over.

So, you should move. Get up and do something. Discover something new. Let your mind work to it's fullest and experience life.

Take The Great Minds Advice Test at HelloQuizzy

Impenetrable

I mentioned somewhere, sometime that there was a boy.... A boy in my long distant past... A boy I grabbed and dragged home and undressed and spent a day with, rolling around skin to skin in my parent's bed... Oh yes I did. I tried to seduce a boy. We tried to have real grown up sex. He was willing and able. I was eager and more than willing. My recollection is that we tried almost all day. And it was I who dragged him home with me. But despite my wanting and trying, I was not able. We were young and inexperienced in the other ways one might have sex without the actual penetration. I didn't understand anything about sex. Oh yeah, there were the years of Daddy rolling around in bed with me, with his erection and my child's body, but despite all those years of trying, even Daddy was unable to penetrate me in the vaginal way. I was impenetrable. I was a fortress. And anything Daddy did, I did not want to do with this boy. I wanted it to be new and mine, I wanted it to be ours alone.

Now I live as if I were a prisoner in my own well-constructed cell. I call it "The Bunker" or "The Cottage" depending on the season and my mood. It is guarded by locked gates and scary dogs. And I invite so few in. My cell is large for a prison, but small for a home. Yesterday my friends from New York were here. She is tiny, but he is very tall. I notice most how small my space is when a man stands in my small cell.

When I moved into the little house two years ago I planned to die here. I wanted to finish the book, Maggy, and then.... I saw my life as leading nowhere. I saw myself choosing to leave life in my own time, in my own way. I had no room in my small life for men. Even the husbands of women I know have little importance in my real life. They are, to be honest, little more than minor annoyances to me. He says he needs her today, so she can't come over. He is either her excuse or an impediment to some fun we want to have. Oh yes, he is a real man, who is probably interesting in his own way, but for me he is only an impediment. I think of men as needy. In my past with men they have been that. They have wanted me for one reason or another but in the end I have become little more than the cleaning woman and a captive audience. I don't like to clean house for just me. Why would I want to be anyone else's cleaning lady? Now I have no time to be the audience of one for a man who wants my undivided time and attention. I'd rather read. And yet...

The boy is now an old man. He has lived almost all his life near to me in one way or another. We have lived in far flung places now and then yet near to one another, not knowing. During the years my photograph graced the pages of the Newspaper and ads and catalogues, he lived a few blocks from me. He married twice and raised two sons he had with his first wife, and then the two daughters his second wife brought with her into their marriage. He loves his children and keeps in touch with them. Isn't life mysterious?

He read my letter to the editor in the early days of the Presidential Primary. He googled me and found my blog. He read for almost a year and then he emailed me. We now talk on the phone. He started a blog so he can comment. He joined twitter. He read the novel. I think I'm being courted. So what do I want now? Am I willing to even explore the possibilities? The question for me is, am I still impenetrable?

Well, One Thing Led to Another...

I was trying to find a few of my favorite songs by Etta James and this one, You Can Leave Your Hat On, has always been a favorite of mine. I met Joe Cocker in Santa Barbara--he was friends with a friend of... I like Joe Cocker, but I like Etta's version of You Can Leave Your Hat On better.

But then in the searching For Etta's version, I came across this. And it reminded me that I am a woman who likes hats. Yes I do. I like women and men who wear hats. This might account for the few number of friends of either sex I have. It isn't a requirement that everybody wear hats, but if you live in a place with snowy, freezing winters, and blistering hot summers and you don't wear a hat now and the, will you're just stupid. And you probably look nothing like Cary Grant. Damn.

I Used to be a Pitcher

I've written a book. I did it long ago and let it sit. Then, ten years ago or so, I pulled it out, dusted it off and started again. Then my mother's life unraveled, then mine, and now finally having dusted it of again I'm getting ready to send it off into the world to be more than likely rejected--it's the literary way. It is a longstanding tradition. Such is life. I know the odds are not in my favor. It probably doesn't help that I am not the hot young thing with the hip new thing. Enough of you have read it and left your comments that I believe my book has a certain universal appeal, if reliving your terrible childhood can be said to be appealing. Some of you have reached a certain point and been unable to read farther. I would so have wished that you could have told me what it was, exactly, that made you stop just then. Why there and not another place I wonder?

Now comes the very most difficult part of the project for me--the pitch. I have to sell a reader on picking up a chunk of the book and getting started. I have to do this quickly. 300 words or less. I have to say something about myself. Why did I write this novel? Oh yes, I am calling it a novel. It is a novel! Who are you to say it isn't? Did you lead my life? No? Well then...

Don't we all draw from life to form our characters? Did the real woman Madame Bovary exist? Did Flaubert know her, of her? Is Roskolnikov not based on a real man? Are you sure? Did you ask Dostoevsky?

I have removed the book called Maggy from this blog now. It may come back, but if and when it does, it will be tighter, and with fewer typo and grammar errors. It will be a bit shorter too. And almost everyone gets a new name. Isn't that festive? If you were reading it... and want more... Let's barter.

At Last

For the first dance at The Neighborhood Ball tonight (the first of all the balls tonight) the song chosen to begin The Neighborhood Ball is the song At Last. I'm most familiar with the Ette James version of this song, but for the Neighborhood Ball it is Beyonce who is performing it. But I'm a purist, and it is Ette James' song as far as I'm concerned. And what a choice. There is, of course, so much symbolism in the title of the song.