I’ve been fighting with my Windows XP desktops (one virtual, one hardware) for the last ninety minutes - I’ve gotten them to crash, reboot, restart, dump memory and do everything except what I wanted them to do - which was to a) run Outlook and b) run Hummingbird Exceed.
90% of the people in this country run some version of Windows at the office. How in the heck do y’all get anything done?
OK, so we arrived after an epic drive of about 20 hours, and three stops to cat-nap uncomfortably in a car full of dogs, Christmas gifts and luggage - variously in Lordsburg, someplace about two hours farther west than that, and a rest-stop in the mountains above Tucson. Look, when it’s too cold to sleep, and the air mattress has developed a slow leak and the dog and your child are bogarting most of the available space anyway… well, you may as well drive. Dunno about what rush hour traffic is like in Tucson these days, what with all the new construction, but it’s a breeze at 2AM!
We haven’t killed any Californians yet, we had a nice Christmas and will return with less stuff than we came with, the dogs haven’t fought too much with my parents’ dogs, they think the Weevil is a charmer (except for her chronic tail injury opening up and her painting blood all over the place… thank god for the invention of liquid bandage and lots of paper towels and spray cleaner….) and Spike is as cute and fluffy as ever.
Blondie is spending a couple of days in Pasadena with Pippy and her family, and my youngest brother, I am holding the fort at Mom and Dads - where they still refuse to move into the last quarter of the previous century and venture into the wild uncharted waters of the internet. But they do have a functioning computer, and I am pounding out a couple of reviews and another two or three chapters of the Adelsverein Trilogy, or Barsetshire with Cypress Trees and a Lot of Sidearms.
Yes, we’re alive, nothing has blown up in our absence, and I just emptied 3,000 spam comments out of the queue - about par, considering.
Merry Christmas, to everyone but whoever is running the spam comment generator. (You should be tossed out naked in a field of poison ivy and fire ants.)
Sgt. Mom
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.
Luke 2:1-19, KJV
Merry Christmas, everybody. May this day find you safe and healthy, surrounded by those you love.
And thank you to those who are spending this holiday season far from home, whether surrounded by sand, snow, or sunshine. Our military forces (and their families) have my deepest respect/admiration, and my undying gratitude.
From my favorite irreverent Christmas CD, “Codependent Christmas” by The Therapy Sisters.
Happy Whatever You’re Having -
Hope that the season is bright.
We wish that for you all your best dreams come true
if they’re politically correct, and not too far right.
Make healthy choices this season -
don’t be gloomy or depressed.
But if you are, don’t be worried -
it’s just normal, whatever you’re having stress!
Have a multi-cultural, gender-neutral, non-sectarian, unambiguous, ovo-lacto-vegetarian, nature-loving, sweet agrarian, non-polluting, mass-appealing, anti-looting, non-fur-wearing, all-inclusive celebration! (unless of course you don’t want to - this is YOUR holiday)
Happy Whatever you’re having -
wish me happy whatever I’m having, too.
It’s so nicely all inclusive,
and we hope it’s not intrusive
to wish Happy Whatever to you…
(spoken: have whatever you want to have)
Happy Whatever to you…
(spoken: I’ll have what the guy on the floor’s having)
Happy Whatever to YOU!
Sgt Hook is blogging again (hooray!), and in keeping with the season, has posted not just a new “Christmas Presence” story, but he has also re-posted those of previous years.
Go enjoy them, but take tissues. That man surely has a way with words.
I think we ought to be out there talking about ways to reduce energy consumption and waste. And we ought to declare that we will be free of energy consumption in this country within a decade, bold as that is.
In this election, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
Best .. Response .. Ever.
Cross posted to Space For Commerce.
Since she had her heart attack we’ve been taking it easy on the salt - not just table salt but reading the ingredients on packaged food with diligence and care. This is what you do if you want to stay alive long enough for Medical Science to come up with a ‘cure heart disease’ pill.
Still - the kids don’t have to follow our diet. Little Monkey asked for this in the store so … why not? Two cans went into the basket.
The snack that bites back . . Now with sea water flavoring!
Older Monkey had a can for lunch today. He ate a bit. Ate a bit more. Made a face . . .
Him: I don’t want this.
Why not?
Him: I’m not .. hungry.
I tried a slurp. Ever gotten a snoot full of salt water at the beach? It tasted like the Atlantic Ocean off the Delaware beach, with pasta. Bleh.
I’ll bet the other can will work out well as broth over the dog’s food.
Cross posted to Space For Commerce.
So, we went to the radio station’s annual staff Christmas party last night; generously catered with comestibles supplied by some of San Antonio’s finest. There were also, as Blondie described it, a fine assortment of tasty adult beverages, but no – this is public radio, so the drunken revelry was at a fairly well-controlled level. I bored the socks off a couple of hapless spouses by telling them more than they possibly ever wanted to know about Republic-era Texas and the entrepreneurial scheme and the perils of POD publishing and book-marketing. Blondie renewed acquaintance with that handful of staff members who recalled her as a high-school student volunteer working in the phone room during pledge drives.
The nearest we all came to a riotously party-hearty atmosphere was during the gift exchange, which was the white-elephant gift “Bad Santa” exchange. Everyone brought something of small value and occasionally dubious taste, suitably gift-wrapped. At the height of the evening revels, we each took a turn and drew a gift from the pile. The hope is that you go home with something a little more desirable, or at least, not as hideous and/or useless as what you brought, but this is a chancy preposition.
The rules of Bad Santa are open to negotiation, but the general custom is that someone drawing a gift can exchange it, unopened, for something that someone already has opened. Sometimes there is a limit on how often a desirable gift can bounce from person to person – and there are occasionally rather desirable items salted in among the white-elephants, which can make for a very lively exchange. At one unit I belonged to which did this, a set of lottery tickets, and a pair of hearts and teddy-bear printed boxer shorts proved to be in demand… whereas an awful plant container of hand-painted cast plaster in the shape of a tree stump with a squirrel on it had been around the Christmas exchange block for five or six years in a row. The unlucky soul who got stuck with it, returned it for subsequent Bad Santa exchanges; for all I know, it may still be in circulation, unless someone struck a blow for good taste in decorating and smashed it into little tiny bits..
The most popular items last night was a game of Texas Monopoly, a pair of Lord of the Rings bookends and a universal remote in the shape of a calculator the size of a roofing shingle – yes sir, try and misplace that puppy sometime. Least popular? I’d guess that was the 2005 road atlas. Well, the rules do say ‘white elephant’… I lost two boxes of gourmet dog treats and came home with a metal bowl trimmed with antlered deer heads. Not the least sure what I will do with it, although it might make a jazzy pet dish for Weevil or Spike.
Blondie and I are heading out to California tomorrow to spend Christmas with Mom and Dad and the rest of the family. We’re taking Blondie’s laptop, but Mom and Dad are not anywhere near being in tune with the internet age. I may be able to check in from a wifi spot alleged to be located in the public library in Valley Center… or I may not. Have a Merry Christmas, happy New Year and all that. We’ll be back after New Years, at the Same Old, Same Old.
(In the meantime, could someone occasionally approve comments and empty out the spam queue? Thanks – Sgt Mom)
Boing-Boing linked to AV’s Worst Band Names of 2007.
I really have nothing to add other than to point you there. What can be said about, “Penguins With Shotguns”?.
On a related note, one of the ladies I work with got a text message from a friend the other night, “Be Careful Driving Home, There’s a Camel Loose in Nampa” You could build a punk rock or country song around either one of those phrases…put them together and I think there’s a plot for a SciFi Saturday Night Movie.
So why are Hollywood writers looking for more money? This seems easy.
An extra and generous Christmas treat for a Friday, an early chapter from Book 3 of “Adelsverein”, better known around here as “Barsetshire with Cypress Trees and a Lot of Sidearms”, which gets into the adventures of the second generation of the German settlers, the rise of the Texas cattle baronies, and diverse other dramatic and interesting matters.
Chapter 40 - “The Death of Dreams”
Peter Vining’s patience with his sister-in-law Amelia Stoddard Vining lasted approximately three weeks; a period of time rather longer than he had expected immediately upon his return. He ate heartily of Hetty’s good cooking at every meal, sleeping deep and restfully at night in his own room, only a little troubled with bad dreams and the wistful conviction that he would step out of his room at any moment and encounter his mother, Doctor-Papa or his brothers. The memory of their voices, their footsteps echoed all the more loudly in the empty house where they had lived. For quite a few days his ambitions went no farther than that and to do nothing more strenuous than to put on some of his old suits of clothing, which Hetty laid out for him, still smelling faintly of the herbs and camphor in which they had been stored away.
He had wondered why Hetty and Daddy Hurst remained, when they so obviously got on so badly with Amelia but a visit from Margaret’s lawyer and executer for her will provided a partial answer; his mother had provided them with pensions, and the right to live on her property for as long as they cared to stay. Margaret had seen to that in her usual efficient manner; the will was air-tight and her bank account and investments secured, although thanks to the war pitifully smaller than they would have been otherwise. No wonder Amelia was on edge – Margaret had boxed her in very neatly, leaving her with no other place to live other than returning to her father’s house.On a morning about two weeks after he returned, Peter bundled up the tattered coat, shirt, and the cavalrymen’s trousers he had worn home from the Army. He intended telling Daddy Hurst or Hetty to burn the filthy and ragged things. Amelia intercepted him at the bottom of the stairs, popping out of the doorway to the dining room like a dancing figure on an ornamental clock at the sound of his feet on the stairs. Lately she had begun doing that, turning up unexpectedly no matter what room of the house he was in.
“Oh, they shall do no such thing!” She exclaimed, heatedly, upon cross-examining him over what he had planned for what remained of his uniform clothes. “How could you think to do so! They are relics – sacred relics of our gallant struggle for liberty and rights! Burn them, indeed. Give them to me, Peter!” She took the bundle from him, and to his astonishment, held the unsavory things to her as if they were something worthy of protection. “I will see to it they are mended and suitably preserved, dearest brother… in memory of our cause!”
“Fancy talk for a bunch of rags,” Peter answered, nonplussed. He went out to the kitchen anyway, shaking his head, thinking that Amelia was being damn sentimental over something he wouldn’t have given to a tramp for charity. Daddy Hurst and Hetty were the only sensible people in the house, it seemed like. Daddy Hurst chuckled knowingly when he said as much.“Miz Amelia cain’t never do enough for the cause,” Daddy Hurst said, “‘Specially now.” And Hetty sniffed as if she disapproved, adding with a pointed look over her shoulder as she laid a place for breakfast for him.
“You best beware, Mr. Peter – there are causes and there are causes. Once Miss Amelia sets her sights on sommat, she does not take no for an answer.”
“Most assuredly, I do not,” Amelia herself announced with enormous satisfaction, appearing in the doorway – again just like one of those mechanical dolls. Everyone started, as she stepped into the kitchen, her skirts rustling indignantly, and she looked at the single place at the kitchen table. Her lips trembled with crushing disappointment. “Oh, Hetty,” she added, “I thought it was understood – we take our meals properly, in the dining room!”
“I’d rather eat in the kitchen,” Peter answered mulishly, but his sister-in-law only laughed, a pretty tinkling laugh as she took his good arm.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Peter… one can’t take meals with the servants – even those who have ideas above themselves. It’s just not proper!” She added, over her shoulder to Hetty as she escorted Peter towards the dining room, “Another place – in the dining room, Hetty.”On the whole, Peter would have preferred the kitchen, to the all-but empty table in the dining room, where young Horrie kicked his heels against the legs of a chair too tall for him. He and Horrie exchanged sympathetic looks; Horrie dogged his footsteps also, but it did not annoy Peter in quite the same way. Horrie craved attention and he was lonely for company, over and above Hetty and Daddy Hurst, who treated him with considerable affection. But they were old, and had their own work about the place. Peter wondered why Amelia did not want to send him to school. Privately he thought she wanted make a constant display of her maternal devotion, for she really seemed to care little for him, other than as an intelligent pet who talked. Horrie did not seem to care all that much either, to judge by the way that he squirmed out of Amelia’s lap when she took him up onto it, or the way he turned his cheek away from her kisses, enduring such demonstrations with a stoical face, “And you should rightfully sit at the head of the table,” Amelia added, as a tight-lipped Hetty carried in a tray with a fresh pot of coffee, and another place setting on it. “You may move my place to the right, Hetty.”
“It seems very dull without any boarders,” Peter took the chair at the head of the table, from which his mother had always presided, feeling as though he were usurping a place to which he had no real right. Behind Amelia’s back, Hetty’s lips twisted soundlessly in agreement, with a Gaelic imprecation added for good measure. “Had you not considered continuing as my mother did? It always made for the most interesting meals.”“Oh, really Peter,” Amelia laughed, that irritatingly sweet tinkling laugh, “I couldn’t possibly engage in a business as vulgar as running a boarding house! Imagine - all those strangers and their impositions! It’s just not suitable for a respectable woman to do!”
“It was respectable enough for my mother,” Peter answered, and Hetty added spitefully,
“Aye, so it was, Miss Amelia – an’ what d’ye say to that?!”
“Hetty!” Amelia sounded desperate. “I am talking about family…”
“And we’re not family?” Hetty answered crisply, and set down the coffee pot with a decided thump, “Sure and the mistress did not think herself too good to work in the kitchen next to me, or bargain with the tradesmen, while some as I could mention sat in the parlor, all airs and graces an’ la-te-dah! Not family?!! ‘Tis why herself did what she did, leaving Hurst and I our lifetime in wages… and said clear that we should live here as long as we liked! No one otherwise would do a lick of work, Miss Amelia, while the house fell down around ye…”Horrie listened, round-eyed and wary. Peter wondered of he had often observed this kind of scene, while Amelia’s eyes filled as if being berated by Hetty were the greatest tragedy imaginable. Peter cleared his throat and asked,
“Hetty… might I have some breakfast now?” Hetty’s ill-temper vanished magically, and she beamed fondly at Peter and Horrie,
“Of course you may… here I am, forgetting myself again, with you and the little lad waiting on me!” She bustled away, as Amelia dabbed at her swimming eyes.
“She does so forget herself,” she quavered, “I know that your dearest mama carried on so bravely… under such a tragic loss! But times were so different, Peter. No one thought the tiniest bit ill of her, then. But times have changed and I am helpless…”
And quite willing to remain so, Peter thought, cynically. Mr. Stoddard’s gently raised daughter would rather sit in genteel poverty in the parlor of an empty house than carry on from where Margaret had been forced to lay down the labor of caring for her family. He reached across the tabletop for the coffee pot; Amelia touched his hand and raised her eyes winsomely,“But now that you have returned, you shall be able to look out for our interests… all of our interests,” she added and it took Peter more than a moment to take in the implication. “Mother Williamson reposed such confidence and trust in you, Peter… she had such hopes of you returning safely, and of all of us being a proper family again.”
Peter gently slid his hand out from under hers, carefully to keep his face utterly blank; Amelia, setting her cap at him? Good god, what a thought! He poured himself coffee, while Amelia continued artlessly, “I would so much rather be guided by someone stronger and wiser… I have no head for such worldly matters…”
“There’s always your Pa,” Peter pointed out. He was amused to see a flash of irritation with him in Amelia’s lovely eyes. “Man of business… none better, to look after your interests.”
“Not like a husband would be,” Amelia said, as Peter thought with annoyance, As if her looking at me with eyes like a cow would make me change my mind – how much of a malleable fool does she think I am? That worked with Horace, but I’m damned if it will work with me!“No, probably not,” he answered agreeably, “So promise me one thing, ‘Melia – Let me look over any of the suitors you are thinking serious about. I am Horrie’s uncle, after all.”
On the whole, he thought later, he was lucky she didn’t throw the coffee pot at him. She was that riled at him deliberately missing all the hints she scattered like handfuls of chicken feed. But Amelia swallowed her considerable fury, saying only,
“I shall be sure of consulting you, Peter – being that you are the nearest to a dear brother left to me,” which said much for Amelia’s powers of ladylike self-control. Still, Peter didn’t think she would give up the matter entirely.His brother’s wife was single-minded that way. He had been named co-guardian of Horrie. The largest portion of Margaret’s proper was left to him, including the house. She was a widow with a small son, the second beneficiary and with little inclination towards managing her own affairs. Looking around for someone who would masterfully take all these burdens from her, Amelia’s eyes couldn’t help but fall onto him. Against all those practical considerations and what she perceived as her overwhelming need, his disinclination was merely a small obstacle to be overcome. No doubt she thought it would be only a matter of time before she wore him down as she had worn down his brother, with tears and tantrums, and pretty displays of forgiveness and reconciliation. Peter had observed this from afar, indulgently thinking his brother could be forgiven that kind of soft-headedness; he had loved her, after all. But he did not, and had no intention of being maneuvered into doing as Miss Amelia wished.
In the end, he took counsel with Daddy Hurst – correctly figuring that Daddy Hurst’s little cabin, at the back of the house, behind the stables and the vegetable garden was one of the places he was safe from Amelia’s ambush. He went down in the evening, after supper, when there was still light in the sky over the weighted boughs of the apple trees, as the sun went down in a dark red smear of sky and purple clouds behind them.“I’ve come for that drink of whiskey you promised,” he said, from below the porch, where Daddy sat at ease, slapping at an occasional late-season mosquito. One of his mother’s rules instituted firmly when he was small and adventurous; Wait until you are invited, Margaret told him sternly. But why, Mama – he’s jus’ an old nigra slave. Nonetheless, Margaret said – Hurst or anyone else, black or white, is due the courtesy of deciding when and whom he might invite into his home.
“’Bout time,” the old man chuckled richly, “Come on up, set a spell…” he gestured casually at the other chair, before fixing Peter with a shrewd and stern look. “How long you think befoah Miz ‘Melia, she track you down?”
“Don’t much care, Daddy – long as I can face up to her with a couple of drinks in me first!”
Hurst shook his head and rose painfully and in several stages from his chair,
“Marse Peter, it don’t do you no good a’tall to pour sperrits on your problems.”
“I guess not,” Peter agreed with a sigh, “But it does render them temporarily more amusing!” He settled into the other chair – surprisingly comfortable it was – as Daddy Hurst vanished into the dim doorway of his little house. He emerged with a dark glass bottle and a pair of battered tin mugs, silently pouring out a tot for each. Peter savored it in silence.
“To home,” he lifted the tin cup in a mock toast, and the old man echoed it. After a long moment, Daddy Hurst added,
“It ain’t the place, so much as dey people in it, Marse Peter.” Peter made a noncommittal sound, for Daddy Hurst had unerringly put his finger on it. He might be home, but the people who counted in it most – they were all gone. Margaret, Papa-Doctor, Horace, Johnny and Jamie; of all those who had fixed his mother’s house in his memory, and for whom he cared, only Daddy Hurst and Hetty remained… and little Horrie the only one of his blood family left.“It’s not as if I can send her away from here,” Peter said, a little surprised to find himself thinking out loud. “She was my brother’s wife, after all. And Horrie – this is all the home he’s ever had.” Daddy Hurst nodded thoughtfully in the twilight. He topped up the tin cups, the bottle clinking gently against the rim. “Suit me right down to the ground if she sets her cap at some other fellow. Let him marry her, the poor bastard.”
“Meantime, they-ar Miz Amelia be, like a cuckoo in a nest.” Daddy Hurst sounded like he was savoring the whiskey. “Mebbe you might have some bizness of yo’ own, tahk you away for a time. Might give Miz Amelia a notion that you ain’t so much interested.”
“Something that would keep me way for a while,” Peter mused, thoughtfully, after a long moment. “I like that thought. I could say I’m looking for work, got itchy feet.”
“Mmmm,” Daddy Hurst topped up the cups again. “Got me jest the idee, now! You could say you wuz goin’ up to Fredericksburg, to see ‘bout Marse Carl’s fambly. They wus lef’ in a hard way, Miz Margaret she felt real bad ‘bout that. Don’ know if they is all dat better, even if de war is ober…”
“If they’re still in a bad way, I can hang my hat there for a while and help them out,” Peter ventured slowly. Daddy Hurst chuckled again and nodded
“An if dey ain’t – wal’ yo’ kin jes’ stay wit ‘em for a bit, and Miz ‘Melia, she’ll nebber know de difference.”
“Any port in a storm,” Peter agreed, philosophically. The more he thought on that, the better the notion sounded; away from his mother’s house, haunted with the memories of old happiness.
(more…)
A fellow on his blog asked as an aside
Speaking of which, if anyone has any tips on getting a six-month old baby to stop waking up every two hours at night I’d sure be thankful.
To which one reply was
As far as the baby goes, if you get up and go to him when he cries in the middle of the night, you are encouraging him to cry for attention. It can be difficult but try to let him just cry himself to sleep. It takes a few days / weeks to train him but once you do, your life will be much easier. Promise!
Sweet Jesus on a ferris wheel.
It’s a baby, not a dog. You’re raising a human being not crate training a puppy. He’s not crying for attention you, unremarkable stain, he’s crying because it’s dark and he’s alone and he’s scared. He’s an itty bitty primate and loves to be cuddled and held and sung to.
You want life to be easy? The moment your sperm lanced into her egg it stopped being easy and became a lifetime slog of burps, barf and heartache. The only consolation is to see your children grow up into self-sufficient adults.
I saw this as no particular expert in anything. I’m not the world’s best father and I frequently fall short of my own expectations in that regard; I have a bad temper, at times I have absolutely no patience with them.
But with all my faults I know that you don’t train babies to lie still and alone in the dark you hold them and love them.
Aside to Daily Brief readers - I had to get this off my chest - thanks for reading. Now back to your regularly scheduled Briefing.
Cross posted to Space For Commerce.
Strictly speaking, unless your last name is Grisham or King, Steele or Rowling or any other scribbling royalty lurking meaningfully on or near the of the NY-Times best seller lists, life is bleak and full of frustrations. And also very short of people who are nice to you as a writer and welcoming to you and your books. No wonder so many of them turn to drink, or otherwise crash and burn. Even the flash in the pan overnight successful ones fall to this– Grace Metalious, anyone?
Those of us at the bottom, toiling and marketing in obscurity take our little successes where we can, lonely beacons shining in a dark and generally frustrating world. Everyone who reads the Book and loves it, or recommends it to a friend, or drops a favorable comment in an on-line forum; that’s a light like Erandil in the dark places of the day. Not quite up there with royalty checks in three figures, but the trick to being happy is to be happy with what you have.
Last night I found a comment in a discussion forum about off-road vehicles; a contributor quoted a bit from “To Truckee’s Trail” about storage arrangements in Dr. Townsends’ wagon and drew a very neat parallel between that, and how modern off-roaders now install storage for long treks – that just about made my evening. Such crumbs as do nourish the writers’ ego on these long winter evenings after looking at my ranking on Amazon.com. It’s available in the Kindle format, by the way. Or so it appears. I think. Even if there is no picture of the cover or links to the reviews for the paperback edition. No idea from the admin responses in the author forum as to why… just another way that the non-royal scribblers are incessantly kicked in the teeth by a cold and unfeeling world.
Ah, yes – reviews; absolutely necessary to have in order to market your book. Think of them as word of mouth, made solid and permanent in print. In the grand halls of the literary industrial complex, competition is fierce to review the books of the scribbling royalty and the well-connected commentariat; even so, it will take months. Almost always, the book is made available to a select few way in advance, and rumor has it that sometimes reviewers are paid and quite healthy sums too. It’s a necessary step in marketing the book, think of all those lovely complimentary quotes on the back jacket, or in the first couple of pages. At a lower level – naturally the one occupied by other indie authors – are also paid… by getting a free copy of the book. It’s one of those nice little freebies available to those in the loop and I confess to having scored a nice little collection thereby. (I asked to review a book last month for no other reason that I looked at the description and thought what a wonderful Christmas present a copy would make for a certain friend.)
Alas, it has taken months and months to assemble my collection of reviews, and pushed back my marketing plan by a considerable period. Good thing that it is a POD book, as a traditional publisher would have pulled the plug by this time. On the other hand, a traditional publisher would have been able to squeeze a review out of the San Antonio Express News, whose book editor informed me snottily that their policy is not to review POD books of any sort, not even by local authors. Don’t know what their reasoning is, probably afraid of getting literary cooties or something. God knows there are some simply dreadful books out there, but last time I looked, quite a lot of them came out of the traditional publishers. Indie writing may be the next wave, just as indie movies and indie music have offered an alternative to the traditional Hollywood blockbuster and the manufactured and wholly synthetic mega-hit.
Next – why it’s an uphill fight to get the book into traditional bookstores, and why do I bother anyway?
| What mental disorder do you have?
Your Result: ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)
You have a very hard time focusing, and you find it difficult to stay on task without your mind wandering. You probably zone in and out of conversations and tend to miss out on directions because you cannot focus |
|
| Manic Depressive |
|
| Paranoia |
|
| GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) |
|
| OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) |
|
| What mental disorder do you have? | |
I woke up at 330 this morning, and when I couldn’t get back to sleep, my first thought was “I knew that long mid-day nap was a bad idea.”
But as I lay there in bed, trying to fall asleep again, thoughts started flittering through my mind, some of them worth sharing. And I found myself writing a post in my mind, with no way to get it from my mind to paper/PC, unless I got up.
Why hasn’t someone invented a “mind-writing machine?” One that you can turn on and off at will, that could record the thoughts you particularly want to keep for later playback, without one’s having to get out of bed, turn on lights, and find writing paraphernalia?
More importantly, Was I LYING in bed, or LAYING in bed? : I’m 46 years old, with 2 degrees and 1/3 of another, and have no idea which is the correct word. I’m tired of not knowing that (I researched it when I got up - it seems that “lay” in the 2nd paragraph is correct, because it’s the past tense of lie. But when I’m IN bed, I’m LYING in bed. Hopefully, I’ll remember this tidbit of English grammar for more than the next 5 minutes).
So now I know - I lay in bed, thinking, and letting my mind ramble where it would. And y’all are wondering why the heck I thought my thoughts were worth sharing. That’s coming up next. (more…)
“Life in the wide world goes on much as it has these past age, full of its own comings and goings, scarcely aware of the existence of hobbits… for which I am very thankful.” – Gandalf, from “The Fellowship of the Ring”
There are some things that are so obvious that 20-20 hind-sight is not required, and Sunday, December 7th 1941 is one of them. The events of a couple of hours in the skies over a tiny Pacific Island previously known more as a tourist destination and a source for sugar and pineapples created a rift across the American consciousness, an abrupt demarcation between “then” and “now”. Very much like the effect of 9-11, a snap of a cosmically huge cracker into two pieces; you could look across to the other half of the cracker, and see that on either side of the chasm everything appeared to look just the same… but in your heart, you knew that things were not the same, and would never be quite the same again.
It was a smaller world, that America of seven decades ago, a very local, insular and insulated world, and one which moved comparatively slowly. Only the wealthiest or most adventurous traveled widely. Those who did travel did so by train, or passenger steamship in varying degrees of luxury. Passenger air travel was in its infancy, an exotic and expensive curiosity, as was television - a fancy futuristic gadget displayed at the 1939 Worlds’ Fair. People got their news from newspapers and movie news reels, from weekly magazines like “Life” and “The Saturday Evening Post”, and from the radio. Telephones were large clumsy black objects, nine out of ten on a party line, if you had one at all in your home. Urgent news came by telegram, a little slip of paper delivered by a bicycle messenger.
There was a war on, in that year of 1941; a war that been brewing for years before it finally burst into the open. Europe had been at war and China… poor fractured China, had been racked and wrecked by warlords, civil war and the Japanese for most of a decade. To Americans, it was all very tragic… but it was happening somewhere else. America of 1941 was built on a century and half of emigration by people who had consciously chosen to leave the old world with its resentments and quarrels behind. The consensus among most ordinary working Americans was that it was none of our business and best to keep out of it. A bill to draft military-age men had just barely been passed, the standing regular Army and Navy were insular little worlds all their own. The catastrophe of our own Civil War was just passing out of living memory, but recollection of World War I remained quite vivid, along with the conviction that we had been suckered into participation against our best interests. Asia’s quarrels and Europe’s quarrels were nothing to do with Americans and there was an ocean - which took better than a week to cross by ship – between us and the belligerent parties anyway.
And then one Sunday morning, under a tropical blue sky, all those happy assumptions went up in showers of smoke, explosions and flame. We may not have had an interest in the quarrels of others… but those quarrels definitely had an interest in us. And we were reminded again, those of us who forgotten or chosen to put that knowledge to one side, that the world is with us always.
A long while ago, I read an essay about the day after Pearl Harbor – can’t remember where, or by whom – but one of the memories recorded was from a person who had lived on or near the big Navaho Reservation, in the Southwest. On the morning of Monday, December 8th, 1941 – so this person recalled – every able-bodied male on the reservation over the age of seventeen showed up at their local post offices, carrying a gun and wanting to volunteer for the war… a war that had chosen them.
We watched “V for Vendetta” again a couple of weeks ago. Two of the characters in the movie make “eggs (eggies) in a basket” for Evey.
I think I’ve had that for breakfast about four times since then.
It’s simple, heat a fry pan with butter or butter flavored low fat spray, tear a hole in the middle of a piece of bread, put the bread in the hot butter/spray, crack an egg and put it in the hole. Fry until you can see the bottom of the egg get solid white. Flip. I add a piece of swiss cheese to the top and let it melt because there’s not enough in there that’s bad for your heart.
Simple, plain, good food. Ya can’t buy this anywhere and I wouldn’t want to.
A few items of note to report
A bit of progress in the first draft of Vol.3 “Barsetshire with Cypress Trees and a Lot of Sidearms” – well into chapter 4 of the final volume. A test reading by my skilled and perceptive first-line editors (ok, Mom and Dad) provides positive feedback and a high interest in a new cast of characters. I am setting up a positively soap-opera-esque level of drama here, and yes, I will be careful not to turn the sister-in-law aka the Southern Belle from Hell into a caricature… although she is a walk-on, and at full strength these ladies tend to seem terribly over-the-top to us repressed Anglo-Yankees anyway. Mom and Dad give high props to the introduction of new leading characters, BTW. Since this is by way of becoming a family saga, and covers about half a century of eventful Texas history, this was necessary… a hero of a wild, wild western creaking around on a zimmer-frame just does not work for me. There may be writers of genre fiction this would work for, but not me and not this genre.
I’m tinkering a little with the first volume, and meditating upon revisions to the second volume; I’d like to finish the whole thing before going out and fishing for publishers again – just in case I am struck by a wildly creative notion about two chapters from the absolute end, and need to go back and set up the preconditions.
Blondie and I finished Christmas shopping last weekend – er, rather we emptied out the closet where we chuck the items as we buy them here or there throughout the year, take an inventory and figure out what few little items we need to put on the glorious display of generosity to our nearest and dearest that custom requires of us.
Never mind that most of our gleanings were bought on sale, from yard sales or are items for D-I-Y gift basket assortments needing assembly and the lot is currently spread out over the dining area table along with rolls of Christmas paper and a bundle of bags and Christmas tissue paper picked up on sale after Christmas last year. Note to our nearest and dearest – the book-writing thing is not paying off that well yet although I do have hopes. “To Truckee’s Trail” is available at Amazons’ Kindle reader store. Can’t figure out how come the cover pic isn’t posted, and given their customer service degree of friendly helpfulness I am afraid to ask why.
The Fat Guy did a lovely review here; so did Juliet Waldron for this month’s issue of the Independent Authors Guild newsletter (scroll down, it’s on the third page), and Jaime at FictionScribe posted a long interview on how I came to write it. Might I suggest that it would make a lovely Christmas present for anyone who likes a good old-fashioned read?
I’d work up some bile for Franklin Foer’s belated and protracted apologies for the Private Beauchamp/Baghdad Diaries debacle, but I have to be in a sour mood to do it proper justice.
As for Legacy Media/The End of/As We Know It, I’ll note that a sales rep from the local newspaper called last night, offering a special home delivery deal; the Sunday paper for $2.00 and the rest of the week at no additional charge. I love the smell of economic desperation in the morning. Or whenever.
Doo-da, Doo-da
De Camptown racetrack’s two miles long
Oh, de doo-da dayGwine to run all night
Gwine to run all day
I bet my money on a bob-tailed nag
Somebody bet on the gray!Comment by Sgt. Mom — 20071202 @ 1224