Crime

I've been calling around getting prices for a replacement part for my car. (It's a headlight assembly and the prices average $350.00.  So stupid.  Only the plastic lens is broken.  I want to use Shrinky Dink plastic but the husband says no.)  A local GM dealer had a decent price and could get it tomorrow.  So twice I tried calling there to say go ahead and order it and I am getting all furious (pay attention!  I said 'furious') because no one answers.  I let it ring about ten minutes each time.  Imagine sitting in this agency listening to this phone ring and ring.  Crazy making.  A few minutes ago, my husband returned from a trip to the bank, which is right next door to this GM dealer.  The streets around it are cordoned off by police.  He hears on the radio on the way home that someone in the dealership was stabbed to death and they had the perp in custody.  I hope it wasn't incessant ringing of a phone that set him off.  But, if he stabbed someone to death, he must have been 'furious.'

Since we have lived in Lindenhurst, about eleven and a half years, there have been three murders, one body found, two suicides I know of, and eleven normal deaths just on my block.  Thirteen years in Oak Park, I never heard of this.  Oak Park is immediately adjacent to the West Side of Chicago.  Lindenhurst is forty miles north near the Wisconsin border.  So much for going to the boonies for safety.

Friendship

My younger daughter has many friends.  My older daughter has friends that have been her friends for many, many years.  My younger daughter had a break with a friend that was very serious.  The person felt betrayed and came back and said, "Well, I am still mad about it, but I have to put it behind me cuz I still want to be your friend."  I would say she and her friends love each other.  I wonder where they learned to have friends and be a friend.  Not from me.

I had a friend for many years.  One.  I have many casual acquaintances and waaaay too many relatives, and I am the kind of person that ends up giving the person in line at KMart a hug when we finally say good bye after our eleven minute life changing conversation.  I am also the kind of person that the Mexican handy man on the estate where I worked offered to marry one day when I was complaining about my spouse.  And I have always been able to make friends with people that I work with.  They have attempted to keep those friendships, and "friendships" going when we no longer worked together and seeing one another became less convenient.  But it was always me that dropped the ball, or let the air out of it. 

The one friendship that persisted did so not because of my efforts.  I am phone phobic and I love to read, and would never  bother to call someone just to catch up or make a date.  I just don't want to.  Part of it is time related, part of it, the biggest part of it, is definitely psychological.  But the friend persisted in keeping in touch.  Now we have parted.  She has denied saying things that I have in print (electronically) and she has accused my husband and me of doing things we did not do.  (Also backed up with the printed words she twisted) She claimed that some years back she decided to steer away from certain topics cuz she thought I was going a little wacko.  Well, shit fire.  Everyone knows I am a little wacko.  And the stuff that I have heard from her over the years indicating she is not going a little wacko but has crossed the line into the land of the strangely unbalanced, well, why even bother?   Today I received a letter from her that is so far beyond the pale (whatever the fuck that means) that my mind is spinning and burning and I am venting on this blog to keep myself from taking her letter and annotating each and every bizarre accusation she makes.   I am asking myself, and everyone around me, and they are getting damn sick of it, why did I ever bother?  What did I ever get out of it?  I would get so nervous about meeting her for lunch, I would have to take a Lunesta (maybe two) the night before or else I would toss and turn in a frenzy of anxiety.

I have rewritten my life in fictional works, three or four times.  I cannot actually rewrite my life, and when I consider the bad things that happened, the terrible tragedies that I wish I did not have to live through, the difficulties and mental obstacles and horrible decisions I have had to make, honestly, I look back and think that is just the way it was.  That is why I am here now and things are this way.  And I honestly don't think I would change it.  Well, maybe I would have married that med student, but I think he had a drinking problem.

But this friendship thing?  I twice have moved from towns and left no forwarding address because I did not want some one who wanted to be my fucking friend ( and I don't literally mean fucking. That's a whole other issue. And a way easier one to deal with.) to find me.  And, honest to God, one of them tracked me down.  What is wrong with me, except that my DNA proves my ancestors are from another galaxy, that makes me think friendship is such a HUGE pain in the ass?  I invite your input.  You may feel free to post anonymously and thereby relieve me from having to do anything, besides accepting gratefully,  that might be construed as friendly. But I am courteous, trustworthy, appreciative, kind, generous, unselfish, highly accountable, extremely responsible, fun, witty, (acerbically), literate, intelligent, attractive in an aging sort of way, just unfuckingfriendly. And that wacko thing.

Five Feet of Heaven in a Ponytail

I made a comment on someone's blog about love and how I felt like only I could love me.  And the person felt sorry for me.  And that is the second time I have done that.  I am kinda bummed.  I don't feel sorry for me, and I don't really feel comfortable making people feel that way.  I feel I am brave and enterprising and stalwart.  (We won't get into foolish or impetuous or wrong headed or whatever in this blog.  At least not today.)  I guess it is my perspective or my use of the word, or, perhaps, my own perception.

Recently I parted ways with a friend I have known for most of my life.  I had always said that she was a better friend to me than I was to her.  But, kind of like a light bulb went on in my head, suddenly (she said and did  stuff I totally could not fucking believe, and still can't) I felt like I was not the person she thought I was, and she was a friend to someone that was a stranger to me and I could not relate to it any longer. It is a huge watershed in my life, and weeks later, I refer to it and dream and obsess  about it.

In the car,  the other day, my daughter was 'lecturing' me on some thing I was allowing with my grandchildren, one of which (whom, who?)  lives in my home.  And I said, 'Well, I know I am an 'enabler', etc.", and brought up the old saw about where do you draw the line between caring and enabling, which is maybe not such an "old" saw, but has always been a good back up retort for me when I am being used as a doormat. and I said, "How bout we wait til this comes back to bite me in the ass, cuz I already did it and I know I shouldn't have and I really don't want to hear anymore about it right now."  And she said, "Okay."  And we just went on. 

Yesterday, when I was holding her baby, (the cutest thing you ever saw, no REALLLY) and I said, "She looks a little thrushy."  And Fran said, "No.  It's just milk."  And I said, "Okay." And we just moved on.

I have never had a relationship in all my many too many years, except for this one with one of my children, and sometimes that is a little shaky,  where things could be said like that and boing just move along with your life instead of analyzing the living breathing shit out of why it was said, and where did that person get that idea, and how should you react, and, Christ, increase my xanax scrip and give me an extra hour on the couch this week.  And, maybe I put too fine a point on it, but I think, if you love someone, or have love for someone, totally, it just has to be like that.   And you don't have to work at making it be like that, it just fucking IS.  And the respect and the admiration and the getting completely pissed off cannot be dealt with separately or analyzed or corrected.  The person has to know who the fuck you are.  Maybe I idealize myself, or feel I am more complicated than I appear to others, but I have been married to someone for over forty years who has no idea who I am or what I am about.  And he shouldn't have to think about it or define me to himself, he should just fucking know it or be aware of it.  I know if someone handed him a copy of one of my books and he read it, (and he wouldn't be bothered to read it unless it was titled  "Getting Down with the Kinghts Templar"  or "Sex and Seamanship") he would have no clue who wrote it, nor would he ever give it a thought.  He would just kind of mentally go, "Uh, huh."  and pick up the remote.

And I totally get that this is all about choices.  And that makes no nevermind here.

What Are You Going To Do?

This has happened at least six times in the last few months. 

I understand there is a certain type of mind that is kind of like a blender, that stuff just keeps spinning around and if you lift the cover a little, something just sort of flies out and sticks, to the wall, to the table, to your face, to your notebook, to your COMPUTER SCREEN.  I kind of have that sort of mind.  And I know I will read stuff and think, "Oh, I wrote a poem like that when I was 29", and it haunts me for awhile that maybe I read that poem by someone else when I was sixteen and it was just whirling around in there and just happened to fly out at a particular time.

But.   When, TWO DAYS after I post a blog about something that happened that was totally serendipitous, and I introduce the article with a cut and paste definition, complete with all citations, of the history and the definition of the word, I come across a blog, using almost the identical words, only illustrating that a different set of their own personal circumstances seemed, in fact, serendipitous, I think the person should at least say, "I was scrolling blogs and came across this blog, by VIRGINIA LLORCA, and she was talking about serendipity and it made me think as follows. "

There is nothing that can be done about it.  But when I realize I got the idea somewhere, I ALWAYS  say I saw this in the paper or so and so was blogging about this.  I think that keeps stuff polite and in the sunshine and it creeps me out that the Supreme Court has to rule on intellectual property.  But, if a person doesn't feel that upright and good citizen, honorable writer, non Cassie Edwards -ish about the subject, well then let them lay in their beds at night thinking that I am pond scum and no one will ever know they lifted it from my sparkling works, or used my stunning example as a platform.  That's okay with me.  I lay in bed at night and think about what Maisie says to Barney when he is standing there in the kitchen in his blue plaid boxers kissing her and the toddlers are smearing cheerios all over the room.

And I didn't get that idea from some else's blog, but someone with a contract with a major publisher will probably have it on the shelf in six months. 

And, a little motherly advice:   don't all the people in the blogging world KNOW that the tagging process GROUPS blogs, and, sooner rather than later, people in the field you are planting,  or hoeing, or trampling, or reaping, are gonna see the crop?  Ah, well.  In pioneer days, settling the ole West, rustlers figured out how to alter cattle brands.  So, who is stupid?

Baseball as Never Before

My nine year old grandson had his last little league game today.  Now All Star and Play offs.  They are 16 wins two losses for the season.  Since it was the last game, they wanted to let everyone pitch.  He never pitched in a game before.  He can fire the ball but tends to hold back a little.  He struck out the first two batters, three pitches each.  I over heard one of the coaches say, "Why did we use him as a relief pitcher?"  (They used him as designated runner a couple of times cuz he is FAST)  So then he walks a run home but then strikes out the third guy to retire the side and they win another.  I had tears in my eyes.  I am such a wuss about such stuff. And sweet little Delaney asleep in my arms the whole time.  How many times can I say, "Life is sweet"?  I think this is a first for me.

                                    BEN

FLUFF

For anyone wandering in here that doesn't know ME, that might have linked through that Real Estate Agent in New Zealand or that Bicylce Shop in Holland, or that strange Russian website that loves me--I write FLUFF.

I am tired of the strict definition of "Romance" that it must have "conflict" and the "Happy Ending" which is so standardized it is called the HEA.  Happy Ever After. 

I write FLUFF.  They fall in love, fall in  bed, fight about stupid things, have babies, have tragedies, have fun, get scared, care about stuff.  There is no category.  I have even, thinking perhaps facetiously, or "kidding on the square", sent out queries where I say this is FLUFF with no moral lessons, hidden truths, just entertainment.  You'll laugh.  You'll cry.  You'll pee a little.  WTF.  I NEED escapism, but I cannot get my mind around stuff that has no bearing at all on my life.  I have to be able to identify with these people otherwise I do not give a flying fuck about them.  I remember all the cute, funny, flattering, scary, sad, emotional, angry parts of my life.  I don't necessarily want flashbacks, but maybe a little revisionist history, just for fun.  I swear, I read about a person whose friend has a book on the store shelf and asks her what she thinks of it and she says now they don't speak cuz it was a bunch of disconnected scenarios and she couldn't think of anything good to say about it.  Well, don't get your expectations up here.  If you ever talked to me or listened to me, or heard about me, you know exactly what to expect, and if you never heard of me, you will know me as well as you know your sister or your wife or your husband or yourself when you read me.

Coming soon to a Kindle  near you.  Lots and lots of bang for your buck.

Quote of the Day, of a Lifetime Maybe. . .

If not now, then when?

If not me, then who?



From some dude on Ted.  Thank you.

Blather

I am trying to figure out something that is really bothering me.  I read too many blogs on too many websites.  It uses up way too much of my time.  But I need to fill up the time since it seems my great professional writing career will never get off the ground, and was, apparently, just a reaction to the wrong medication.  This is disappointing to me, needless to say.  And I am not quite throwing in the towel yet.  But I haven't had the courage to look at my manuscripts in quite a while.  And the urge to start another is nonexistent.  The whole time I was writing so prolifically, I was wondering where it all was coming from.  I kept getting these ideas and running with them and asking myself where I got the ideas.  I will probably find out in a few years  that I actually wrote down word for word some story I read thirty years ago that was fermenting in the depths of my brain.

Anyway, the latest thing is that I have no patience with people that I personally feel take themselves too seriously.  Why is that?  Don't I take myself seriously?  You know what?  I don't think I do.  I think I am afraid to.  I think I am way too ready to back down.  Not that I will surrender my principles or beliefs.  I mean, I honestly do not care what you think about that. I go with what I am comfortable with.  But some people tackle a philosophy and they dissect it ad nauseum, and end up with all these semantic distinctions and I counter with an absolutely true, practical, real-life example of what they are talking about and they cannot respond in a realistic way.  They dissect my language or point out a typo.  And I feel like I climbed up the pole and waved  the flag and they all walked away.  And a couple of them stopped and peed on the pole just to accentuate their disdain. I feel like they threw in the towel.  (Maybe so I could wipe up the pee) And I guess I want them to say, "Yeah, Virginia.  You are right.  I was just being an asshole.  I just like to spell long words correctly."  But, seriously, even I don't believe that.  I mean, maybe they have a point.  I am just prepared to shoot them down and show them the errors of their ways, and I back it up with the truth.  I always make sure the gun is loaded and cocked and I have an extra clip handy.  Otherwise, I would not bothering aiming, much less entering into the fray. I do not even start on my theories about how I think God feels about it.  Like recycling, and light bulbs.  What would Jesus do?  I can't even get there.  No one will even say, "No shit.  That really happened?  You must be making it up."  They just blather about lumens should be Lumen and watts should be Watt, like each and every light bulb is actually a tiny biography.  C'mon.  This is reality we are dealing with.  I can't fucking stand it.  We are going down the tubes here and all I've learned is that von Mises took on the economy and bureaucracy but would not address social issues.  How can those things NOT all lean on each other?  If you buy the cheap medicine you don't get well as quickly.  Usually.  A + B = C.  Not A is one side of the coin and Q is the other side of the coin and that constitutes the Tao of knitting, or web surfing or porn addiction.  It's blather.  Stupidity is one side of  the stupidity coin and stupidity is the other side of the stupidity coin and that is the freaking Tao of freaking stupidity. 

And it seems I've been inspired to clean up my language just a little bit.  Fuck that.

And?

Here is a rejection letter, from an agent that handles women's fiction, that I did not retype.  I deliberately did cut and paste to preserve the quality as  best I could. The quotation marks are my own.


"After having a chance to read this, however, I am afraid I am going to pass on this project. While there were certainly elements of the story that were interesting, and, I just didn't feel the story was right for what I am looking for. The end result is that it just didn't appeal to me as much as I had hoped."



I am, of course, bitter and dissappointed.  Harlequin erotic novels are a biggie for the particular agency that sent this to me, and my sweet little stories don't cut it.  My point is, though, that EVERYWHERE you read about how perfect and concise your query letter MUST be or it won't get a second glance.  And truly, I SO much want to know what the and. . . was going to be.  It sounded like he was on the verge of saying one more positive thing before he shot me down.  But all I get was "and". . .  So, let's let the judges pass judgement on themselves here.  I almost want to include this dude's name in my tags, but ain't gonna happen.

Me Me Me Me Me

I'm so special.   I mowed the whole freaking lawn myself.  I planted all the flowers.  I took out the garbage.  I did all the dishes.  I cleaned the counters four hundred and eighty three times.  I got the license.  I paid the bills.  The car was  fixed with my money.  I cooked those amazing brownies.  Gee, my hair smells terrific.  Righteous rack.  See, I told you she dyed her hair.  I can't see that far.  What did you say?  I know.  Isn't she darling?  Just like her mom.  Really smart, too.  Not that that matters in the long run, but you know. . .
No, I don't know.  I never had a zit.  I never used that stuff for diaper rash.. You keep thinking you can get away with it.  The floors need to be stripped.  My Alfredo is better.  When a grown man says, "I wish I could. . ."  Some stuff you never forget.  Some stuff is important.  "Isn't that skirt a little tight?"  "You are the smartest person I know."   "I wish I could. . ."

LINK

This video took my breath away.  You HAVE to watch it.  I think it should turn civilization on its ear.  I cannot believe my reaction to it. I have to think about that. The phrase "open-sourcing" sounds so simple, but has to have more ramifications that I can possibly be aware of.  Please PLEASE leave comments for me.

 I hope it empowers people while there is still time for it.



http://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski.html

A New Service

I mentioned before how I can bring the longest comment thread on almost any blog to a screeching halt.  It is kind of the same dynamic as always having beautiful weather when I am in Florida.  I told my folks that whenever their community is having a string of awful weather they should pay to fly me down there because I have never had anything but gorgeous days.  I don't mean the two instances are at all similar.  It just kinda seems like it is a force I unconsciously generate.  And I am betting if I thought about it long enough, I could probably harness it and make my fortune.  Too bad I am too fucking old to care. 

In the meanwhile, if you are a blogmaster, and you are too polite to say, "Shut the f- up folks and go home," link to me and I will drop one of my little bon mots, and believe me they are little, and the conversation will come to an abrupt end.  This one site, I do not know how I ended up on it, but it is a bunch of stodgy philosophers and I get more hits from it than any other, and I have done it twice this week and it is only Tuesday.  They go back and forth with me a while then drop their pens and walk away.  But I look at my stats and it seems they enjoy it cuz they keep coming back for more.  Too bad that particular demographic isn't big on reading contemporary love stories.  I'd a been translated into German months ago.

Panic

I surf blogs, as I have mentioned before, and many of them have the niftiest templates.  I consider that stuff way too techy for me, but today I had to fiddle around.  There are so many that offer all these free templates.  I wonder why.  If you like it you are not going to go back and pay for another are you? 

So I found one that seem just creepy and personal enough for me, liking to make statements as I do, but not wanting to be accused of trying to make a statement.  Caged, getting free, kind of gothic, kind of worn around the edges.  Anyway, it showed up all cattywhompus and I couldn't figure out how to adjust it, and then I tried to get rid of it, and was able to, but no, it was still there.  I totally feared that I would have to start over and develop a whole new site, and was worried if I could transfer my archive and it dawned on me how important these words, or this expressing, is to me. 

Finally, or at least at this moment, I think it is showing up pretty even.  I had a lot of hits today tho, and I am sure they think I have flipped.  No.  I am sure anyone that has visited here at least once already knows that. And that is probably why they keep coming back.

Anyway, I mowed the lawn yesterday, and it is rather a large lawn if you go back to the creek, which you are not supposed to because that area is supposed to be available for the proper native wetland plants to thrive and do their soaking up the water thing, but the neighbors on both sides mow to the creek, so I do not want to rock that boat, being neighbor to this family being burden enough,  and I love the endless yard kind of effect.  So do the deer and the coyotes, and the foxes. But what I am getting at is this nerve thing going on in my hand that feels like you forgot to use the pot holder when you took the cookie sheet out of the oven, but only in this very localized place between two fingers, and Fran gave me two Doctor Layton games for my birthday, so I have been on DS way too much lately, and my hand hurts like a son of a bitch, so I feel like currently God does not want me to write.  He also does not want me to pick anything up off the floor as He always makes it fall at least once and  then makes me do it again.  Aging is such pain.  Literally.

I need back story for my non-dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel.  Any suggestions?  I am on the verge here.  I promise!  It is bubbling up almost to the edge.  I know it.  And I feel that what I do will be the right thing for me to do.  That is what I should have been telling myself all along.  I don't have to be who people think I am anymore.  Maybe trying to cut back on those meds was not such a great idea.

So how do  y'all feel about the single space after the period rule change thing?  I don't really care one way or the other, but the two space thing is very deeply engrained.  Think for just a moment on this.  If I could get used to doing only one space after  the period, how much wear and tear would I be saving on that fucking nerve in my finger?

Survey

I posted a survey type question on Goodreads(dot)com addressing some questions I have for people who are now primarily doing their reading on Nook or Kindle type pads.  If you own a Nook or Kindle or some type of electronic reader, I would appreciate your going to that site and answering and giving your opinions. I do not own one, but know several people who do and am actually more interested in it as a publishing venue than a reading material source.  I am trying to find out as much as I can about it, so help me out if you can.  I share the information I gather on a variety of web sites, so don't say anything that is not for the general public.  The forum is "Got Nook??"  and I always use my real name.  Do this just for fun, okay?