HOW TO NOT CARE WHEN YOU DO

I just read a blog written by one of my favorites, Waldo Tomosky.  He had a song from uTube linked in and I listened to it with tears running down my face.  Here's the kicker.  It was in a foreign language.  I have no clue what they said.  One of the singers was a redhead and there were a lot of redheads in the audience.  It could have been in South Africa for all I know, but I felt like I should have been there.

Lately, I feel like there is so much I should have learned.  There are still things I want to learn, but all the stuff I never knew existed?  I am just going to miss out on that.  And so what?

Suppose I die with this vast encyclopedic amount of knowledge stored in my brain.  Then what?  I guess it may mean I enjoyed my life a little more because of the learning experience. But what did it accomplish?  Why will my mark on the world differ from that left by the woman who raised ten kids without a dishwasher?  Maybe a scrap of my DNA will show up in someone who invents something or discovers something that makes the world a better place.   But should I even wonder about that or hope that it becomes so?  I don't.  I don't give it a thought.  Sometimes I wonder what can be going on inside someone's head that makes them believe something that I think is off the wall crazy, but basically, all I care about is the noise in my own head.  And the only reason I am glad there are people like Delaney to make me smile is because it makes the inside of my head feel good.  I could not be bothered to live if something or someone didn't have that effect on me or if I was incapable of feeling it.

I dare not consider what is in store for Delaney or Benjamin or even Cassie who should already be up and running.  Such thoughts would be fruitless and would not feel good to my brain.  So I don't think of them.  Well, sometimes they creep in

I get all in a swivet when I think of the futility of something like having a war or building a road in a country like Afghanistan.  But I shouldn't bother.  I shouldn't care.  It makes no difference if I do or not. I know for an absolute certainty that the women who was storing the stolen RPGs in her root cellar and then had her house and her kids and herself blown to bits because of it never gave a shit or probably ever even knew of the thousands of people and children affected by the bombing of the twin towers.  And I start to cry when I see a US General pour out a knapsack full of American dollars to some Afghani tribesman as "reparation".  Not because it is a waste of cash, which it is, but because it is a gesture that someone somewhere tries to put meaning to or hopes will have meaning and it doesn't.  And it can't. And no amount of knowledge or effort will ever make it be what it is not.

And the people that should be loved and honored and go unrecognized or ignored?  Maybe it is someone I know.  Maybe it is someone I should know.  Maybe they are sad because no one recognizes them or their needs or accomplishments. Or someone doesn't give them the love they want.  I am better off not knowing about it.  Does that mean the people who invest their lives in trying to correct wrongs to their fellow man are misguided?  No.  But, at least, every now and then,  their efforts bear fruit.  Actually, of the gazillion people that have walked this earth,  Jonas Salk is the only one  I can think of at the moment.  For the most part, their efforts or the few dollars an elderly widow puts in an envelope at personal sacrifice make no difference at all.  I really would love to go to Patna India and see if my grandma's name is really on that plaque on that baptismal font she funded.  As a matter of fact, one of her grand children was there, and I asked him to look  but he couldn't fit it into his itinerary.  He didn't care if it was there or not.

For me it is a constant battle that has many side effects and has an affect on many people and situations just to try and have perspective and get through the day doing what needs to be done and figuring out what I should do or must do.  God bless the people who don't need to do that, who walk through their day effortlessly following in the footsteps some Higher Power left for them, never questioning where those prints are leading them.  I had a friend, kind of still keep in touch, who was not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  She was medium looks, medium IQ, medium resources.  I could never figure out why she had the most successful marriage, the most interesting career, of any one I knew.  I think it is because she took life as it came.  My husband always says "Roll with the punches."  I am so fucking sick of hearing that.  And it is because I resent the fact that he can and he does do exactly that and lays down every night to sweet deep slumber and I cannot.

A lonely piece of paper

Blows down the road

Atop the glittering frozen snow.

It is not wrinkled. 

A scrivener

I have been so down on this writing thing.  Many I know are giving up the epub thing and I am growing discouraged.  At least I was. 

Last night I practiced discipline in an undisciplined way.  I have heard: "Write, no matter what.  Save it erase it, fix it, just write."  So I did.  I typed so fast.  It is a disorderly mess.  But I am looking at this story in a way that seems new to me.  I want to get the people from this point to this point and I don't know how.  I never had that problem before.  But I don't sell much, so maybe my readers have a problem with how I was doing it.  Anyway, I wrote about what happened when they got there and I know I can put in the interim easily when I am ready.  Writing doesn't scare me.  Carrying out  a task does, I am guessing.  I am maybe just lazy.  Anyway I thought it was great fun and it raced along in getting on the page just as the part of the story was racing along.  It is full of typos, but that is easy to fix.  I think.

So just when I am all down on my self and my skills and thinking I am not posting, I have no ideas, I am in the doldrums, physical junk going on, family junk going on, weather weirdness, I just now looked and my "boring post" had ninety five hits. 

Don't anyone tell me what this is all about cuz you don't know.  It is all totally random.  That is final. 

Analyze This

Spikes.
 Why?

I have two WIPS, one a non-fic that I have been taking notes on for years. Both over 30,000 words, mind crawling with ideas. Word file won't open. I have Word 2007 on another machine which I used today. Like that keyboard better. All my work is on USB sticks. I am procrastinating like a nitwit. Why? My blog hit average is higher than ever, comments rising. Timing is SO ripe for the non-fic. What is the step that I cannot take here?  It doesn't feel like burn-out. I feel restless about it, a common side effect of my condition, so I just need to get on with it.

I did a batch of promos for Anymore today, and my Smashwords views and samples are up and down to an extreme, up today. This doesn't relate to sales as they download to Kobo, nook, apple, Kindle etc from there. Only the spreadsheet shows sales and mine is stalled at January.  I don't know. One  dear writer I admire gave me a link that  set off a grenade in my head and all my promos on Book Blogs today were a new format. We shall see. Maybe that is where the spike came from. As soon as I think I am learning how to play the system, I feel like I have been cut loose in a riptide. 

Any words of advice, how you reacted when you were in such a place, hints, commiseration (well, not that so much) would be appreciated.

AUTUMN

It doesn't matter if I love the cool breezes and the colored leaves.  I get depressed in the Fall.  More depressed I should say.  It shows up everywhere.  My house is a mess.  If I get a row of counters washed, I have to pat myself on the back because, the job itself is not hard--is pleasant--provides instant gratification, but I have to "work" up to it.  To get myself to do it. 

I am sick of this book promo thing and have two more to publish and I think one is not actually "done".  I was having trouble remembering the main character's name the other day.  I am just tired of it.  I know the whole thing was because I was on that crappy Welbutrin, and the stuff I am on now is almost as bad as Paxil, that you totally do not give a shit about anything.   So, maybe I was manic, and after I came back down, I realized I was writing stuff that was practically porn, and I went in and got all fucking sensible and took so much crap out, and now I realize, it doesn't matter.  I opened a book in WalMart the other day cuz this one message board talks about Lora Leigh and I always envied that she did this whole book series about the Navy Seal, and I have trouble maintaining a character like that for more than a few lines in a couple of chapters, and I probably have way more experience with them than she ever will, but that is another story that I probably will never write cuz it is pathetically, fucking sad.  But I opened the book, and the cover doesn't even say Explicit Content and the page I open it to is this guy telling this girl to blow him in a kind of authoritarian cruel, definitely not loving kind of way, and she is so all excited to chow down on this guy and it was just so blah, and what the heck ever happened to the blue oxford cloth shirt as a sex symbol? And she has a whole web site devoted to how badly edited her books are, and how many mistakes she makes, and she probably is rolling in money, her sales are astronomical, and the reason they are not edited very well is that the editors have just read about one blow job too many at this point, and I suddenly realize I should have spent my life writing dissertations on the parallels between the color spectrum and the depression spectrum, or maybe continue, much as they have done  with the very successful Nancy Drew series,  writing the Mary Poppins series and sort of segued her into the Space Age and through the Cold War and into the computer age.  Mary Poppins and the Magic of HTML.

I get terrible attacks of give up-itis very frequently and have throughout my life, and I think it is because just getting through the day is such a huge enterprise for me that I should just not even bother with having something that is mine "to do" as my doctor puts it because it is minuscule and a total fucking waste of time.  I need to spend more time figuring out how to feed my granddaughter the bottle with out falling asleep and having the bottle fall on the floor and the baby roll under the coffee table.  No.  You don't have to report me.  That didn't happen.  But the falling asleep and dropping the bottle part did.

I spend too much time questioning the worth of my existence and not enough time washing  the dishes. And no, there are no dishes that need to be washed either, at the moment, which is why I am sitting here putting meaningless symbols on a plastic screen again.  I was being figurative.  My whole fucking life is figurative and when I understand what it is supposed to represent, it is all over.  

I

BRAVERY

I  did something today that I thought was extremely brave.  I let my daughter read my book.  She read part of it and we were in a hurry and had to leave.  In the car I tried to tell her what was going to happen next in the book and she said not to tell her cuz she wanted to read it to find out.  I actually do not think she was trying to spare my feelings with her other remarks.  She asked a lot of questions and I really have the feeling now that it is what it is, what it's supposed to be, what I want it to be.  And the words printed on  the paper, figuratively, are not the same as the words that come out of my  mouth.  Strange strange feeling, but exactly what I want, I think.  I think.   I think. 

But, more than  that, I am patting myself on the back for my bravery.  Really, it is easier to put the work in front of a stranger than in front of someone who knows you so well.  But it wasn't really brave at all.  It was absolutely an impulse that I acted on with great immediacy.  And that is like the story of my life.  There is so much stuff in my life that makes me unhappy, and I know I am contributing to the unhappiness of some other people, but I totally feel that part is their problem and there is so much stuff in my life that I like.  I have to think about what I want for a change.  After all, so many years of trying to get along with others and not rocking "the boat" has served for nothing.  Granted, I have beautiful surroundings, and not much to complain about, but it could have been so much better for so many people in so many ways, and my way of trying to fix everything and make sure no one got hurt served for nothing.  Nothing.  Everything I feel, right at this moment, is ONLY because of ME.

As I am sure is true of most others, I wish I had not waited so long to do this.  But, then I am able to say that it just happened.  It wasn't planned and I don't know where it came from, and I tend to think it was the meds cuz now it seems like it is gone, but I am already rethinking that part of it, and, for so many reasons, I have to say, that is just the way it is. And I think I am glad.  Anyway, I feel glad right now.  But my biggest flaw is always second guessing myself. 

Change the freaking chapter numbers, Ditty.

The Need for Sarcasm

I feel wrung out.  This has been too crowded a week and it's only Wednesday.  I am pretty good at coping, but this week I wanted to throw in that towel so many times and just say, "Fuck it."  And lots of the stuff I had to deal with turned out really well.  Well, there was that one customer service wait with the staticky Muzak.  But I think the thing that is missing is the bouts of laughter that bring tears to my eyes.  Apparently the tears have to go out anyway, (damn that Amygdala) so they were brought on by trips through the bank drive up instead of the strange and funny things that usually happen that we make stranger and funnier. 

My daughter has a friend staying with her, and I guess that is making me a little lonely.  But it would sure be nice if there was someone else in my life that I could converse with until we were laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. But the subject of friendship has been permanently shelved as far as I am concerned.  And the books I am reading are kind of formulaic, predictable, and dark.  My choices.  Not good ones.  Then last night I am proofing and editing the "Big Deal" and the sad parts were making cry, again, and the technical  mistakes I was finding were way too common.  I couldn't believe it after all this time.  And then one of those stupid dotted lines showed up. That just about drove me off the edge.  At least nothing turned red.  The sooner I launch that boat, the better.  If it sinks, oh well, I tried.  And tried.  And tried. 

I know all these feelings are aspects of my personality that I have had to deal with all my life, and part of it is my choices and part of it, as an actual physician said to me very recently, is my "neuro-biology".  I wonder if it could be  the weather that is making it all so much harder to deal with.  I am so used to being the way I am that I actually like me and prefer being this way.  I think the "devil may care" attitude toward life has to be an elaborate costume drama for anyone trying to live it.  No.  I KNOW that.  It just gets to me every now and then and I can be in the line in WalMart and feeling a little creeped out  cuz everyone looks ugly and scary and I can be in the line in WalMart and chatting with strangers and smiling at babies that smiled at me first.  And I know it is me.  Not the people in the line at WalMart.   For God's sake.  For one who feels and enjoys being as insular as I am, man, I sure let the outside world get to me way too much.

I am incapable of any sarcastic rejoinders, my stock in trade, my stress release mechanism of choice. Oh, well.  It will come back to me.  It always does.  Right? 

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

Brag, Brag, Brag

It's usually whine, whine, whine, but maybe it's the weather.  This morning I went out in front of my house and cut branches off a tree.  I enjoyed it a lot.  I will probably feel the results of it tomorrow, but I enjoyed it.  I used to get mad at Louie.  We'd be having people over for whatever and I'd be dusting bookcases and he'd go to the empty field next door and cut down branches, pruning artistically, trees that belonged to no one and were growing wild.  But now I understand.  It is messing around with a kind of huge natural force and it feels so good.  I had one limb that was about four inches thick and half way through it broke and I couldn't get a purchase on the little piece still holding it on the tree.  Elemental problem solved.  Feels so much better than worrying if this chapter break should be a three asterisk break or a four asterisk break. Then, apparently while I was out for lunch, which took six hours and was also fun, Louie did some more.  Well, he always did like it.  And maybe after the spinal surgery he won't be able to do it anymore.  So the stacks of branches in front of and behind the garage kinda look actually bigger than the tree.  This tree, I think it is some kind of ash, and it is not very attractive, but keeps the evening sun from raising the temp in the front bedrooms, so there is no question it must remain, is just kind of annoying, it's growth pattern and ugly bark and all, and while wrestling with it I had the passing thought:  Ash. Emerald Ash Borer.  Maybe the village would pay for its removal, but no.  I took it back, God.  Forget I said that.  It is very necessary to the cultural ambience of my actual residence.  Which brings me back to what started this train of thought that is now looping through abandoned mine tunnels in an unused portion of my brain.  It had to be trimmed because it was growing way over the driveway and Cassie and I park our cars at that end of the driveway and on that side, and there is always an embarrassing amount of bird shit on them.   Plus, when I come around the corner, and I've lived here almost twelve years, I always think, "My house looks so nice."  And lately when I come around the corner I think, "You can hardly see the house anymore for that damned tree."
So, practical and aesthetic reasons, and it was fun and when you come around the corner you will think, "That house looks really nice."  It does.

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.

I Fell in Love--Just a Little

I had the purest feelings of rage and frustration earlier today due to butting heads with someone in my life.  It happens so often, I have learned to shrug it off, move on, and kind of forget about it.Water under that bridge, missed opportunities, being in a rut, etc.  Then I decided to wash a few glasses, the kind of instant gratification we all seek and need at times. I''ve been using the dishwasher a lot lately, but just now needed to be the dishwasher.

I have a huge yard and a large deck.  The deck is high, due to the split level nature of my home, large, and gated because of small children and pets needing to be confined to it at various times in our occupation.  The gate and the view are right outside my kitchen window.  A sparrow lit on the arch of the gate.  Nobody pays any attention to sparrows do they?  Except God.  My gate is painted a grey we call 'elephant'--kind of a beige-ish khaki color.  The sparrows brown and grey feathers complemented it perfectly and he was so close.  He didn't know I was looking at him and he cocked his head so cutely and his beak was so sculpted and of such a color as if from aged metal and he was so perfect and lovely and I felt a warmth in my heart that is so rare lately and he flitted off and I smiled.  It was just such a nice moment.

Now I will go back to being 'Ditty' and google "His eye is on the sparrow" and distill my life back to 26 letters and move on, and drinking some clear water from a sparkly glass will maybe seem even a speck more enjoyable.

Fictionalizing Life

My father was a police officer in a medium-sized, well-known suburb of Chicago,  Illinois.  What the heck--it was Oak Park.  And for part of his long career he was what he used to call "plain-clothes"  which means he was a detective. 

I love to read police and crime and legal procedurals.  I do not ever even contemplate writing that type of story because I do not want to do anything research laden.  Never did.  Specially in school.  But, yet, in every story I have written so far, some element of law enforcement is present.  And then, my husband was in the Navy,and,for many years,our rather interesting social life centered around that universe. (Did you ever have someone that had a crush on you promise to drive his helicopter over your house at a specific time to say Hi to you?  And actually do it?  Kind of flattering  when you are 23. )  Well, that part of my life, of course colorfully enhanced, also appears in my work.  So, I guess it is a part of 'write what you know' or just that it is such a huge piece of my personal history.  (I LOVE my personal history)  But, never the less, I would never endeavor to do a novel with that sort of basic premise as so many are now doing.  There is even a series about the FDIC and when I inquired what they meant by FDIC they explained it was indeed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, also a part of the history of my marriage.  But there are too many experts out there waiting to pick apart your work and jump all over any errors you may make.  Even though I clearly state that I make stuff up. 

Still, it is too bad I have such a strong mind set against it cuz  I AM A GREAT DETECTIVE.

C,mon, guys.  You know what I'm talkin' about.