Excerpt from LAWMAN

The new addition was completed, and it seemed that everyone had recovered from the break in. The Jackson business seemed totally behind them.  Tim mentioned in what Lily always thought of as his way too casual voice, that the whole case was pretty much wrapped up, and all the indictments, and there were enough of them, were handed down, and the evidence was pure and plentiful, and by the way—here it comes thought Lily—they did get a hit on those cigarette butts found near her property in  Iowa, that for sure it was Jackson stalking her that far back, and it helped screw the whole thing down, and the guy that followed up on it—his name was Redding—yeah, he was watching her face for any reaction, but she was ready for that—and the Bureau had issued him a memorandum for his file for his foresight and cooperation, and,  “I thought maybe I’d go down there and give it to him personally and kind of put a more positive spin on it and maybe give the guy’s career a little boost, cuz otherwise, it’s just a piece of paper and since I’m kind of personally involved and all, and I’ll take the bike tomorrow and why don’t you guys drive down after school and we can make a long weekend of it?” 

“And you wanting to check him out personally doesn’t have anything to do with it?”

“So what if it does?  Should I not show an interest--my wife having been nearly murdered and all?”

“This is ancient history, and you know I don’t mean the Jackson thing, but I get the ego thing, like I was avid and anxious when I had to meet Paula at the airport that time, so go ahead.  Just be cool.  He’s a good guy with a beautiful family.”

“Yeah, and so very fucking helpful to you when you really needed it.  . .”

“Could we not just let this be?  Or do you really want me to do the putting my foot down thing?  Go satisfy your curiosity and play big city Fed honcho at the same time.  Didn’t know the ego was feeling so starved, but whatever.”

He left early the next morning, taking the bike, she knew, being  a huge part of the macho thing he had to express to this poor little hick town cop, and the weathered old black biker jacket, and no shave, and those old biker boots, and those crappiest of all black jeans.  He’s so cute.  But wait til he gets a load of Darryl.  I don’t want to have to see that.  No.  On second thought, it might be kind of fun to be a fly on that wall.

**

Tim had of course checked with the locals in Iowa so he knew Darryl would be at the station, and he told them why he was coming by and insisted this was not to be any kind of ceremony, but he did want to discuss a few loose ends about the case, which was the purest bullshit.  He roared into the parking lot of the little police station and that in itself caught the attention of everyone in the stationhouse and half the neighbors.  The desk sergeant said to the secretary that was busy flirting with him and laying a little unnecessary groundwork, “Who the fuck is this?  Paul Fucking Bunyan?  Blue Ox MC?  And why the fuck would anybody that big have to wear those boots?  Does he honestly think he needs to look any fucking taller?”

“It has something to do with safety and the brake pedals on the bike, I think.”

“Right.  Whatever.  Jeez, huge fucking bike.  I sure as hell hope this guy is here to pay a fucking traffic ticket and not kill us all.”

“Maybe it’s that guy from Chicago to see Darryl.”

“Right.  Like this guy could be FBI?  He’d be driving a fucking Taurus and wearing a cheap, shiny blue suit.”

So when Tim took off the helmet and was shucking the jacket, because, damn, this station house was like a fucking oven, and the desk sergeant got a look at the shaved head and the tats and the grizzled face and the pecs under the tight faded black t-shirt, and Tim did the badge flashing thing and announced who he was, the desk sergeant at least had the grace to give the cute little secretary, who was having a little trouble catching her breath,  a slightly chagrined smile as she went to get Darryl. 

In a kind of a shocked state when the guy walked out to meet him, Tim quickly introduced himself and flashed the badge—ID thing and tried not to trip over his tongue.  What kind of vitamins did this guy take?  A fucking red head?  Jesus Christ.  She’s already weird for red heads.  Chiseled face like a fucking Celtic god.  Do I need this?  Six foot two at least.  Well, I’ll give him three, so who cares if he’s as tall as I am, and we’re not going to have to have a pissing contest, and why wouldn’t Lily pick a huge good looking guy.  Jerk probably has his fucking polyester uniform tailored.  Probably has to.  Huge fucking shoulders.  Why would she pass this up for me?  If I was gay I’d be fuckin’ fallin’ in love, maybe am a little, falling in love, that is.  Damnit.  I never should’ve done this.  Fuck.  Tim felt a small unfamiliar shiver of inadequacy which he quickly shook off.  Well, so what if he’s younger; of course, I’m the better man.  After all, I won.  He offered Officer Redding his hand and asked if there was somewhere they could talk.  “It is Officer Redding?  Or would it be deputy?”

“No.  We go by Officer and Chief.  It’s deliberate.  We’re trying to get away from the Barney Fife image.”

“Well, pleased to meet you and I understand you go way back with Lily and her late husband, Ben?”

“Yeah.  Team mates.  Double dates, standing up in weddings, neighbors, the whole nine yards.  Ben was a great guy.  Terrible tragedy.  Wrecks a small town like this for a while.  And Lily is such a doll.  Shouldn’t a happened to a sweety like her.  Cutest thing.  We’d all go skinny dipping out at the quarry, well. . .  I was crazy in love with her, but Ben was my best friend.  And he was that kind a guy, y’know, no one stepped on his toes.  I just had to keep my mouth shut.  Y’know how you never get over that stuff. . .   Did you get to know her at all working on the case?”

“Kinda.   Talked to her about it a little.”

“How is she doing?  Heard she married a Fed.  Hope it’s not some wimp bureaucrat asshole.  She deserves the best.”

And you did your part trying to give it to her, you small town prick.  “That would be me.”

“Sorry, sir?”

“That would be me, the wimp bureaucrat asshole she married?  I’m Senior Special Agent Tim Raia, if you didn’t bother reading my creds when I flashed ‘em for you, and Lily is my wife now and the mother of our year old son.  And she’s fine, she’s doing just fucking fine.  And thanks so much for asking. . .”  Edge on the voice now very apparent.

“Sorry, sir.  Thoughtless of me, sir.  Not thinking you’re FBI, sir.  Don’t look it, sir.  Sorry.  Well, congratulations, sir.  (Am I twelve?) You’ve got yourself a real sweetheart there.  Everyone loves her.  Give her my best.”  Darryl was just glad his voice still worked and wasn’t too sure what he was actually saying.   Stopped himself up short when he realized he was actually backing toward the door.  He knows, he fucking knows.

“You fucking red heads, with that fucking blushing, blinking on and off like a fucking Christmas tree. . .”  He was kind of talking with his teeth gritted.  I hope what you did give her was at least your best, god damn it.  I never should’ve come down here.  “Actually, I’m kind of ill at ease here, Darryl,” Tim said, white-knuckled, his hands gripping the back of the thankfully bolted down metal interrogation room chair, “putting bits and pieces of what I’ve heard from Lily about you helping her out  back then, together with tying up the loose ends of this nasty case.  You are not at all what I was expecting, and this is apparently an Alpha dog situation, since I am pretty good at sizing up people, and we both know Alpha dogs don’t sniff each others’ butts.  They go nose to nose, and one of us is going to have to back down and this time, I’m just guessing here, it’s going to have to be me because I don’t want the fucking roof flying off this cute little stationhouse you have here in your cute little home town.  Just make goddamn sure I don’t hear your name from my wife’s lips, ever again.  No, actually, I never heard your name from her lips, and we best make sure we fucking keep it that way.”  Or maybe I should just go ahead and rip your fucking head off your fucking shoulders right now.  And he slammed the tan envelope with the now forgotten letter of commendation down on the desk and stalked out of the office and the little brick building and roared out to the farmhouse and poured himself a stiff drink.

**

“Jesus, Darryl.  Did he know you fucked her?  You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“Nobody’s   s’pose to know that,  Ned.”

“Everybody fucking knows it, Darryl.”

“Yeah?  Well, I better not find out who told him.”

“He’s Bureau, Redding.  He didn’t get where he is not being able to add two and two, now, did he?  And y’know we’re supposed to think those FIBs are a bunch of pansy ass detectives?  I’d steer clear of that one for a while.  Lay low a little.  They’re out at the farm house every couple weeks.  God help us you run into ‘em at fucking Pizza Hut or something.”

**

Hours later, Lily and the boys drove up to find a slightly stiff Tim waiting for them on the front steps.  The lawn was mowed, the storm windows up, the pond closed down for the winter, the gutters cleaned, the furnace cleaned and tuned up for the coming winter, the floors mopped and dinner was simmering on the stove all within a very few hours fraught with anger and nervous energy.  He got up and walked across the yard and grabbed her in a little bit too hearty of a hug and planted a little too wet and serious kind of kiss on her and said, “Don’t say a word about him.  Don’t dare ask me anything.  Fucking bastard told me to send you his best?  I shoulda shot him right then and there.  Fucking small town ass-hole trying to play big city detective with his fucking sniffer dog and his fucking DNA lab.  Don’t say another word.”  Lily was still smiling about it in the morning when she got up to fix breakfast even though Timmy hadn’t let her do much sleeping.  It was a nice weekend anyway.  Gorgeous weather for this time of year.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KN6S4E

Complaining

My sister-in-law said I left out the word "his" near the ending of my first book.  My brother said some of the sex scenes were a little strong for him. My nephew mislabeled one of my scenes as erotica  (The distinction is really not that fine of a line.  I do not write erotica.  I would be making way more money if I did.)  Another person asked if thus and such a book was the one about life on a military base.  Well, one is, kind of about military life for about an eighth of the total,  and most mention it, but none are about life on a military base.  I don't even know what that would be like.  I have reread some of my books and gone back and changed all the backward quotation marks that no one mentioned.  I took down a book and republished it because a huge errant numeral "4" was in the middle of a random page.  Glitches happen between me and the finished product.  I find mistakes if I wait a while to read through.  I made a boy child the eldest in the middle of a book and he was the second child at the beginning.  I changed a neighboring family's surname half way through one book.  This family played quite a large role at one point, and I am glad I caught that as no one would have a clue as to who I was talking about.

A beta reader was very helpful with general proofreading and language problems but she wanted to change all my colloquialisms to proper English, and I have to write in my speaking voice or my character's speaking voice.  I had specifically asked if the love scenes were too graphic for the market I hoped to reach.  She said they were fine, very true sounding. She also mentioned that the terrain in a part of the country I described was not like I described it. (She did not live there.) I had researched this with photographs in order to trace a path for the character to fit the story and I questioned her remark saying I had back up info.  The person became a snake and said the person was carrying too much, the person couldn't have walked that far in one day, etc. She finally said  even my love scenes could use a little improvement.  I still wonder if I should have thrown out all the advice and haven't come up with a final choice on that.

One reviewer said my Point of View changes were distracting.  I write third person omniscient and that is the point of view.  I did notice in one edition where I had someone's thoughts going on.  I usually do that in Italic and sometimes that doesn't carry through to the finished product.  In this book, that I think printed out the very best of all, there were sections where the Italics didn't hold and I thought maybe a reader would become confused.  But that one particular book is, in fact, the only one that has had only positive things said about it so far.

Today I was reading a blog or post or website that I have been subscribed to for quite awhile.  I seldom have time to look at it, but I have noticed it has evolved.  I was at one time invited to write a guest blog, but did not have the confidence to do so. I did mention they were free to copy any of my words they wished to, but just let me know.  Well, it started out as a helpful spot for writers who were publishing electronically, but it has become  a vanity publisher.  You give them this much money and they do this for you,  It seemed today's blog was only about trying to weasel out of being called a "Vanity Press" -- a phrase that is anathema to an e-pubber. The irony was that, not only were there mistakes such as the wrong "their" being used, but there were clear run-ons that were unquestionably supposed to be two sentences. There is a huge on-going debate about the Oxford comma, and I am a die-hard comma lover, but the Oxford comma question is use it or don't use it and has nothing to do with joining a clearly declarative sentence to a clearly interrogative sentence.

I have not yet re-read one or any of my blog posts that I didn't find some error of some sort.  One I copied to WordPress and the entire blog was there twice.  Some of this I catch.  Of course some of it I do not.  But when a person is offering me services at a price, then their work better be up to snuff.  For the most part,  I have found  that I would not trust my words to any of these people that have variously approached me at different times.  Tell me what is wrong and I will fix it and thank you.  But don't go tooting your horn or calling me out for my errors unless you are producing material worthy of illumination by the ancient monks, okay?  I will forgive people their errors, overlook most.   I expect some.  I know no one is perfect.  But don't pretend you know more than I do when you don't.  Actually, that doesn't just apply to book publishing in my philosophy.

But, yet again today, I read an article where two people were arguing over past and passed.  Other people were ringing in on both sides of it.  I still get it wrong most of the time.  You would think it would have to be correct occasionally just due to the odds, but I always get it wrong.  I also struggle with affect and effect, but I check if I have a doubt.  One very popular mommy blogger wrote a huge diatribe about something and used effect over and over instead of affect.  Well, that is a toughie, but look it up if you are going public.  This was a person who describes herself in her profile as "over-educated".  In what?  Karate?

I think I have gone on and on before about the pot calling the kettle black, etc.  (I suppose that is a racist remark nowadays.) And I know I am too sensitive to criticism.  I find it impossible to accept my own human frailties, the source of most of my major difficulties. But it just seems to me, in general, the definition of quality is becoming more and more vague.  Well, I will never get over the typo in the two page Chanel ad in Vanity Fair magazine.  I try.  Honestly.  I think it is insulting to expect people to accept an inferior product, so I try very deliberately not to present that.  And my point here, even though I am coming off as confusing, is let's brush it up a little.  Let's not try to sell someone a book cover that looks like it was drawn by a marmot.  And, especially, let's not then criticize someone else for an amateurish cover.

And let's not take someone's hard-earned money because of outright subterfuge, or if one is suffering from honest self-delusion, then let us follow through on delivering the product offered.  What did that famous and attractive person say about putting lipstick on a pig?  It is still a pig, but sometimes there just ain't nuthin' cuter than a little baby pig.

Photo Attributions:  Google image

IDEALS

I feel like a fool.  I have always been good at rationalization.  Twice,  in the recent past, I have posted stuff in my feeble attempts at irony or jest and been taken seriously.  In another case, a person misread a facebook quote of mine and went into a well-meaning and correct explanation of the thing I was trying to be sarcastic about.

I do not have a sincere voice.  My real life voice is a joke.  I went to see a doctor about five years after my last appointment.  I said, "Hi, I'm Virginia."  He said, "Oh, I remember you.   The voice. . ."

My writing voice is intended to be facetious,  but evidence points to the fact that I am a complete failure at that.  Actually, I have heard from three readers that they got the joke in three cases.  Not a good percentage.

So, how am I going to steer this conversation back to rationalization or idealism?  Well,I just clicked on a book title in a blog.  Actually, it was a "website".  I think.  I am not too sure of the difference, and, no, Jonathan, you don't need to explain it to me.  The site was The Rumpus.  It is pretty liberal but kind of fun for writers.  It has infuriated me enough that I  have cancelled my subscription to it for years.  I have had wonderful discussions on it.  I found out, much later unfortunately, that one of the people I was arguing with was an author, unknown to me, of some repute. ( I admit I travel in the wrong circles.)  So apparently I read something on or about the Rumpus that caught my attention.  I am not subscribed to it, but am apparently subscribed to comments.  Really, that is all you need anyway, frankly.  It is even a bit too much info.

I linked to this book title which sounded interesting and that led me to two hours of linking through various sites connected, in sometimes vague ways, to the book title or author.  And I just stopped it by closing some of the many tabs I had thusly opened.  (I am relishing the fact that I have always wanted to use that word and have never before had the opportunity.  I hope it is a real word.)  (Aren't my asides annoying?)  And, for a reason God intended, but that has never worked too well on me, a light bulb just went off in my head.

I have gone on and on arguing in favor of certain principles.  I am calling them that because, although they may be philosophies or dogmas or truths or precepts or commandments or ideas, I feel, at the base of their structure, they must be principles.  (I flunked philosophy twice.  I have a former classmate who is a Professor Emeritus in Philosophy at a major University.  I am able to communicate with him.)  (I'll stop it now.) And, just now, when the light bulb went off, I realized that some of the things I argue the most fervently for, that shall for the most part go unnamed, for which I have published material with tedious documentation, I do not practice, have not practiced, and have no intention of practicing. And I seriously do not think I am a hypocrite. I think I earnestly believe in those principles and, in my own concept of idealism, those principles would be followed to the letter by all of humanity -- which, of course, they are not and never will be.  And, in my dotage, I will gladly own up to the fact that a lot of the stuff I have done would not have been any fun if I had not felt like I was defying some moral precept or principle.  And that makes me a sinner and that makes me a Catholic.  And this is not a confession.  This is just a light bulb moment that I have really enjoyed.  And that two hours of linking from a book title has given me a lot more insight to my self than probably the whole rest of my life -- a life that has had its share of ups and downs, mostly downs, but has been a great deal of fun and very interesting so far.

Yeah.  My meds have been adjusted.


Photo Attribution:  Google Image

Professionalism

So this journalism degree cost a lot.  I hope to pay off my student loans soon.  I got a job!

Scarp

 

A young man is walking along a stony beach on an island in the Outer Hebrides. It is chilly but there is a spring smell in the air. The beach is cross hatched with an occasional scarp. Farther down the scarp meets the water and the young man will not be able to walk further on the waterfront. But before he reaches the end of the beach, right around the place he first intended to turn and head back, he spots a very white baby lamb half way up the scarp. It is bawling piteously and very white but smudged with dirt and a little redness. It is in distress. The man, wearing a perfectly aged pair of Vasques, and happening to have an old thin pair of leather driving gloves in the pocket of his oiled cotton Barbour Mac, climbs somewhat carelessly, but with years of experience to support his efforts and grabs the baby lamb. He continues to the top of the scarp from which the lamb has fallen, carrying it over his shoulder and trying to hold its two back legs when he doesn't need both hands to keep his purchase on the craggy rock.

After he reaches the top and begins to walk over the barely perceptible path leading to his ancient but picturesque cottage, he examines the lamb and sees it is fine except for a few abrasions on its haunch from falling against the stone. He puts the lamb in the yard with the other few sheep he owns, some who have recently lambed. None of the ewes will let the baby nurse so the young man drives his little red car to town and buys special formula for abandoned lambs. He loves the lamb. The lamb loves him. The lamb thrives under his care and is always a bit brighter, a bit bouncier, a bit larger than the other lambs. Sometimes the other lambs, now young sheep, gang up to tease him, but they know he is the leader and usually they let him lead. He is a good leader anyway, they know. The next spring, when it is time to shear the sheep, the young man notices his favored lamb has a more lustrous, healthier looking crop of fleece than the others, so as he shears away, he keeps the wool from the special lamb separate. The wool goes to market as is usual. Walking around money. But the special wool he takes to his aunt's house who lives the other side of the tiny village. "This is wondrous wool," she says. "I will make a special sweater." And she does. Then the young man goes out in the world wearing the special sweater. As he progresses through the world many people say, "Hey, cool sweater." "Oh, what a lovely sweater." "Is that wool bleached? It is so very white."

Then one day the young man is on his way back home. He never stays away for long. He is on a pedway in an airport. Approaching on the opposite pedway is a lovely young girl. The pedway is very crowded but she looks up intently at the oncoming traffic as she notices a certain evocative scent of aftershave that gets her attention, and she spots the young man. "If I didn't have to run for this stupid plane, I would vault over this wall and make a move on that guy," she thinks, and gives him a delicious smile which he hungrily tastes as he moves past, returning a glimpse of self satisfaction over what might have been, as they both well know. As she moves on, the young girl, too busy to feel regret, thinks only, "God, that sweater he had on was gorgeous."

The End

HURT

I do not know if I was taught this, or if I realized it through life experience, but it is my belief that you do not hurt people you love.  I know this is simplistic.  We all know very well that we do hurt the ones we love.  (The ones we shouldn't hurt at all. . .)  And sometimes it is with acute deliberation.  We either need to prove something to ourselves or to another.  It is actually amazing how often, in retrospect, I have consciously done this, and the variety of reasons or rationalizations that I have used.  And then there is the big general question that haunts my every waking and sleeping moment.  "Is this love?"  Followed closely by its red-headed step-child, "What is love?"

A very well-known person who is respected for her advice column and recently had a best selling book got into an on-line controversy about a statement that she made.  Actually, she tried to stay out of the fray and the disagreement was largely among her commentors. A year later it cropped up again.  She is so much younger than I that I blame my general disagreement with her philosophy on the fact that my life experience has been extremely various, and I KNOW better.  I also seldom, if ever, had to do a brief hiatus with heroin to clear my mind in order to come to a decision. She is read by so many that turn to her for help in their moments of confusion, and her advice is always so unilateral.  I feel it is dangerous, and, in fact, when the subject was re-introduced this year, it was someone who started out by saying why they thought her advice was dangerous.

I think we never stop learning and it is not a good idea to think our viewpoint is right for everyone.  I had a conversation with my daughter today and we were both growing increasingly uncomfortable.  Finally I said I thought this was the type of conversation we should have over martinis. It was SO not mother-daughter, but SO chick to chick.  I kind of felt like I should not have said many of the things I said, but, on the other hand, I am glad she knows my viewpoint, and she already knows I am anything but coy.

Nevertheless, when I made the remark about the martinis, she said she wondered if the baby would wake up when we shifted her from one car to another.  We neither of us said, "Ahem." but it was an "ahem" moment if ever there was one.  Yeah, you DON'T want to know what we were discussing.  Not that the subject has not come up previously in my blogs and fiction, cuz it has.  But a blog, whether it is true or not, I like to believe is anonymous. The thing that we agreed on was that what ever may seem to be the right thing to do at one moment in your life, may in fact later be the wrong choice.  And you can never be sure.  How can you even think you are sure if you are over the age of twenty?  (Under that age, saying you are sure is utterly meaningless, even to yourself.) And you are never going to know until experience shows you whether it is right or wrong.  So, if it is going to hurt someone, for whatever reason, the one thing that I know about love, or even consideration or empathy, is don't hastily make a decision that will hurt someone.  Circumstances may change for any number of reasons and you may wish you had a do over.  I am betting many of you already know this.  I bet many of you wish you had a do-over for lots of events in your life.  I know I do.  It may be for a marriage, or a break up, or just for picking out what color coat you wanted.  Whatever.  You may not get the do-over, so stop and think.  And, take a freakin' long time to do it.  If it feels right is NOT a good reason to do something.  Not if love, whatever the heck that is, is involved.  Anywhere.

I do not fear pain.  I have learned a lot from it.  I know it goes away.  But still, there are times when I have a choice about whether or not to inflict pain.  And even though I know it will go away, they will get over it, be better for it, I hope I will choose not to inflict that pain.

But what the heck.  I do.  Don't I?


Photo Attribution:  Oh, fuck.  That's my grandma.

Criticism

I fear criticism. I take even the mildest criticisms very personally and let them hurt and fester way out of proportion to the actual purpose, meaning, or intent.  For instance:  people post book reviews when it is clear they did not read the book.  I don't understand it.  No matter if it is just stars or the reader of the review sees it for what it is, still it takes down my average.  And why do they do that out of a clear blue sky?  Well, I might as well ask why a random stranger drags his car keys through the paint on a random car.  Some thing is just wrong in the head.  And since there are now more people on the world, we see more of these strange people wreaking their hurt because of the way it makes the inside of their head feel. 

I mentioned to someone that I am not a good reviewer.  I don't like to hurt feelings.  That is all I remember hearing in my childhood.  "Her feelings are hurt."  I guess it is good they acknowledged I had them even as they blithely rode roughshod over them. If I promised a review, I will pick out a good thing about the book and emphasize it and give four rather than five stars.  (There should be about ten stars.  I can never make  a choice.)  But on a forum where a person asked for a critique of a preliminary excerpt, I remarked how good they were at telling a story even though I was not the intended audience.  I commented that there were a few minor syntax problems, but I wasn't there for an edit.  The asker went all postal about how they were an English teacher and how I could shove my syntax errors.  Well, the person did not put it exactly that way.  I put a negative review on Amazon for a book about Jesus that was some preposterous metaphysical theory and was a grammar disaster.  I felt so bad about it I went back and took it down.  The person got to say what they wanted to say, and anyone should get a pat on the back for that, much less having the courage to display it to the whole world.

Then there are the times I have asked specific people about specific matters in relation to one of my books.  When they said something was wrong and I objectively pointed to my research backing up my statements they got all hostile and said a couple of insulting things. This was a person who said nothing about imbalances or inconsistencies in my writing or story or method.  Just facts the person homed in on.  I thanked that person for their brilliant ideas and support and quietly rolled up my rug and folded my tent.  The very best thing anyone said about anything I wrote was "crazy good read" and I cannot get over it.  I always feel like I feel a certain way about something but someone doesn't get it.  When I am surprised at the way someone reacts to something --  for example, in the face of disaster a person commented to the person experiencing the disaster that God didn't give you more than you could handle and the person took it negatively and construed that the person was trying to explain to her that God wanted her to have the disaster because otherwise she would not have been able to cope with the outcome.  Like the disasteree had the mind set that the commiseration offerer was saying, "Better the plane crashes carrying the guy you might meet and marry in twenty years cuz you might get a divorce if the plane doesn't crash.  So here, God says, have a plane crash on me." So it is like a very brilliant light in the wilderness that I feel someone read my words and got what I was saying.

I write what a learned person said was "third person omniscient".  Yet I get remarks about my POV changing.  I can just see the person shaking their head over something I wrote and I feel like I wish I could have been there to hold their hand so they could fully enjoy the mastery of my story telling.  Seriously.  Don't think I am kidding.

I get sad.  A person is blogging on all the steps to publication.  The person put up an excerpt of the finished product.  POV changes?  Yeow.  Run on sentences.  Wrong word used for meaning.  Awful. Commas joining two sentences together when the first part needed a question mark.  I couldn't stand it.  And the person will get an editor and publish on Harlequin and buy their daughter an Arabian thoroughbred.  I made sixty dollars last month.

Have you read any of my excerpts?  Not asking you too.  If you were going to, you would have done so by now.  I put "Sex in the Shower", a part of one chapter in one book, a true excerpt.  One person said it was beautiful erotica.  Not.  Nice to hear, but it is just kind of a sexy, light hearted event.  One person said they couldn't enjoy it as anything but a how-to list since I didn't paint my characters deeply enough for her.  (Excerpt)  Another person said they felt sorry for me if I thought that was racy.  (Well, I talked about him elsewhere.)  Sex in the Shower has had more hits than anything I ever posted and that was it for written remarks.  I won't tell you the site I posted it to cuz I love it and they are cracker jack with commenting and always asking for more.

I just don't get it.  And I feel very sad that I know I will never get it, never understand the different ways people see things, because I feel like I should.  But I accept my own argument that it is all about me, and let the twisted little suckers go find their own way. That, as far as I am concerned, the way I see things is right, and I accept that is so, even knowing it may be right ONLY for me and as far as the general population is concerned, I am the twisted little sucker wandering in the wilderness.

I know I am doing something right because one of my older books has a spot in an algorithm somewhere and her activities have huge repercussions.  The other books, tiny repercussions.  So I hold on to the hope that this next one will do it.  I am hopeful about this Smashwords series highlighting thing they just invented, and this entire book, which is EXACTLY like all the others, has been written because I have a great title.  Well, we will see.  I am not on the ropes yet.

So fie on thee that has read not a single Elizabethan historical romance and dares criticize my little sweeties for hopping in the sack with more than one person in their lifetime. I had my day in the sun, and I intend to blind you with that reflection before I die.

Actually, this whole post started out because I had another huge spike in my blog stats and I do not know why.  I so want to know so I can follow through on it, but whatever.  I feel like I am through for the night.
I will generously repost for the day shift, although, I guess for my readers across the sea this is the day shift.

Y'all know how much I love you, right?  Cuz I do.  Thanks for stopping by.  Y'all come on back now, real soon.

Illustration attribution: emoticon from colourbox considered by its use on the web as public access. 

MALE PRIVILEGE

HUH??

Yet another male blogger went on record today as probably being a feminist.  He mentioned along the way that there is such a thing as male privilege and the males should consider male privilege a privilege and not abuse it. Above is an illustration of the only male privilege I recognize.

I am not a feminist.  I am a chauvinist.  I freely admit to being manipulative and opportunistic.  And, yet, I am completely able to say without any waffling or reluctance that everything I have I got.  I have never in all my many years been affected by male privilege unless I needed someone taller than I am to change a light bulb for me and there was no ladder nearby.  I am sure, if necessary, I would have been able to have all my sexual needs met in some way, were there not a male around for miles, or planets.  I think it is interesting that some people have a penis but I certainly do not envy them owning that.  And whether or not I desired to mess around with one, I am completely glad that they have the penis and not me.

I admit -- and you can all get out your placards saying "See.  She is just another shallow bitch" and start your parade -- that I have ALWAYS felt privileged.  Now I am a grandmother, but awhile back I was a very attractive redhead.  In fact, I was much more attractive than I ever knew.  And yet I was able to USE that factor to very good advantage.  Fuck all that bullshit about I want him to love me for my mind.  I had an IQ of 152 at age eleven and sometimes I had to ACT stupid to get some guy in the sack.  Yeah.  Some guy.  Sure I got married and played all the conventional marriage games and parenthood games.  I have been hurt.  I have been sad.  I have been angry.  But there has never been a male that was or would be less hurt or less angry or less sad in the same situation.

In fact, when I stop for  a very brief moment to consider all the many many things that cause a male's attention to flag, sexually, not to be too obtuse but what I mean is cause his dick to go limp, in retrospect, I got over my tears or anger with way less repercussion.

I wrote a whole book, very conciliatory in nature, and quite short, explaining why it is often necessary for females to tiptoe round the very sensitive penis -- not the very sensitive male that owns it.  Fuck him.  I have never noticed that males get more salary for an equal position or job. I am sure I can find countering statistics for every instance you display to me.  I think all the crap about men walking on the curb side of the walk when in the company of females in order to keep camels from splashing mud on the lady's fine gown is so much anthropological and cultural drivel.  The guy wanted to get laid.  Just SHUT UP.

This is all cultural, anthropological and genetic.  It all started to favor the gene pool and it was never done consciously.  It evolved.  And no, I do not believe cavemen rode dinosaurs.  Sure, people went along with this or that custom or manner so society would not frown upon them.  But, even then, it is/was done in order that the person so acting would be held in positive esteem.  He sought positive esteem.  I didn't.  I had it. I was born with it.  Maybe you were not.  Maybe that is why you have to buy into all this love me for my mind stuff.  Whatever.  It's your program, not mine.  Just don't bullshit me.

If you feel a sense of inadequacy in any area, deal with it.  Don't try to get a bunch of followers to march behind you in support in order that you may feel not so inadequate.  I am not saying you should go step on every one's toes.  I never stepped on anyone's toes.  And I keep my toes out of the way so no one steps on them.


John Scalzi's name has come up twice recently in this type of discourse. One conversation was about "rape culture".  I entered into that conversation.  It was based on some etymological error which I pointed out.  It didn't go over real well, but, it went unrebutted.  This other was him wearing some hideous dress.  Whether anyone so homely and unfeminine, made any kind of statement by wearing a very ugly dress is so far removed from intelligent discourse, it is to laugh.  I genuinely feel John Scalzi is a political suck up.  As far as wanting to get more females to read his books in the male dominated genre of speculative fiction, (or science fiction, or horror, or whatever they are calling it today) he may in fact be a whore.  Not passing judgement.  Just sayin'.

Beat your own drum.  I am not listening.  You shouldn't need me to listen.  My own music plays inside my very fucked up brain, and it is all I need.  When someone echoes it, I send money to iTunes.

Male privilege.  You wish.

I will repost in the a.m. for the dayshift. 


Photo Attribution:   I will get back to you on that tomorrow.  I am in too much of a pissed off hurry right now.  I do have the guy's (sigh) name  (Steven Amman) and the name of the site it can be traced to. If it violates a copyright, please inform me.  I will promptly remove it.  There are plenty more where that came from. 

Driveway

 

We have a very long drive way.  Well, almost this long.  My castle isn't quite that large.

 Every year the vagrant black top guys come by and they ALWAYS have just enough left over for my driveway.  I don't pay any attention anymore to oil-based, tar-based, water-based, squeegied, brushed, poured, sprayed. I only care about the $$ and  I want it to look nice for a year and a half.  We fall for their sales spiel every two years.  The truth is, we would never think of it at all if one of these itinerants did not knock. 

This year, August!  So hopefully it won't all be stuck to the bottom of the snow when we shovel as did the October job.  One year it disppeared so fast that I went on line and did research.  There is supposedly some stuff in the UK called some kind of paint that lasts forever, but I couldn't find it over here.  One person snidely offered that if I wanted it done right I would dig it out and put in four inches of gravel over three inches of sand covered with three inches of bitumin-something.  Okay.  He is probably the same guy that answered when I wanted a quick fix for the downstairs shower.  If I want it done right, I will dig out to the studs and put up cement board and copper pipes and such a kind of tile with such a kind of base.  Instead I chose to epoxy it which almost killed me with the fumes and peeled in three months.  So yeah.  Now we are going down to the studs anyway.

One year we tried to coat the driveway ourselves.  We got one sixteenth done and it was about ten buckets of the "airport" quality gunk.  But now that I recall, runways are concrete.  At least they used to be when we lived next door to that hoodlum in Oak Park that had the O'Hare contract.

And these two guys with nice trucks that will probably re-poed in November, are the biggest babies.  They have knocked on the door six times.  "Where's my son?"  I should have told him he was in the sack with the widow next door.  "Can I have  a bottle of water?  I need to take my meds."  That's a new one.  Then dad wants a bottle of water.  "We didn't even take time for lunch or dinner."  "No.  I am not giving you dinner."  "We have to go get gas for our machine."  "There's gas under the porch for the lawnmower."  "No.  We need special such and such."  I think they went to Oklahoma for it.  They just got back and the motor is running, but one guy is screaming at the other.  I wonder what they do, besides flee, if they accidentally spray my lovely siding with gunk. 

The perils of home ownership.  We are too old for this.  We should go live in one of those senior high-rises, but I love my yard.  And Louie has been away so long, it seems like I have to make too many decisions by myself.  Oh, wait a minute.  He has never talked to a driveway guy, or a pool guy, or a siding guy, or a roofing guy, or a window guy, anyway. 

So, my brand new uVerse system doesn't work which is the second chapter in the cable saga.  My neighbor came over to chat about it.  Apparently they decided to install it, fiber optic cable or no.  The service man admitted to my neighbor the wiring in this neighborhood was inadequate.  What is wrong with people?  Let's fight this war even though the bullets haven't arrived yet.  Maybe if we pretend to shoot it will work for awhile anyway.

And then I notified the notorious nationally known Twinkie Police force of Lindenhurst that I  had to leave my cars in the street and she wouldn't take the report because I didn't have the license numbers. Yes, old lady that cannot walk on the sticky new driveway, get your flashlight and stumble across a hummocky acre of grass in the pitch dark to get the plate numbers so we can distinguish your cars from the other two thousand parked in the street illegally on the 1800 block of Hazelwood.  So I said just give me the tickets, biting off the "fucking" part as a descriptor, and I commented on how cooperative (fucking cooperative) they are every time (every fucking time) I have to call (I have to fucking call) them.  My daughter's brother in law is the Lindenhurst attorney, so bring it on, Twinkie Police.  I should have said, (Yeah, we always think of this too late) "you will know right away.  It is the driveway lined with Twinkies."

It's Not Delivery. It's DiGiornio

So I was just setting, waiting for the results of my biopsy and eating some left over pizza.  Boy, that delivery man was SOO tall!  Oh, no.  Wait up a sec.  It's not delivery.  It's DiGiornio.  Anyway, I was going over the autopsy results on the recently discovered Kraken.  I am great at multi-tasking.  When we captured him he was still alive, but we "accidentally" killed him. So we decided to do an autopsy for the sake of Science and all else that is good and holy.  We, so far, have found out he was a male, very lonely, and did not eat ships.  And it set me to thinking.

We use people.  Everyone does.  I am sure you do not admit it to yourself.  I do.  But I feel I have always "used" people, and I was known as a master, to prove something to myself.  I think most people use people to prove something about themselves to others.  Like, "See? I am desirable."  Or, "See, I am attractive."  I always came up with, "Yeah, I can do that too."  Something I had to remind myself of repeatedly it seems.  Especially after all those misbegotten breeding experiences.  (See what I did there?)  But it was never, "she can have three little boys and I can't".  It was always, "I am going to be successful at this damnit, or die trying." Of course it all set  a lot of huge, nasty, rusty, menacing wheels in motion, but that was other people trying to prove stuff, not to themselves, but others.  Of this I feel very sure.  But.  I may be wrong.  I have been. I may be wrong about who was trying to prove something to whom and why.  Although I am pretty sure I have a handle on that one. I may even be wrong about it yet today.

I have a close relative who, due to a wondrous genetic legacy, is extremely smart and very beautiful.  Also cute.  And she is blessed with the kind of metabolism that runs like a mother so she is easily able to maintain her tiny, well-proportioned physique throughout the rigors of her very busy life. (Well, Boot Camp is not so easy.  I'll grant her that.)  She has a wonderful life.  Actually a beautiful life, a handsome hard-working, somewhat self-deluded husband, two amazing intelligent and beautiful children (kinda bratty, tho) and a huge gorgeous house with an actual swimming pool that is not a plastic and metal over-sized water dish set on the ground.  Of course this is all off set by the fact that she has a high stress job that takes a lot out of her.  But we do have to help The Higher Power keep the old yin and yang in balance.

The thing is, this girl seems to have everything going for her.  But she "wants".  She is not sure what, but she knows something is missing.  God in his heaven only knows how she got the idea things had to be completely perfect.  But I think maybe it is human nature to "want".  It might be kind of like "hope".  You just can't keep going without it.

But along comes a situation where she is being "used".  It is actually not harming her or her family, since it is a long-distance mostly imaginary thing for the users.  (There are two of them.)  There are people that come up short in so many departments that they have to invent scenarios which contain people and things to "blame' and to compare themselves and each other to.  My relative got into this mess completely innocently.  It was actually totally my fault, but I too was acting innocently and somewhat altruistically. (Or so I tell myself.)  It was a kind of on going drama that was a mere distraction for my relative.  Sort of like a soap opera that you tuned into every now and then.  But then the whole thing blew up like Krakatoa and it became instantly apparent what my relative was being used for.  People who could not take responsibility for their own misdeeds, mistakes, errors, misjudgements, suddenly needed a place to focus all that negative energy and this relative was a convenient and very carefully set up target.  She was "thrown to the wolves", "thrown under the bus," -- whatever.  Fortunately she has enough going on that she is very generously able to understand and forgive these people who have such troubles they are blinded to what the troubles really are and why they have them.

It just leads me to wonder, are these characters using her and others with deliberation because that is their modus operandi, or is it completely innocent, that they are so sad and lonely and troubled that they unconsciously seek a focus to ease their pain, their guilt, their unhappiness.  I will never know.  No one could offer me any explanation at this point that I would be able to accept since their credibility, if it ever existed, has taken a hike.

****

In other news:   I am going to try to incorporate my Clueless blog into this one since it is not publicly linked and it is messing up my stats.  Plus, it is great, pithy stuff no one should miss.  Just ask Jonathon Wilhoit, the well-know book reviewer. Also, the FINE WHINE title should be getting a lot more blog hits since a "blogger-columnist" of questionable integrity and intelligence who shall remain unnamed but whose initials are JK has stolen my words as a sub-heading for the self-centered posturing and moaning about her life that passes off to readers of The Chicago Tribune as reality.  Talk about trying to find a focus for blame.  But that is another story. One I am uninterested in telling.  She does a great job on that all by herself.

I am happy to announce that the majority of my blog hits now come from the google search for dittymac.blogspot.com.  I think it is important.  Don't tell me the truth.


Attribution for adorable illustration: "Kraken; the Early Years"
www.neatorama.com

Just For Tonight

My heart is sore and achy.  

I wish I had a magic wand.  

I want to make everything all better. 

Image attribution:    psychcentral.com

Undeclared Rivalries

On facebook, pretty much every one recognizes my daughter Francesca as Gerty the Grammarian. She will not let an errant apostrophe go untrounced.  Sometimes our communications are wordless, and yet the feeling of being judged is still present.  Recently I sent her this photo just for fun.  I titled it "Fergus Monsoon" for a variety of reasons.

Always trying to do me one better, this was her reply:

She didn't grace it with a title. 

This is not Gerty the Grammarian.









This is:  

Here's What I Remember

Fiddling, dawdling, wasting time, procrastinating.  Can't do it.   Even when I am trying to do any of those things I am being bombarded by images and words that set my mind on fire.   I picture those little fibers on the endings of my nerves getting ready to fire across that little void to accelerate a thought through my mind and body and I wonder why they are not all burning up and shriveling and crumbling to ash.  How can I think at all?  It is like the worst construction caused traffic jam on Route 45 that you could ever imagine topped by the dude on the motor cycle weaving through and giving everyone the finger.  Where is my gun?

From facebook and the comments therein concerning a recent court case, I segued into You Tube and Jon Stewart, who, if you ran his shows at random and continuously, you would notice a very confused person with a huge heart and a swirling mind that is making a lot of money and not really knowing why.  It's not because he is funny.

So then there was the clip of his first show after the twin tower attacks and, as labeled, it is hard to watch.

I am tired of the absolute polar opposite opinions concerning this Florida trial surrounding a young man's death.  There is no voice of reason anywhere.  It is really not much different than throwing the Christians to the lions.  Perhaps the lions didn't eat that guy because God gave him a special protection blessing for having been a good boy and saying his prayers and not having impure thoughts, or perhaps the lion could tell by the way the guy smelled that he would not taste very good so he passed him by.  Who are you to say?  What do you think you know about it?  What do you believe?  Hey.  I don't care.

The wonderful thing about facebook, and facebook's a wonderful thing.  It's tops are made out of rubber.  Its bottom is made out of springs.  Oh, no.  Hold up.  Fucking cadence side tracks me all the time cuz I have all those classical melodies fighting for space within my brain case and my heart. Anyway, as I started to say, you can block people from your facebook account if you don't like what they say or how they say it.  I do it almost daily.  Not you, of course.  I would never block you.  I love you and respect you and admire your divergent opinions, most of which I don't care about.  I only care about mine.  I only care about my power to rule, my power to change what is unpleasant into what is pleasant according to my own value system.  I continue to care although I see the whole world going to hell in a hand basket and me standing here, might as well be naked, but I'm not, and unable to do a fucking thing about it.  Just watching and thinking. What can one person do?  Vote?  My grand daughter cancelled out my vote cuz she wanted a sticker and had no clue who was running for what on which platform.  We are doomed.

Why do certain groups (and if you are one of my more avid followers, you have seen this remark elsewhere) have the power to form million man marches and elect bozos to rule the country and others just stand and watch the panorama of destruction?   Why are we letting any one take power from us?  Or are we giving them power?  I am not wondering anymore what we are doing.  I want to know why.

When I was first married, I lived in a huge courtyard apartment complex on the west side of Chicago.  I stood on the balcony of my third floor apartment and, looking eastward, I saw nearly the whole horizon billowing with black smoke.  Not Mount St. Helens.  The City of Chicago.  Set on fire.  On purpose.  Deliberately.  And to what avail?  A beloved leader died in an unfortunate way and people decided to burn buildings, break windows and steal things to mark the passing of this peace preaching man.  WTF.

And if I put quotation marks about the word people, I would be branded a racist and a hatemonger.  Again.  WTF.  Or no perhaps, in this case, fuck me.

Here is the voice of reason ringing out in the midst of all the polarizing remarks regarding the verdict in the recent highly publicized Florida trial concerning the demise of a certain male under unusual and questionable circumstances:

When someone is pounding your head into the pavement, reach for your wallet, while praying for his soul and your deliverance, and take out your FOID card and show it to him.

Is everybody happy?  Well I should say.


PHOTO ATTRIBUTION:   z3news.com

Story: I am a slow learner

I used to walk my dog every day until he got a little crippled. There was a ferocious Rottweiler around the corner that scared me. He was huge and could clear the fence if he tried. He barked and snarled like he hated us. So I started to carry a knife. Not a handy folding penknife or a lethal looking switch blade. No. Too reasonable. I selected a non-folding small fruit knife with quite an extreme taper. I put it in my pocket. I felt quite safe for several days. Then one day, I leaned down to tie my shoelace and stabbed myself in the thigh. It didn't bleed very much but did drip a little. It hurt like a son of a bitch. I hobbled home clenching my thigh. Lesson to be learned? None apparently. I had no knife when that huge blue pit bull tried to swallow Henry.

And further proof that my learning curve is in fact a straight line:  my husband has a food broker pal and Louie, who is sort of retired, helps him at food shows. Lou is a glad hander and Chuck, the broker doesn't like to speak up. So Lou brings stuff home. This amazing chocolate BRIX is formulated to go with wine. Forget that. It is damn good chocolate. I am huge on the raunchily named "mouth feel" and this stuff is incredible. It comes in a solid brick. (Get where they are going with that?) and you have to break off a chunk with something like a cheese knife. I usually put it on a saucer. I was feeling lazy and reclining. I had a super sharp paring knife. I didn't bother with the saucer. I left the chocolate in the cardboard box which was resting on my reclining body at about diaphragm level. I inserted the knife into the chocolate and met resistance. So I poked harder. Yeah. I stabbed myself again. Only a bruise this time. Excess avoirdupois.

Fugue - ing Around

I CANNOT believe the last thing I posted was that Feature and Follow thing which I never do right anyway.

I am walking around every minute I am awake thinking "me, me, me".  I am going to research whether it is possible to self-induce a fugue state.  I use this device all the time in my novels.  Every time something gets overwhelming I just have my adorable heroine go fugue-ing off, barefooted, into the Redwood National Forest, or The Great White Nowhere, or the Saint Louis Cemetery.  Myself, it would hurt my feet.  I am too constantly painfully aware of what is going on in my life.  I feel like a huge China (Ming Dynasty preferably) vase and I am aware of that tiny crack just starting in the bottom and if some one puts one more drop of water in it, Kablooey.

Obama said no fireworks on any military base anywhere.  I would have taken up a collection to have them at Great Lakes.  It is pivotal in my year.  I had a sign from Above.  The fireworks in the neighborhood had just started and I was cleaning (and cleaning, and cleaning, and cleaning) Louie's room and a halogen bulb on the hall light just out side his door blew up gloriously.  I choose to consider it a sign that God (my bud) was reassuring me that Obama was wrong.  (I used the word wrong here because I thought some of you might be offended or consider it disrespectful if I said "an asshole" instead.)  Obama is undermining our nation.  You didn't hear it here first, but I think the fireworks thing was just another step on his part -- another chip at the foundation of our Nation, another drop of water in the China vase of our beloved country.

Anyway, the news about Louie is not too good.  Physically he is coming along, but the memory problems and the personality change are obvious and I do not notice improvement.  For instance, he can't text.  And all I get is "Can you hear me?" To say I am discouraged is putting it mildly.  And my father calls at least once a day to check up.  Finally, I had Lou call him today because my father cannot hear my voice on the phone and all I get is "I didn't get that." Lou spoke to him after both my brothers tried to explain and I actually went over to his house to explain and my father has not a clue as to what happened or is happening.  "Are you home?"  he asks Louie.  "No one is ever there when I go over there."

I have no more patience and I cannot think  of a reason in Hell or on Earth or in Heaven as to why I should try to muster up patience.  When have I ever been on the receiving end of that?  I am bitter and pissed and I feel, honestly, I do not deserve this.  Misfortune?  My cup runneth over.  My mom said I was like that Little Abner character that walked around with the rain cloud over his head (Joe Mfblsztk?)

Every one, EVERYONE overestimates my ability to cope. I have been hearing that shit for too many years.  Sure I am crying poor me, but when some one says, "If any one can handle it, Ditty can" when my heart is so broken I feel like I don't even want to recover, then I feel like it is time to say, "NO.  I can't cope.  It hurts.  I am tired of it.  Stop it.  God, or someone, stop raining this shit down on me."  Yeah, I know, every one has pain in their life.  Some of you have pain that is fresh and raw and may seem unbearable.  The difference is, I have had it in spades.  I can match you and double.  And I know it is bearable.  I am just fucking sick of it.

Image Attribution: www.artsjournal.com

Feature and Follow Friday

For feature and Follow Friday I am supposed to respond to the question:  What is your favored reading format?

I honestly cannot say.  I love to pick up a book, new, used, (love Alibris) and library.  Also love my Kindle.  I will never catch up.  But I am getting very used to reading on my iPhone, mainly because of a lot of stuff going on lately.  It is the most convenient and not at all uncomfortable when you get used to it.  Uses up battery like crazy tho, and the Kindle has pretty good battery life. And, actually, with the iPhone, I love to stop reading where ever and know it will open exactly where I left off.  (That is also true of the Kindle and paper bookmarks, so what am I saying?)  And I can switch over to a game or Netflix whenever I need a break. 

I just have to read.  Did you ever notice the cups and napkins at Chipotle?

 

Today's featured blog:

 

Death Lists

So my husband, Louis, had a fall today and went to the hospital in an ambulance.  His pelvis is broken but not near the hip socket, so, instead of pinning it, they are "just going to let it heal". 

I wonder if, because of his age, he has been put on one of those death lists I have been hearing about. I am not an orthopedist, but I have to wonder how quickly weight-bearing bones heal in a slightly over weight man of his somewhat advanced age. What is a little lingering intense pain when you have out-lived your "usefulness"?

I will not sarcastically thank the voters of America until I have more information.  I'm good that way. 

  

Illustration attribution:  crosbiew.blogspot.com