The Hellish Handbasket Blog

  • Freaks, weirdos, losers, and crazies

    I laughed when I read that a member of the current regime used the phrase “freaks, weirdos, losers, and crazies” recently to refer to members of the political party he would like to see deported. I’ve been a card-carrying member of at least one of those groups for most of my life. As evidence, I give you my elementary school fears, my high school social awkwardness, my college indecisions and geographicals (more than one), my so-called career as an impostor teacher, my current job as a faculty-wannabe, and my on-again-off-again lovefest with creativity. Oh, I forgot to mention my many failed relationships and my recent stint of homelessness.

    I think I’m qualified to be considered a freak-weirdo-loser-crazy, possibly all at the same time. I’m not ashamed. I’m proud, especially because a member of the regime I find particularly abhorrent thinks people like me don’t deserve to exist. Maybe someday he will wake up (when he’s in prison) and realize he’s a member too. Joke’s on him.

    Speaking of jokes, or maybe not, I trotted over to the library on Friday to sit with the leader of the writers group to get some work done on my current writing project. Every other week, the agenda is what she calls “Write, write, write.” These days are designated as writing days. Almost always, we are the only ones there. I assume the other members opt out because they like the social interaction and attention they get at the “Write, read, critique” sessions. I’d rather sit alone and write, but that’s just me.

    Anyhoo, at the end of the two hours, she always asks me, “Did you get a lot done?” I always say, “I sure did, how about you?”

    On Friday, she said, “The words just flowed out of me.”

    I said, “That’s amazing,” but hearing her words transported me back in time to a moment when I was sixteen or seventeen, with my boyfriend (one of my brother’s friends, age 19), in the backyard of the house I grew up in, talking about getting high on weed (I was never an expert, but I seem to recall we called it dope or grass back then). I asked him something about getting high, and he said he was “naturally stoned.”

    For some reason, that stuck in my craw and it’s been there ever since. I remember feeling righteously resentful, first that somehow he was high in some kind of natural way (like, what is that?) and second, that he sounded so arrogant and braggy about it. His attitude pissed me off, and it still pisses me off when I think about it.

    In our defense, we were kids (statutory rape was not in our consciousness at that time). Our brains weren’t fully developed, which means there was a lot of look-good going on, plus some sweaty social anxiety.

    But why do I feel so annoyed when someone claims “the words just flowed out of me?” Haven’t I had words flow out of me. They’re flowing right now.

    I think I’m cranky because I am judging this writer on the quality of the words that are flowing. I base my judgment on a few months of listening to her read her work in the group. I question my opinion constantly. Am I qualified to judge? (hm.) Does my opinion matter? (no.) Am I simply imagining that her work lacks character development, plot arcs, tension, conflict, or danger? Who am I, a self-labeled cozy fantasy hack, to judge someone who obviously loves what she is writing?

    All I can tell you is my brain wants to run screaming from the room when she starts reading her endless tome about boring humans excavating an asteroid somewhere in the vicinity of Mars. (I like hard science fiction, don’t get me wrong, and I really like the premise of people co-existing in space.)

    Now that I’m ranting, let me really get into it. In the group, when we write from the five-word prompts, she always places her response in outer space, with the characters and settings she already knows so well. The self-righteous subtext to that sentence is “while I always write something new, on the spot, pulled completely out of my own ass in the moment, hemorrhoids and all.” Oh, sorry. Well, what can I say? The words just flowed out of me.

    “Naturally stoned” and “The words just flowed out of me” are cut from the same cloth. The kind of cloth you get in the bargain bin at a going-out-of-business fabric store. It looks great when you get it home, but then you wash it and you see all the holes.

    =============

    P.S. I know I have a lot of typos and misspellings in these blogposts. I don’t spend much time writing, editing, or proofreading, and it shows. Sometimes I feel chagrined about my many errors, but honestly, my eyes and brain don’t work as well together as they used to. Rather than beating myself up for getting old, I’m considering these posts as less like snappy witty pithy snarky prose and more like therapeutic poetry. WYSIWYG. Thanks for being here.

  • I dropped a monkey wench

    The writer’s group was on a roll this week. Every word ended in ch. The hardest word for me was wench. Twenty minutes isn’t enough time for me to really think about how to spin the word into something that doesn’t make me want to scream. I’m not a writer of dragon elf dwarf fantasy stuff. There’s a name for it. High fantasy, I think. It’s not my genre, so I had a hard time. Not one of my better contributions.

    One the bright side, I guess, if you can call it that, is I got all five words into the first sentence. I probably should have stopped there.

    Watch

    Drench

    Flinch

    Wench

    Quench

    I watched the drenched wench flinch from the thunder as I was quenching my thirst with a Gatorade under a creosote tree. Thunderclouds had boiled up out of nowhere. Neither one of us made it under cover in time. That’s what happens during monsoon. If you don’t get hit by lightning, you can expect to be washed away in a flash flood. If you happen to make it out of the rushing flood, you can expect to be blown sideways by a 60-mph wind gust. If you are out walking near utility poles or trees when all this happens, you can pretty much kiss your ass goodbye. If you survive, wait ten minutes. The skies will magically clear. The wind will die back. The river will soak back into the sand, taking the armies of tiny frogs with it. If you can wait ten more minutes, the puddles on the asphalt will evaporate. The air will simmer until it’s back up to 100 degrees where it started, more if you count the humidity. In about twenty minutes, it will all be as if it had never happened. Until tomorrow afternoon when you can do the whole thing over again. The wench waved and rode away on her bike. I’ll be out on the path tomorrow, just in case the wench rides by.

    See what I mean. Wench. Ugh. Maybe I should have made Wench her last name. Judy Wench. Ha.

    One of the writers in the group has a connection to Arizona. He said, “Tucson!” after I read my thing. I said, “Right!”

    Monsoon is happening in Scottsdale. I don’t miss the heat of desert summers. I do miss the energy . There’s nothing soft about that climate. The desert is harsh, but harshness has its own beauty.

  • How much longer?

    I’m tired of the madness. Too much anger, too much fear floating around in the zeitgeist. Not to mention smoke. We have clear skies here in the Willamette Valley. Lucky us. Not so in other parts of the world. It’s beyond lunacy to think that smoke stops at political borders. Kind of like you can turn on a faucet and let water flow from Oregon to California. It’s a special kind of purposeful hatred and lust for wealth and power that allows such delusions to propagate and spread like a plague of explosive diarrhea.

    My life here is idyllic compared to what some people are experiencing in other parts of the world. It’s beyond description how messed up things are. My brain is locked in an endless loop of WTF. What seems so obvious to me some people would kill me for. Now there’s a sentence for you.

    I’m past apologizing for being American. Embarassment and humiation are mere specks in the rearview mirror. I drove my metaphorical car off a cliff and now I’m neck deep in despair, sinking like the rock I’ve been trying to drop for thirty years.

    It’s time to make amends for our oppressive violent destructive self-centered oligarchical fascist behavior. Sooner or later, we are going to have to pay up. A couple collapsed skyscrapers might not be enough. I don’t want to see anyone suffer but collectively we will have to pay that piper who keeps coming around with a baseball bat.

    We get what we deserve.

  • Throttle it from behind

    I usually blog on Sunday. It’s rare that I miss a week. I probably missed one or two when I was on the road but I had a lot to write about then, so I made it a priority to fire up the laptop and drain my batteries telling the world what I was up to, whether the world wanted to hear it or not. The good thing is, few people know this blog exists, so if I miss a week here or there, the blog police won’t be coming after me.

    I don’t remember why I missed last Sunday. I’m sure I had no good reason. Probably because I was busy indulging my addiction to Chinese historical dramas. I tell myself I’m learning about characters, plot, pace, and costumes. I’m really avoiding my writing project.

    I don’t know if I have mentioned my part-time job as adjunct faculty at a for-profit online university in the Midwest. I’m in the Doctoral Research department, which means I help usher doctoral candidates through the program. I’m on sixteen committees now, and I’m Chair for eight. That’s a lot for me. The good news is several people are working on their final chapters. That means after their dissertations are approved, they will go through the traditional but meaningless ritual of defending their work with an uninspired PowerPoint deck. After that, we call them “Doctor” and send them on their way.

    In the earlier incarnation of this blog, I complained a lot about for-profit higher education. I was (and still am) qualified to pick that particular bone. I “taught” at a for-profit career college for ten years while I simultaneously worked toward a doctorate in Business Administration (focus in marketing, a poor choice) at a for-profit online university. Two views of for-profit higher ed gave me deep insight into for-profit education. The main take-away is that it’s a mug’s game for students while making owners rich.

    Anyway, here I am “working” for a for-profit online college. If you know the plight of adjunct faculty you know that no matter the business structure, adjunct faculty are a dime a dozen. That means they are overworked and underpaid. I get paid a flat “wage” per student per 10-week term. No matter how many hours I spend reviewing papers, I get paid the same amount per student per term. Not only that, paydays for adjuncts in the doctoral research department happen four times a year.

    I cope by mentally separating the work from the income. What else can I do? I’d fall into the black hole of resentment if I started thinking I deserve to get paid by the hour rather than by the student. I try to do the best job I can and not think about the money. Although I admit, I am aware when paydays roll around.

    The pace at this college is grueling. At the university I “attended,” we finished the course work, muddled through the comps, and then began the dissertation sequence. I was ABD for quite a while, and when I mean quite a while, I mean almost three years. (Can I blame an adjunct Chair who went AWOL ?) Anyway, the point is we finished the 5K before we ran the marathon. At this college, the students take the coursework while they work on their dissertation chapters. That means they are insane from the pressure.

    My job is part reviewer, part editor, and part cheerleader. So far I’ve had one student drop out. She said she enrolled because she was bored.

    Meanwhile, I keep chipping away at my writing project. After writing the last one, I now understand my process: Don’t arouse its suspicions by looking too closely, sneak up on it and catch it by surprise. Force it to give up its secrets before it realizes what is happening and slams the door in your face. Keep knocking, and while it’s wondering if it should open the door, climb through a window and throttle it from behind.

    So far my strategy is working.

  • This land is not mine

    Almost 30 years ago, I was standing among a large group who were singing “This land is your land.” (No way would I ever sing with other people, but that’s not important.) As I looked around the crowd, I noticed the people around me were White. It occurred to me that this land is neither mine nor theirs. We White folks have past the point of trying to ‘splain our way out of the mess we’ve made since we set foot on this unlucky continent.

    Independence Day is a good time to remember that even now, not all people in this country are free. Some people are growing less free by the minute.

    I try to blog every Sunday. I didn’t blog yesterday. I didn’t feel like it, so I immersed myself in a Chinese romcomdrom. It’s my drug of choice these days, to get lost in a story and escape the sad reality of the failing American experiment.

    I don’t give in to despair but neither do I imagine the precarious survival of democracy is just going to happen, like some sort of force of nature, the unstoppable march toward justice. As a White person, I have no claim to be part of America’s historical progress toward justice. For my part, the only thing I can think of today, besides being kind, is to stay out of the way and not make things worse.

    Speaking of marching, the turkeys are back. They were busy hatching chicks in early spring. Now their parents are introducing their offspring to the tasty treats in my backyard. The kids are young teens now, audacious feathery chunks digging up the grass. The parents split the chore of maintaining security, one leading, and one following. There’s not much danger in our yard. Cats won’t mess with turkeys, squirrels and crows don’t care, and the one dog big enough to cause trouble is lazy and stupid. Good personality, though. Similar to some people I’ve met over the years.

    Summer in Northwest Oregon is usually dry and mostly sunny. Like so much of the country, we are in a drought. The grass in this yard is green when it should be brown because sprinklers pop up for 20 minutes every morning at 5:00 am. I don’t care about green grass. However, I’m guessing that source of water is important for all kinds of critters in the neighborhood.

    Speaking of critters, two skinny teenage cats came to visit me last week, one solid gray, the other solid black. They might have been siblings. Friendly, not feral, which made me think they had homes somewhere. They had skin problems, though, which suggested they weren’t receiving good care. I spent a day and a night fretting over how I could help them. I called the local animal control and a local feline rescue place. What I learned is that the only action they would take is to spay or neuter them and then return them to their territory. Ear mites and scabies and all.

    For a few minutes I contemplated paying for care myself. Then I realized that was a bottomless black hole of financial and emotional insanity. Cats are allowed here in this apartment but the pet deposit is steep. I wouldn’t be able to afford it. Not to mention the ongoing cost of care and feeding. And not to mention the fact that they weren’t my cats. After dreaming about them all night, I woke up and realized I could not get involved. I closed my blinds.

    Since then I haven’t seen them. Maybe one glimpse for a few seconds, in passing. As if they picked up my vibe and decided I wasn’t an easy mark after all. I’m sure someone else is feeding them. Probably they have feeding stations all around the neighborhood. I feel stupid and also a tiny bit abandoned.

    I still have the turkeys, though!

  • Brain shrinkage

    My brain might be shrinking to fit my small town home. Is that how it works? The brain expands when you go traveling and shrinks if you stay put? Could it be the further you go, the bigger your brain gets? And conversely, if your world shrinks to the size of a pinhead, does your brain shrivel up to fit?

    By that logic, if I were to be launched into outerspace, it’s possible by the time I got to Mars, my brain would have exploded the spaceship. Oops. So maybe my premise doesn’t hold up. As a thought experiment, this one is sadly lacking.

    Speaking of sadly lacking, it’s time for another contribution to the literary world. Here are the five words for this week:

    Suppose

    Turn

    Mastery

    Acrylic

    Fifteen

    There were six of us at the meeting, so I was excused from tossing out a word. FYI, my word would have been zip. Either that or fizzle.

    And here is what I wrote (sans typos):

    Angie’s parents confronted her after school. Her father said, “Angie, now that you have turned fifteen, we think it’s time for you to choose a profession.”

    Angie scowled. “But Daddy, you know I was meant to be an artist. It’s my life’s calling, my true northstar.”

    “I suppose you think you have the right to freeload off the backs of hardworking citizens?”

    “No, I just think artists are unique. I was born to paint. “

    “So you are saying that your art is the most important thing, more important than earning a respectable living doing honest work?”

    “But art is honest work, Mom. It’s just a matter of time before I have truly mastered oil painting. Acrylics are next. My teachers say I’m very talented.”

    “We are calling in the authorities. We will abide by their decision.”

    The next day three members of the citizens committee visited. 

    “So, Angie you believe other citizens should support you while you pursue the frivolous life of an artist?”

    “Art is not frivolous!”

    The committee members did not look impressed. “Explain to us, please.”

    Angie described her artistic process, how when she was in the flow, paint simply flowed from the tip of her brush. Colors emerged like butterflies glistening the sun. She was born to be an artist! There was simply nothing else she could do.

    “You couldn’t be perhaps a hair stylist or a floral designer?”

    “No!”

    “Thank you for your honesty. We have made our decision.”

    The committee members took Angie by the arms and marched her out to their gray utility van.

    “No, what are you doing? Where are you takking me? Mom, Dad, stop them!”

    Her parents looked on with sad expressions as she was thrust into the van. A few minutes later, the van arrived at the top of the mountain. Angie had never been there before. As they invited her to step out of the van, she admired the sunset over the distant hills.

    “I’d love to paint this. See how the gold edges the clouds? Isn’t it beautiful?”

    “One last chance, Angie. Wouldn’t you prefer to be a manicurist? Maybe a makeup artist?”

    “No! I was born to be an painter! There’s no greater calling in life. I would die for my art!”

    The committee members shook their heads. One grabbed her arms, another grabbed her legs, and one took photos. “For our social media page,” he said. “To deter other artists from making the same mistake.”

    “No, stop! What are you doing?” 

    They swung her, one, two, THREE and threw her over the cliff.

    Angie fell a long ways. Something in her back snapped when she landed wrong. 

    “Ow,” she said.

    “Who is that? Angie?” said a voice from behind a rock.

    “Becky? What are you doing here?”

    “I wanted to be a poet, but my parents said no. They didn’t even call the committee. They brought me up and threw me off themselves.”

    “Hey, quiet, you two, I’m trying to compose a song over here. I need to concentrate. It takes more work because I can’t move my hands.”

    Angie moaned as best she could. “Are we destined to die here then?”

    Becky sighed. “My mother said that’s the price we pay for creativity.”

    Perhaps a little too close to home.

  • The endless purge

    On Friday the library was closed for the holiday so the writer’s group met at an alternative location, the local theatre. The building, a former elementary school, sits next to the Grange at the crossroad of two rural country roads. The place was only an eight-minute drive from home, so it wasn’t really the middle of nowhere but it was definitely out in what you would call the country. A weird kind of country, though. Multitudes of brown cows, goats, and horses grazed in green and brown pastures presided over by modern McMansions. Big farms, big houses, big pickup trucks. Big country on the outskirts of a small town.

    The production manager (who happens to be the boss of the writer’s group) took me on a tour. She is the writer who reads science fiction to us at the writer’s meetings and an important figure in town, I have discovered, involved with several city organizations. Writing is just one of her many pasttimes.

    The theatre is a flat square building with several rooms all roughly the same size arranged in a circle, one of which was the actual theatre. The theatre (a former gymnasium) holds maybe seventy-five audience members? I’m guessing, I didn’t count the Tuscan orange carpeted seats, which I was told were salvaged from a nearby community college back in the ’90s. I’m sure the room looked perfect in the dark. It’s most interesting feature, for me, was a shiny white coffin parked in an aisle, partly hidden under a black tarp.

    The other rooms were crammed floor to ceiling with cupboards and shelves loaded with objects required to produce theatrical productions: costumes, furniture, lights, sets, too much stuff to identify or describe. I still sneeze thinking about it.

    The amount of clutter made me thankful for my quasi-minimalist lifestyle. I wanted to exit the theatre asap but I made all the praise sounds because I want to support creativity whenever and wherever I find it. Even if it comes in the form of a hundred dusty hats.

    I’m not sure my lifestyle actually qualifies as minimalist. I’m not a spartan. I think I have a lot of stuff. Let me ask you, how many hangers do you have? I have nine. I could use four more, but for now, nine seems like enough. I don’t have many clothes. I’ve collected underwear over the years, which I wear way past expiration, so I’m good on underwear, and I have a lot of socks (all the same so I don’t have to match them), which I keep in a plastic bin. I have seven long-sleeve T-shirts, which seemed like enough until I realized I’d tie-dyed six of them with bleach to hide the food stains. I can’t bear to retire them so I bought four more of the same brand (black, gray, yellow, and purple). I don’t want to wear them so they occupy four hangers. I want to postpone the moment when I have to tie-dye them.

    I have three cold weather pants and four warm weather pants, all in various shades of black. All but one pair are men’s pajama pants, and most have bleach stains on the knees and lower legs from my time living in my car. Bleaching a pee jar isn’t an exact science. Stand back is my advice, in case you have to do that in the future.

    After retrieving my household goods from storage, I now have four white porcelain bowls. Two are large, two are small. I have one white dinner plate, the kind you can throw across the room and still use for pancakes. I have two coffee cups (my favorite says Oregonize® your life), two plastic water bottles, two aluminum water bottles (one says Holy Water for Parched Sinners), two insulated travel mugs, and a clear IKEA mug with a handle, which I use for smoothies.

    I try to minimize new purchases, but I admit to buying a blender. My friend gave me a microwave. I have a carpet sweeper now (a vacuum seemed like too much). I bought a desk lamp. I got a nightstand from Goodwill. I built a worktable from a door and some cheap shelves and cinder blocks. So, yes, I have more stuff now than I did when I arrived in Oregon. I cringe sometimes.

    In my defense, I haven’t bought any books. I didn’t keep many from my previous life, and now that I’m housed, I realize I didn’t even need those. I’m holding onto them, though. I may reread them after I grow tired of binge-watching Chinese historical costume dramas.

    Does that sound like a lot of stuff, or a little? I have more than enough, and after touring that theatre, I feel like I still have too much. I remember my apartment in Portland. Eighteen years of stuff, much of it books and paper. Was there anything there I really needed? I thought so at the time, which is why I moved a lot of it to Tucson in a U-Box.

    In Tucson, I gradually jettisoned pieces until I could fit the barest essentials in my car. The amount of stuff in my storage unit dwindled a little each time I visited it. Rugs, shelves, household goods . . . but even then, I didn’t purge enough when I moved from Arizona to Oregon. My minivan was packed too full for me to sleep anywhere but the driver’s seat. Does that seem like too much stuff? Now I have storage (built-in wire shelves) and not enough stuff to fill them.

    I kept some keepsakes, for example, my grandmother’s leather pencil holder, decorated on the side with a handpainted Order of the Eastern Star pentagram; a green ceramic container with my mother’s name engraved on the side (Marge), which I use to hold toothpicks; a half-dozen family photos and pieces of art, some mine and some by friends; the ashes of my two cats; a cardigan jacket that was my mother’s (a weird maroon color I don’t like all that much); a Swingline stapler.

    Multiple purges have still left me with stuff that someone else will have to deal with when I’m gone. Is that a nice thing to do to family, friends, or strangers?

  • Elect a clown, expect a circus

    The regime we get we deserve.

    It’s a lovely day in the neighborhood, far from the shenanigans in D.C. I watched the live feed of the tarp going up. It’s still up, so I’m moving on. Nothing to see here. The circus is still happening. I would go out and sit on the street corner with my sign, but it’s 95°F today, and I’ve lost my desert tan.

    The writer’s group met on Friday for it’s every-other-week write-from-a-prompt delusion. Three of us showed up. Here are the five words, followed by what I wrote.

    Fog

    Never

    Need

    Collide

    Tree

    Harold’s family erected a cross at the intersection where Harold had collided with a tree in dense fog. A dozen or so crosses already marked the spot, so Harold’s family had to settle for the spot they could get, even though it wasn’t all that close to the place where Harold bought the farm after a few too many at Tippy Canoe. Harold had never been all that picky, his wife Jill had noted, and his son Bob wasn’t inclined to carpentry, so Harold got what he got.

    On the first anniversary of Harold’s demise, his family brought a picnic lunch and spread out a blanket next to the cross. 

    Harold’s wife Jill examined the cross and turned to their son Bob. “Couldn’t you have painted it or something? It looks like crap. So disrespectful to your father.”

    “At least I spelled his name right.” Bob held up his phone. “Shut up, it’s almost time.”

    Jill looked around. “I don’t see him. Harold! Harold, we’re here. Where the hell are you?”

    A faint voice came from down in the ravine. “I’m down here, you idiots. Wait, I need to float up.”  Harold’s shimmering form appeared by the picnic basket. “Did you bring beer with  you? I’m parched.”

    “What were doing way down there?” Jill asked, sounding  a bit peeved. 

    Harold said, “What are you doing putting my cross up here?” sounding equally peeved. “The truck lost it when I hit that tree. Didn’t the cops tell you? I was spattered from here to Sunday.”

    “Ew, Dad. TMI.” 

    “What, squeamish, are you? Twerp. Never mind. Come on, did you bring me some beer?”

    “Sure thing, Dad. Here’s a Bud. Let’s drink to the good old days.”

    Harold tried to lift a beer but his ectoplasm failed. “Darn it. I guess I”m fading.”

    “Wait, don’t go yet,” Jill said. “I need you to tell me where you put the life insurance policy.”

    “Ha, ha, joke’s on you. I kept it in the glove compartment. It’s probably in the junkyard. Whoops, gotta go. I’m fading. See you guys next year. And move my cross, would you. Just bump that other guy down the hill.” Harold faded out of sight.

    “Come on, Junior,” Jill said. “Pack up the stuff, quick.”

    “Where are we going?”

    “To the junkyard, of course.” 

    I used to drive a school bus in Gresham, which is a suburb of Portland. I endured one academic year before I bailed. It was one of the more difficult jobs I’ve had. I drove problem kids in the short bus out in rural areas before we had GPS. I got lost a lot. One of my routes took me past a particularly dangerous intersection. Multiple crosses marked the site.

    Remembering my bus-driving job got me thinking about other terrible jobs I’ve had. Each time I remembered a crappy job, I said to myself, well, at least I don’t have to do that anymore. I said that phrase after I thought of my short-lived waitress job. I said it after I remembered my retail jobs. After my hellish personal assistant job. After I sold my soul by painting art to order to go with someone’s decor. After my 10-year self-employment sewing debacle. After my market research jobs, my nightmare nursing home activities director job, my back-breaking warehouse temp job, my 10-year teaching “career.” My endlessly tedious editing gigs. There might be more but that’s all I can bear to remember right now.

    Have I ever had a job I didn’t hate?

    I was born retired. That’s the story of my life.

  • When you can’t sleep, try writing a book

    Sometimes I can’t get to sleep. Usually it’s because I’ve just watched another episode of a Chinese historical romcomdrom and my brain is trying to (a) save the hero from the flying slice-and-dice squad, (b) figure out how the girl will get the right guy, or (c) hoping I don’t have to upgrade to the premium app to see the final five episodes. Or all of the above. When sleep eludes me, I resort to my reliable remedy: I pull out my journal and start making notes about my current writing project.

    I’m working on my next book. For me, starting a new book is like . . . hm, what metaphor would be accurate but not cliche? Building the plane while I’m . . . no, too trite. Climbing a mountain backwards with my eyes closed . . . no, too stupid. Um. Going into a crowded bar expecting to find love after I get totally plastered? No, I don’t drink, and I would never go into a bar, crowded or not. Not to mention, I’m not looking for love. Maybe a better metaphor will come to me.

    Meanwhile, where was I? The point is, when I open my journal at bedtime, after I write a few lines, my mind turns into a mushy gooey puddle of thought slime. What is thought slime? I’m glad you asked. It’s the mucky pit of despair, the respository of dashed hopes. . . you could say it’s the hole in the sidewalk into which I repeatedly fall, even though I swear I’m going to walk down a different street next time.

    In other words, when I fall into the thought-slime pit, I’m ready to shut it all down. Closing the journal turns off the malfunctioning mental computer. File not found. Function ceases until the next bootup, which will hopefully clear the cache and free up some RAM, especially after coffee.

    Already you are offering me remedies for insomnia? Thanks. Some of you are saying, take a chill pill, like, one of those that come in a bottle. Just check out for a while. Got it. Others of you are saying, wait, what’s the issue with writing? Aren’t you a writer? Writers write, just put ass in chair and get on with it. Okay, so noted. I can hear a few of you saying, what’s the point, just give up. Writing is a futile pursuit that only leaves you with bags under your eyes. Okay, thanks for sharing. A couple of you (and a little dog) are pointing out that watching TV before bed is the root of all sleeplessness and to remember these people are not my friends. So noted and completely ignored. La la la.

    And maybe one of you is saying, Carol, I get it. I have the same problem. Characters are hard to get to know. Plotlines lead you into a corner or off a cliff. Sometimes you have to throw it all out to get back to the idea that inspired your book in the first place. It’s not easy building a world out of nothing. Writing can be frustrating, maybe more often than it is rewarding. But remember, you wouldn’t write if there weren’t some sort of payoff for the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual anguish it brings, right? Remember who you are writing for.

    Who am I writing for? I’m sure you can guess.

  • You broke it, you bought it

    Sometimes when you buy it, though, you don’t actually own it, as in the case of bodies of water, which humans pretend to own by drawing lines on pieces of paper (or clay tablets or sheep skins) and pointing to one side of the line, saying that’s mine, and this over here, that’s yours, and too bad if my side is bigger (or greener or juicier) than yours, I drew the line, so I win. I digress. What I was trying to say before I derailed my brain is, if you broke it, it’s on you to fix it, even if the remedy benefits others besides yourself. I can already hear you whine. I know. Life is so unfair.

    One of these days, humans will decide the earth owns itself, but until then (if we still exist), we will keep pretending we have dominion over our little corner lot (or our vast acreage, as the case may be), as if we (and the earth) aren’t a temporary blip in the life of the universe.

    I follow the news. Some of what I consume is propaganda, I admit. It’s been amusing at times to hear rabble-rousers rousing the rabble. However, lately I’ve grown tired of listening to pundits jabber-blabber about the end of the world so I’m tuning out with Korean and Chinese romcomdroms. I think I mentioned this before. I used to read stuff. Now I watch stuff. Reading books and watching videos serve the same purpose, the purpose I’ve always had since I began reading, which is to escape from my personal reality. This is why I don’t read nonfiction.

    I confess, it does not explain why I feel compelled to follow the news. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel like the news touches my life much. Even though I pay rent, drive a car, and eat food, somehow I don’t have the energy to care. I’m not lazy, I don’t think. I go out and protest when somebody puts out a call to arms. I put save-democracy-term-limit-SCOTUS-8647 stickers on my car windows. I’m just not fired up about much of anything. It’s enough to go and sit and wave my sign. It’s a good day if nobody gets run over.

    In my mind, I complain about idiots and jerks and morons and grifters but I’m mostly resigned to my belief that people are always going to be people, meaning they are mostly idiots, jerks, morons, and grifters. Not everyone. I don’t mean you, of course. You are kind, thoughtful, intelligent, and well read. It’s everyone else. I’m sure you know who I mean.

    No, I’m not depressed, in case you were thinking, whoa, Carol has really lost it. I’m actually feeling mostly content, except for my hip that is warning me it is soon going to need to go back to the factory for refurbishing. Other than that, well, and other than my vestibular issues that flare up into a dizzy crackling brain blob when the wind blows, which it is doing right now, but other than those things, I’m doing really well here in my new small-town home. Except a big dog took a dump on the grass just beyond my patio. But other than that, life is really good.

    I hope your life is good too.

The Hellish Handbasket Blog

Self-expression on a stick

If you lived in your car, you’d be home by now

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