Why I'm sometimes pissed.

Simple. Things anger me. Circumstances, people, news, events ...

For example, I become infuriated when my stinking fax machine makes copies instead of faxing my material. I want to choke some sprout-eating wiener hipster geek at Google when I constantly have to re-set my lousy password just to access my blog.

I get pissed when my truck tailgate drops down at 65 miles an hours and I lose a garbage can; when the dog pees in the entryway as I come home, when I can't unscrew a tube of paint, when I get rejection letters from agents and editors who don't want the story I labored to write. I'm angry about being spied on, listened to, and watched because I have the freedom to do what I want, and that fact pisses some power-hungry bureaucrat off.

Yes, I know. I let little things tick me off whenever I fail to keep sight of the big things. I know such is true in my head, but my emotions - well, there are times when I just need to vent, blow off stream, kick a can, curse, and go eat a Hershey bar (no, two Hershey bars!)

Then I'll go and hug that damn dog after I've let him back into the house, I fix the stupid truck tailgate, I'll keep querying agents, and then I'll take a hot bath. I still might throw that crappy fax machine out the second story window and delight as it splatters into the pavement. But that will give me an excuse to go out and buy a better one.

Looking Forward As I Look Back

April has finally arrived, and as I sit watching the sunset colors of ochre and slate, I mull over the transitions to come. Moving day will soon be upon me.

Changes are never easy, especially big, life-changing ones. By this time next year, I will no longer live at this farm, my home of the last twenty years. My youngest who was born here will be moving on after high school, as has her elder siblings. It will be my husband, my eldest special needs daughter, and me.

We will leave New York, and on one level I shall not regret that, given the ever-escalating encroachment by this state's tyrannical government. I spoke today with a deli owner who summed it up succinctly, "They just take everything you own," meaning personal income, freedom, etc.

What I will miss is this state's rural beauty, its wildlife, and the forests I have come to know as well as my own backyard. I will recall the days of autumn foxhunts; I loved a good gallop cross country. The memory of cool early-May mornings and the sound of the first birds as I waited to hear the tom turkeys gobble will probably fade. And would you believe, there may even come a time when I think I will miss cleaning out poop and pee from my horse's stall every morning.

But Pennsylvania horizons beckon. I look out the window of my studio and notice the sky changing from a pale cerulean to a pastel mauve, with the underlining of clouds reflecting the setting sun's glow. As I write, I will certainly miss these New York skies, and wonder if the skies of Pennsylvania will glow as beautifully, as brightly. I pray they inspire me with the same creative inspirations as I've known here.

Back From a Long Winters Nap

Okay, so I wasn't napping. I was busy with my writing, and editing my novels with the help of J.J. and Amy Murray's Editing Service. Love those guys!

I sat so many hours sitting bleary-eyed in front of my laptop, munching on sesame seed crackers and guzzling mineral water, to polish a manuscript worthy enough for the eyes of literary agents.

I recently dusted off a novel I began in 1990 and completed in 1992. It's an epic fantasy, suitable for the new adult market; the new adult genre being stories for the 20-something age group who are still too old to be young adult and too young to be adult-adult.

I looked at the message I was trying to impart in this romance morality play. I was happy.

It turned out to be more relevant today than in 1992, and far more entertaining given our current cultural shift towards interracial couples/families becoming mainstream. 

Looking ahead to getting it published. Wanting to be ahead of the trend. Getting ahead. Period.

Transitions

     Got up this morning. Sent hubby and the higher-schooler off for the day. Let out the dogs. Poured my morning tea. Checked the outside thermometer and I read -4.


     Minus four degrees! I mumble, "No matter what they say about global warming, they lie!" I look back at the calendar. Next month is March. March is an iffy month at best. Wind, snow, balmy sunshine, more wind, cold rains, mud, freak snowstorms, morning ice ... Did I mention wind?


     But March - for all its lion/lamb unpredictability - is a month of transition. Transition from how our planet angles itself toward the sun, from frigid to temperate, from a gray-brown landscape to a green-brown landscape, from minus four degrees to plus anything.


     Transitions are good. Why? Let us say that I hope all transitions mean forward movement. Progress. Onward and upward. Not backwards, and certainly not standing still stuck.


     As I approach my 60th birthday, I view seasonal change as a time for moving forward to new horizons, new challenges, new adventures. It is the Year of the Horse (yes, I was born this year-no coincidence), a year of blessing and freedom. I was also born on St. Valentine's Day, which I'm sure fate had a hand in, since I've always been a slobbering romantic, and I'm even more so now.


     Leaving the fifties and transitioning into the sixties makes my perspective on all transitions of time something that I see as far more relevant. It's clearer to me that life moves forward, whether or not I embrace it as something to be anticipated and appreciated.


     Perhaps that is why I have always looked forward to an unwritten future. As such, with another day at hand, I put my creative pen to page and write on as I wait for the frozen land beneath me to slowly transition into another spring,

Interracial Love Bothering You?

 

      I recently watched a CNN report about the horrid experience suffered by a tearful Tamera Mowry who is interracially married to her white husband. Someone jerk accused her of being nothing but a “white man’s whore”.

      Think back. Remember the recent controversy over the Cheerios commercial featuring an interracial family? How General Mills had to pull the comments section from their website because of hate speech? Many ads today include interracial/multicultural families, like Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Hershey’s Chocolate, etc. Now Procter and Gamble, the makers of the Swiffer duster has an interracial family where the white husband is an amputee. Lord knows what kind of hate mail that’s going to generate.

     Which brings me to my point: And please indulge me while I get my vulgar Black Lady on. All right, y’all. I’ve had it. Now I axe you. Interracial love bothering you?

      Society calls it racism when white people hate everyone who isn’t white; and there’s so-called reverse racism when non-whites hate whites. Stupid from the start. All racism should be called mirror racism, the racism where you, the hater, look at other human beings of different skin tones, and you project on to them what you hate about yourself.

      Know what I mean? For example (and pay attention): You hate a white person because s/he is rich. That just means you hate yourself because you’re poor and too effing lazy to get off your people-of-color ass, get off welfare, get some education, and get yourself a damn decent job so you can be rich.
 
      You hate that a black woman has a white husband. No, you hate the fact that you ain’t got no decent love of your own in your own damn life where you are being respected for who you are regardless of what you look like.

      Keep going? Fine.

      You despise a black person because s/he is highly educated. Well, you’re just pissed because you ain’t never had the discipline to get off your lazy ass-of-whatever-color long enough to learn to speak well, read well, and write well, so you could carry on an intelligent conversation and be successful.

       You see? For the most part, racism is nothing more than a mirror in the mind-sight of the hater. It’s a twisted, wishful thinking contagion of envy, self-hatred, and vengeance based on your own despised image. And you act out by ridiculing, persecuting, committing violence on someone who is both content and innocent. May you burn!

        So what’s the best way to END racism? Man up or quit your bitchin’, and marry a different race. And guess what? You don’t become white if you’re black and marry someone who is white. You don’t become black if you’re white and you marry a someone who is black. If you like your race, you can still keep your race. Period.

        If that bothers you, what are you? Are you that stupid? How in the hell do you think we’re supposed to end racism when stupid racists bitch and moan about the love choices of others? You’re upset because of someone else’s choice in love? Damn. You need to put aside your ignorant, churlish, self-hating, arrogant, myopic, simpleton weenie-brained putz of an asshole mindset and grow up. Most people marry because of love. WTF is so hard to understand about that?

       Now for those of us who are interracially married: We are happy, and doing our damnedest to laugh in the face of the egotistical, ill-bred losers among us, because we know what the problem is: Jealousy, plain and simple.

       Our kids come out prettier, our hair is cooler looking, we love contrast, our cultural horizons are broader, and we eat better because our cross-reference recipes tastes better. We are different in the best way possible. And we are in love. Know what else? God and Jesus love us, too. Now there!

 

Taffy Days

When I was young, one of my favorite candies was Bonomo Turkish Taffy, which was about as Turkish as chopped liver. It came in a rectangular foil wrap in vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry flavors. I loved strawberry the most.

As kids, we would run outside the store in search of the nearest cement stoop (a stoop is the mortar stairway leading to a house, for those of you unfamiliar with the term). There, we would hold the taffy flat in the hand, raise our hand high overhead, and with all our might, we would slam the taffy against the stoop, shattering it into bite-size, chewable pieces.

But some of us were far more adventurous. We dared to sit (yes I said sit) on the taffy, incubating it until it was soft and pliable. Then came the magic. We opened the wrapper, and with aplomb, we pinched an end between out fingers and stretched out the taffy into long, drooping strings, and gobbled it down.

Which brings me to my point. I often feel at one with that taffy. There are days when I feel sat upon. Yes, I said sat upon. I feel stretched until I droop, only to be consumed because I lack the strength to resist the pulling. And there are other days when feel that I've been smashed and shattered into a million pieces.

Sometimes I wish I were one with a Hershey bar. I could melt under the heat, and still be sweet. Maybe a piece of bubble gum: Get chewed up, and instead of being spat out, be molded into happy bubbles that appear and re-appear with more chewing. (Then again, I may end up underneath some stinky table top.)

Alas, there are days when I revert to my more primal instincts. You know, survival. I am like a jawbreaker. Go ahead. Bite all you want! Lose a tooth, so I can laugh and say I told you so.

I tell you, there are days when I can relate to the entire candy store. Yes, the ingredients are sweet to the taste, but beware. The after effects of all that sugar may result in your regretting having entered into my realm altogether.

I think if I tap into my original mind, the mind that sees being smashed, chewed, melted, etc., as being something positive, perhaps I should seek to feel more like cotton candy. You remember cotton candy. Wispy and light, delicate, and spun from pure sweetness. One taste on the tongue and you close your eyes, each mouthful is as good as the last. It reminds you of being young, innocent, and full of fun.

Yeah. I need to be more like cotton candy.

Bipolar Meteorology

Falling snows drift by my window. Too bad it isn't  sticking to the ground. Why is it that in the northeast, where you would imagine the cold would arrive and stay, that we get such a miserable fluctuation in weather.

Two weeks ago I dropped off my daughter and daughter-in-law to go skiing on a crunchy pack of crystalline powder. The only reason that I did not join them was because of the expense. But it was cold; damn cold.

Yesterday, I went out with a sweatshirt, sans hat, and thought about sitting outside for a suntan and a healthy dose of vitamin D3. My backyard was, as E.E. Cummings would have noted, "mud-luscious and puddle wonderful". I thought for a moment that I heard a far and wee whistle.

I fully expected that January and February would be the coldest time of winter here. I hoped so. It's getting frustrating to watch the logs by the wood stove gather dust, look at the mail lady in a tee shirt shoving my mail into the box, and having to pick muddy dirt from the hooves of my daughter's horse.

It's winter! I want it cold, damn it! I want it cold so I can sit by my window and stare out over a dreary white landscape in a melancholy mindset. That's when I do my best writing. Brings out the real poet in me.

Poet. Hmmm. Or perhaps I should take a page from old Mr. Cummings works and envision the coming days of a warm spring. I've written some good stuff at that time of year, too. Brings out the romantic in me. And you know, I am a romance writer.

Maybe I should keep my mouth shut about winter. Instead, I think I will look forward to longer days and overhead sunlight. Soon, I bet, a little lame goat-footed balloon man will whistle far and wee over the lands outside my window.

And just as I write that, I look outside my window at the falling snow. It's now sticking to the ground.