Housekeeping

I just wasted twenty minutes trying to find the “Housekeeping!” clip from “Cool Runnings.” Here it is in another form:

Sanka Coffie: Maid Service, sir! Would you like your bed turned down? Mint? Perhaps I could dust your head!

Yul Brenner: Whatever is wrong with you is no little thing.

Apparently there never was a “housekeeping!” scene from “Cool Runnings.” “Maid Service, sir!” will have to do.

Basically, this week’s update is notice that I’m cleaning out my poetry section and revamping/re-posting. Realizing that I’ve run out of pre-written poems to post, this is, in fact, part of an enormously nefarious plot to re-post all of my pre-written poems again. Sometimes my own laziness genius amazes me.

It is at this precise moment that I’ve also realized that I’ve gone and blown my own cover. Actually, I have several slightly less diabolical reasons for this. One of them is the fact that I hate the way I’ve organized my poetry. The genre thing is just way too clunky, so I’m going to scrub that entirely and post them the way I do my stories.

Mind you, if that’s all I was doing I’d re-organize everything behind the scenes without all the fanfare (I’m lazy, but I’m not that lazy; or at least I know how to hide it better than that), but it’s also a really good opportunity to work on my drawing skills and get used to the new art program on my computer. What I’m going to do is illustrate each poem and post them as art files. I’m hoping that this will also help with the viewing issues for anyone who uses a mobile device. A small screen forces the lines to bleed over into each other, which can be really confusing when the rhythm and rhyme of a poem depends on understanding its structure. By posting them as media files they’re forced to stay true to their formats. Let me know if anyone notices any problems I’ve subsequently created with this solution.

As to the blog posts with the old links, right now I’m just planning on letting them lie with broken links in place. I’ll fix them as I re-post. If anyone is dying to read a poem I’ve removed, just email me and I’ll share that like a boss.

So! In short, here is the only poem currently on my website:

The Cat on Cackler’s Lane

Apologies to my IT guy and my editor, who are currently the main people affected by this decision. Enjoy seeing everything twice! I’m also using it as an excuse to post website updates on my Facebook page. Anyways, I can get away with this because I’m related to both of them. Or not so much “get away with” as “do it anyways, neener neener.”

Small Town Super Super Slow Updates

I’ll keep this short, as I’ve delayed this far too long as it is. Part Two of Small Town Super Nobody is finally written. I had the hardest time writing this, for goodness knows what reason, but I finally did it because I was tired of feeling guilty. I also did some rearranging to make the story easier to navigate (I decided to create separate pages for each chapter), and I’ve updated my links in the last blog about this accordingly. Here’s chapter 2:

2. In Which a Boy Receives the Confirmation He Wasn’t Looking For

If, for some reason, you have not read chapter 1 yet, do so BEFORE reading this one. It can be found here:

1. In Which a Boy Accidentally Has a Discussion About His Little Brother’s Options for the Future Instead of His Own

If you’d simply like to admire the Title page (which isn’t really worth admiring at this point; hmm, maybe I should try illustrating something? Eh, we’ll see), you can go here:

Small Town Super Nobody

Did I just post the updates for my story backwards? Apparently I did.

The Cat Is Never Late – Only on a Different Schedule

I took a break from not writing “Small Town Super Nobody” to write something that should’ve gone up yesterday. Here it is:

The Cat on Cackler’s Lane

I dedicate this poem to Spooks, who’s probably dead. If she isn’t, she still neither knows nor cares that I dedicated something to her. In related news, I’ve updated my bio photo on the About page for seasonal reasons. Happy Halloween!

Small Town Super Delay Tactic

Do you remember when I promised that I wouldn’t be uploading anything of creative worth for a while? I don’t. Here is part one of six in a long short-story (are there any other kind?).

Here is the title page:

Small Town Super Nobody

And here is the first chapter:

1. In Which a Boy Accidentally Has a Discussion About His Little Brother’s Options for the Future Instead of His Own

In a shocking twist, I was attempting to focus on my novel last night and I accidentally (but finally, I’ll have you know – this has been in my head for a very long time) wrote the first part of this long short story. Frankly, I should’ve waited until all six parts were done (the sections don’t particularly lend themselves to great cliffhangers, which isn’t the best way to create enthusiasm for a story posted online), but each section is likely to be a couple thousand words long and it feels good to post something fresh off the Surface Pro typing pad.

Some points of interest: first, since I’m uploading it piecemeal each section will be subtitled for ease of navigation. Part one is “In Which a Boy Accidentally Discusses his Little Brother’s Options for the Future Instead of his Own.” Second, the overarching story takes place in a world I plan to explore in a much more ambitious project I’ll tackle in the new year. This particular tale is a much quieter piece in that world, a series of six conversations that cover a pivotal moment in the childhood of a couple of my side characters for the longer project. They’re not important enough in the series for me to take the time to explain how and why they’ve become who they are, but I’ve always liked these boys and a website is a great place to play with the kids I otherwise neglect.

There are other sources of inspiration for this idea (not least of which is my love for Superman – but we’ll get to that later), though I’ll wait to explain myself until the whole shooting match is over. Until then, updates will go up on a weekly basis.

The Child Grew Up

The old lady frightened me.

Every neighborhood seems to have an old man or woman who lives on the block, inhabiting the deep confines of their yards, possibly boiling brews but just as likely concocting evil to visit on curious neighborhood children.  There are stories about these people, passed in whispers at recess and on school buses, sometimes about quiet murders behind closed doors, other times of old secrets and mysterious pasts, but every story has the same foundation: they are dangerous and wicked and will not let you pass their house unharmed.  We of the children of the neighborhood watch always know which house to stay away from.

We lived right next door to ours.

She was an old bat, quiet but somehow angry, like the world had let her down in some deeply unforgiveable way. She never shouted “get off my lawn” while angrily waving her trowel in the air, but then she didn’t need to.  A deep green hedge, made up entirely of pine and nearly as tall as my house, enshrouded her yard in the same foreboding mystery that windows with always closed curtains do.  On our side of the property a red fence stood sentry, splintered and falling apart, barely able to contain the needles and branches trying to break its hold.

Together they hid one of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen.  Full of deep colors, a muffled sense of privacy, it felt like walking into a secret.  And I was lucky enough to discover it because of the goose.

The only inviting thing about her was her white, slickly feathered pet. It came up to my waist, a loud honking thing with a beak full of very small, very sharp teeth. I was always quietly sure, letting the goose nibble at my fingertips, that I was about to lose a finger. It scared me as much as it thrilled me, because knowing someone who owned a goose was a novelty, good for boasting about at school and worth the trip into her backyard.  It wandered her garden, breaking the stillness with its unconcerned honking.

Somehow that made the old woman next door more real, more prone to saying “yes” when we asked to come over.  My older sister was in charge of all requests back then, so I didn’t have to worry about talking to her, or making eye contact.  She didn’t seem so bad once we’d made it past the hedge, more someone’s grandma and less Hansel-and-Gretel-who’s-that-nibbling-at-my-house witch.  Outside of her backyard she reverted to a dark presence, hidden behind her hedge. But surrounded by her bursting flower bushes, she was just an old gardener.  Visits felt like tea parties with a duchess, she dignified on her white patio furniture, my sister and I dressed in our summer dresses. We’d pet the slick feathers on the back of the goose’s neck, storing up details for our friends.

The goose died.  The visits stopped.

I saw her a few times after that.  Once, when she ventured onto our side of the property line to prune the hedge.  Another time when I was helping Dad scrape the snow off our roof.  I could see into her yard and I caught a glimpse of a figure in her window.  Her severe voice sometimes broke the evening, cracking out at the yippy, unfriendly dogs she’d bought in place of the goose.

Somewhere along the line I grew up.  There were no secrets, no gruesome murders, no Hansel and Gretel witches; just a woman in her garden.  Her presence lost its power and her two shih tzus, though evil, could be counted on for a laugh, leaping out of gaps at the bottom of the hedge at unsuspecting passersby. On late summer evenings, after I was supposed to be in bed, I’d peak out of my bedroom curtains as soon as I heard someone about to walk by her house, because the nasty little things were always good for a jump-scare. I was too old to be afraid of the boogeyman.

Nearly ten years ago I came back to my old hometown for a visit, dragged along by my parents and wondering when the streets had gotten so small.  Eventually we made it out to our old house, and I stood on the driveway feeling my heart break because it wasn’t ours anymore.  The woman living there had ruined it. My house had lost its magic, my room was filled with junk, and the stories we’d told as children felt less real, more childish.

I walked along the hedge as my parents talked.  The red fence was gone, replaced with cold chain link, and I trailed my fingers along the metal to see how it would feel.

Two dogs leapt out at me from the hedge, yapping wildly, and I jumped back, startled.

“Hush,” I heard her snap through the fence.

And I still didn’t dare come over.

…and some more!

The Woman of Wax

In the hour of waning moonlight,
When in wiles the darkness purrs,
Winding down the paths of shadow,
Wending in the woods of firs,
While in cusp of midnight hushing,
When no longer waking lures,
In the woods of watching dark
The well in murmurs stirs.

Wisps of dreams, forgotten wishes,
Slipped with coin and bric-a-bracs
Long ago into the well
By maids with hair of winsome flax,
Rises in the witching hour
From the depths of inky glass,
Deep within the whispers swell
Softly, of the woman of wax.

A tale in woven ways of telling
In a time when woods were home,
In those days a castle rampart
Soared with flags within the dome
Of a sky winged blue in warming,
When the woods were soft with brome,
Before the maid was taken, wantoned,
And the tower swallowed in gloam.

Whispered over well in sunlight,
Dropping wish in whimsy stream,
The girl upon the dawn of woman
Swept in whims of true love dream.
Yet in the darkest heart of castle
Lord felt all was to his deem,
Wedded her in wilds of forest –
Wrested from her skirted seams.

Weighted with the flow’ring maiden
The spindle of the wishing well
Hung with more than rope and bucket,
Wreathed the neck of milky belle.
Her feet of waxy stillness pointed
To the glass of mirror tell,
Broke the wood of weighted spindle;
Followed where her wishes fell.

They found her slipped beneath the pool,
A waxy face in cooling deep.
Pulled her from the wishing water;
Clasped her waking eyes in sleep.
Her face was perfect, willed in form
Of waxen lips and eyes that weep
With nothing more than well-sprung water
Wending with a wish to keep.

The seasons turn as weeks wear fast
Until at last the moon’s white rays
Wither in the wasting winter,
Weaving clouds to weary gray.
The duke was hunting with a party
Set to win the winding play,
Too far he went, too deep in wood
And vanished in the waning day.

When at last the streams awoke,
Spring laughing at dark winter’s end,
Then at last they found the body
Washed in icy river bend.
They say he fell beneath the water,
Trapped below, in frozen penned,
But for prints upon his feet
As fingers pulling down would rend.

In the dark of witching hour,
When in depths of inky glass,
Deep within the well will ripple
Woman’s face of winsome wax.


I’m actually quite fond of this one, but it needs a serious overhaul before I post it for real. I have this idea for an envelope around the main ghost story, involving a young man who wanders into the wood despite the warnings from the local villagers (hey look, that “w” thing is catching). I’ve actually written a few enormously confusing verses for the idea, which I will allow you to read here:

Whistling broke the wearing darkness,
Lightly treading step and soon
A young man, whittling, deft of fingers,
Walking through the watching gloom.
The village, come upon at twilight
Set against the woods of hewn
Warned the youth no longer forward
With the threat of wasting moon.

The young man laughed upon the telling
Savored what the village warned
Of the girl who slept in water,
Of her waxen face forlorned.
He set and turned with whirling surge
His confidence in youth so borne,
His quick and handsome face to set,
His willful courage: wasted, mourned.

Yet slowly as the whiling time
Led him deeper in the wood
The dark crept watchful up the neck
Of wayfare’s feet the prickling could
Of eyes with cautious sense he swept
His gaze to see what witness stood
To hear his whistling further hush
As hands in whittling would.

He saw her when the welt of moon
Slipped behind the welling clouds…

Etc. etc. etc.

You can tell I was getting lazy with my rhythm – I sort of threw sentence structure overboard to try and work in both the alliteration and the rhyme. My only excuse is that I wrote this a couple of years ago (one of the fun things about reading my old material is realizing that I’ve actually gotten better over time). If I ever want this to work, I’d need to revamp half the lines just to make them cohesive.

But, at the very least, it makes for a deceptively long blog post. In other news, I’ve been trying to finish an illustration project for my brother-in-law. Which is an absolute time-eater, let me tell you. While I can draw, I actually find that I don’t often want to. Though it’s deeply satisfying to have an end product I’m proud of, the process isn’t fun for me – mostly because I so rarely manage an end product that I’m proud of. Sorry, Slick.

Anyways, to finish this off, here’s a horse with a gas mask:

Just what you needed more of in your life.

 

Have some old junk

Why I Failed Math

I sat and stared with glassy eyes,
My mouth was slightly parted,
Drool gathered on my lip,
My organs dropped, down-hearted.
I shook my head, then shook it twice,
Pinched my arm unguarded,
Already asleep, I knew–
And class had barely started.

I chewed my pen then scratched my ear
And fought to pay attention.
I’ll need this for the test, I know,
Which makes it worth retention.
I sat up straight, uncrossed my legs,
A soldier straight with tension,
And tried to then convince myself
That class was worth the mention.

Minutes in, abrupt, I blink,
And realize I’ve drifted,
Subconscious just as bored as I,
So through my memory sifted.
But naught was there to interest me
So back my focus shifted,
To faraway, to lands unseen,
My mind and spirit lifted.


I never meant to post this, but this is what happens when you promise a soon-to-be blog post days ago and never get around to writing it. I wrote this bit of nonsense in college, during one of my nursing courses if I remember correctly. But that’s a story for another time.

(Also, I never failed math, the title was just easier than “Why I Failed Nursing Statistics and A Course on Proper Needle Safety Techniques.” Which, for the record, I didn’t fail either. So I guess to be truly accurate: “An Explanation in Rhyme Which Discloses, in Part, How I Realized that Nursing Was a Reckless Career Choice for Both Me and Any Future Patients Counting on my Care.”)

I’m not planning to officially put this under my poetry tab. I like it well enough as a placeholder, and we’ll leave it at that.

Bertie Wooster Isn’t Sure About This Blog Post

Sometimes, life just hands you good timing. My Aunt and Uncle lent me the TV series “Jeeves & Wooster,” starring a young Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry (not pictured – this fellow is Bingo, who is actually more idiotic than Wooster, though you can’t tell from his earnestly piercing gaze). Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve spent my free time admiring Hugh Laurie’s perfectly executed buffoonery and cackling at Stephen Fry’s delightfully composed expressions of horror whenever Bertie or any of his friends commit crimes of fashion – like the atrocity of having little horse shoes on your tie, as you can see Bingo wearing above. I got a phone call in the middle of an episode, and had to commemorate my accidental – if excellent – use of the pause button. What ho, Jeeves!

(Real blog post coming in the next couple of days. This is just to tide my editor over.)

I Really Should Try Harder

Because I’m lazy, have another piece of something I’m never going to finish:

Elaine Schattenfeld made a noise like a dying hyena, a sound he had never heard before but would now be able to describe with vivid accuracy. He had never met anyone with quite the amount of delight in the prospect of dying as his mother.

“Nathaniel,” she called, grasping feebly at the air. He did not catch her hand, and she went back to pawing at the bed curtains. “Nathaniel, my eyes grow dim.”

Her eyes grew dim at every quarter hour, and had been doing so religiously for the past several days. There were breaks for naps and eating, but her earnest sincerity had not diminished.

Nathaniel was her favorite, though he’d never figured out why. He had several siblings – two younger sisters and an older brother – and the least amount of patience among them.

“Your eyes are fine, mother.”

“My eyes lack constancy,” she snapped. He had no idea what that could mean, and did not want or need to know the answer. He didn’t ask. She remembered she was dying. “Oh Nathaniel, don’t leave me.”

I meant to write up another overly detailed story from my ceaselessly entertaining life (I’ve been into Classical music lately, which I’m sure fascinates everybody), but I find I don’t have it in me this week. Well, no actually, I’m sure I do have it in me but I’m not willing to dig down deep and find it. Instead, I’ve pulled another piece from “Random bits of this and that.” There’s actually many bits (of both this and that) in that particular Word document, but I’m only going to dole out these one or two. Most of the other bits have the potential to become something, and I’m only blogging the pieces that I can tell are never going to fit a larger puzzle.

For example, here is a bit of that which might someday graduate to a straight this:

Once upon a time, John Sorley obliterated his hometown and the eight hundred people living in it.

To his credit, he hadn’t done so on purpose. Unfortunately, that meant absolutely nothing to the uncaring dead, as the saying goes, nor to the King’s private army, who came to investigate.

The problem is that it has no backbone yet. A fun start, but nowhere for it to go. Most of the things I write already have innards to them before I even put them down on paper, but every now and again something like this will come crawling out of the woodwork when I ought to be working on one of my longer ideas. They’re basically my imagination’s version of a hangnail, only they don’t bleed when I remove them.

That’s a wrap, folks. Let’s see what inanity I can confess to next week.