Vintage Wrath

Vintage Wrath:


I'm not sure if it's like this for other writers but I was very sad when it was time to stop writing. 
 
It took 16 weeks of work to get this thing ready for editing.

It was harder to write than the Establishment series for many reasons. The MC (main character) is an orphan girl, everyone is unfathomably rich and they are all gifted in one narrow field.

There was a *lot* more research to be done but every bit was fascinating!

I love you

I was in my third year of college the first time one of my parents said, "I love you."

Imagine going your whole life, never hearing those words. Never even realizing that you were not hearing them because you had never heard them.

My family was not the kind to be openly amorous with one another and I did my part to perpetuate it, like a good little Buschhorn.

We said goodbye when I left for college on the other side of the continent and I hugged my mom at the airport when she flew back home after driving with me (a hellish experience if there ever was one) across the country.

When my father said, "I love you," on the phone that first time, I was not prepared.

I said, "Okay, goodbye," or something equally inappropriate. Then I stood there, looking at the phone and wondering where the hell that had come from. I was touched but it felt strange.

I didn't know what to do. I needed to be prepared for it next time. So when I called them the next Sunday, I was ready.

At the end of the conversation, Dad again said, "I love you."

I said, "I love you too."

Mom said, "Goodbye."

Apparently she was not yet on board with all of these steaming piles of mushy crap which Dad I and were now slinging, willy-nilly, everywhere.

It got to where I would really enjoy telling Mom I loved her when it came time to end the conversation, just so I could hear her squirm and writhe in discomfort.

"Oh. Well yes... you too," she'd writhe.

At some point in my childhood I had closed up. In my baby pictures, I can be seen lovingly hugging my little brother. Gently comforting my cousin as we both sport some really unflattering diapers and generally being very attentive to the pet dog and cat.

Somewhere between those photos and elementary school, I became a jerk. I know that by high school, I had zero interest in any sort of affection from either of my parents and withdrew to my room or began spending time with my friends. As some teens are practically famous for doing.

My friends, however, hugged their parents and treated them respectfully while I lied to mine and snuck around as much as possible while seeing what I could get away with. I seemed to be deliberately being as much of a dick as possible to my parents, just to irritate them.

I'm sure it worked because  I was persistent and unrelenting. I had a strong jerk-ethic!

In my entire life, I have seen my parents kiss once.

One time.

I was about seven years old and mom was taking my brother and I somewhere. We were at the airport and dad kissed mom goodbye.

I have never seen them hold hands or heard them say "I love you" to each other although they clearly did. And deeply. When my father was in a nursing home, with Parkinson's, my mother had taken care of him up to and beyond the point where she could care for him. She visited him every day and even on his bad days, when he had no idea who she was, he just lit up with happiness at seeing her near him. He would tell her how pretty she was (she was seventy two years old... so not pretty. Besides, she's my mom so... eww) and flirt with her. He never did that with the other women or the nurses. Some of whom were persistently and unrelentingly hot. There were Russian nurses.

Dat accent.

That led me to believe that my mother and father had fallen in love with each other on a deeper level than just attractiveness or financial suitability. There was something chemical between them which made them happy to be together or even near one another.

After my father's death, my mother began to not only say, "I love you", when we got off the phone, but to say it first.

Now I think of it as a kind of contest to see who can say it first.

Persistence pays off.

Is this your bull?

When I first came out to the University of Idaho, I arrived several months early in order to check out the school. No one was around and I pretty much had the place to myself. The school buildings were open and the administration was there but all of the students were home having a summer.

I drove around the town checking out the cool movie theater and the local bars. You know. The important stuff. At one point I was at an intersection, on campus. I stopped dutifully at the stop sign, looked left and then right. To the right it seemed some traffic was coming. Said traffic consisted of a pair of cowboys on horses, being towed by a rather large bull. I assume it was large because it was the biggest one I had ever seen. So I guess, using that logic, it was both the largest and the smallest bull I had ever seen.

It did not even stop at the stop sign so being the city boy that I was, I rolled down the window, honked and shouted "NICE STOP ASSHOLE!" One cowboy waved.

Perhaps the bull was on his way to get a coffee. We all get a little grumpy without it and I can empathize with his probable headache. 

But before he trotted off to get his cowpuccino, the bull had escaped from the Kibbie dome where they were getting ready for a rodeo. It had loafed through the law school parking lot hitting nothing. It avoided the BMWs and Jaguars, carefully skirted each Mercedes and Lexus. The cowboys however, were not quite so gentle. There was some regrettable, collateral damage as the bull dragged their steel-shod horses across the paved surface.

Since I was from the east coast, I was still on EST time so I woke up at 4AM every day. I've been out here almost thirty years and I still get up at 4:30AM. Longest case of jet lag ever.

When the bull stormed the intersection I thought "I would never have seen anything like that back home". And that was how I knew I had found the right place to live.

Sore muscles.

I keep hoping that sore muscles are the sensation of fat cells dying. Dying painfully.

I don't think of sweating as anything other than the tears of my fat cells as they are wept from sad adipose eyes. I want to know that my fat is in agony as it perishes while I run.

I hate running. But the thing is, I hate being out of shape a lot more than I hate running. I have never been one of those bastards who, after a few miles, suddenly feel like they could go forever. Or that the pain just goes away.

Holy hell. After a few miles my pain has only gotten worse. And it keeps getting worse until I stop. Which I want to do more with every step, following the moment I start.

My sister in law can just go forever. Therefore I hate her. And also my brother who just seems to loaf along with his mile-eating gait as though running were not the single most awful thing ever invented. their two kids will probably grow up thinking running is a normal and natural thing.

It is possible that my decision to lift weights was a bad one. When I graduated high school I was 6' 2" and weighed 155 pounds. That was the low end of normal.

In normal speak, I was emaciated.

After a year of college and discovering the wonders of the weight room and a class in weight lifting, I gained thirty pounds. At that point, it was very difficult to gain even one extra pound. I was still emaciated, only my bones were now covered in a layer of muscle.

Then I hurt my back and couldn't lift for over two years. I got married and running still hurt a lot. Every step hurt.

Once the pain finally became manageable I was able to get on the road a bit more often but by now I weighed 210 pounds :-(

Again, I switched to weights and added another 35 pounds to my frame. It is easy to imagine how, at 245 pounds, running five miles takes a lot more effort when you are carrying ninety pounds more than you were in high school.

P90x is "easier" than running but also much harder! I would very much like to strangle Tony Horton and his chipper enthusiasm.

I am still ready to quit during the "warm up" phase of the work out, but as my fitness increases, my attitude improves and my feelings get better. I would still gleefully choke Tony to death but now am confident that I can do it much more easily! Although he must be pretty tough since I can't be the only one who hates him like this. People probably either go right for his jugular or fall to their knees and thank him.

One of the coolest things about many forms of exercise is that it is inexpensive. Sure you can get expensive gym memberships or equipment, but running and lifting weights only have a small initial investment. You do have to replace your running shoes occasionally but a weight set can sit there on the floor mocking you forever, without costing you a cent. Same goes for exercise bikes. They hold your sweaters and towels really well, while they dry.

But once you are finished pretending you don't have time to exercise (because your shows aren't going to watch themselves!) all of that equipment will still be there, ready for use in a blink.

I don't judge. I have had dust and dead moths blow out of my exercise bike, when I first started pedaling after a workout "hiatus". Hiatus is a good word. If you look it up it means something like "you quit doing something that you intended to go back to... eventually." So really, your hiatus can be as long as you want but you need an indicator for when it has gotten long enough. Like when you sit down; does your belly rest on your thighs? Maybe it's been a little too long. Do you have "Mirror Disease"? Where you can't see your junk without a mirror?

But we all know the cure for Mirror Disease... exercise.

If you want to feel extra bad, watch Saturday morning television and pick an exercise/weight-loss infomercial and look at the women who lost sixty or eighty pounds. They did that without the benefits of the hormones us guys have. They did it without the huge, fat-burning engines we have, called 'muscles'.

You can feel as bad as you want but you won't start to feel better until you start exercising.

Go make your fat cry. :-)

More tetanus? What is it with me and this topic?

My girlfriend was supposed to get a tetanus booster when she went for her check up.  Since she is a nurse, she is the Queen of Non-compliance. They are all like that.

I've been harping on her and she tells me she will get it during whatever the next follow up is, but she won't. She has an OB/GYN appointment today and I am pushing her to get it then.

Imagine that conversation? How many patients have ever needed a tetanus shot at their lady doctor's? Not many, I'd wager. But I would LOVE to hear the story behind why they might have come across a circumstance requiring a shot for bacteria that live in the dirt. While discussing vaginas and stuff.

Is this a thing mud-bogger girls need more often?

Nobody wants Vagina Tetanus, ladies. So I guess, no matter how tough you are; if *that* gets hurt DO NOT RUB DIRT ON IT!

Five books

I don't think any trilogy should have more than nine books so I am probably okay.

I only intended to have a handful of books in this series but like having children, a fun hobby kind of got out of hand. Every morning I wake up at 4:30 and shower, make breakfast and lunch and then hit the computer.

Once I am satisfied that all of my Facebook updates and comments are funny enough I can finally get to work.

After I have checked my YouTube subscriptions.

And Googled the list I wrote on my hand yesterday.

My daily writing goal is only 1000 words and mostly it gets done in under an hour. Four paperback pages in an hour. Usually however... by the time two hours have passed I am really into the writing. I am excited about what the characters are doing and laughing at their conversations as though I am some weird voyeur. On weekends I write until I hit 5,000 words a day (20 pages) but if it is really flowing well, I just keep going. One weekend, I wrote 27,000 words.  It was amazing and I was so wrung out, I could not keep my eyes open.

On weekday mornings, my alarm goes off warning me that it is about time to go to work and a little piece of me dies. Every day I am at lunch, wishing I was a full-time writer. I sometimes feel so disconnected from my job that it feels foreign to even consider going in every day. I am working for someone else instead of working on making my writing better. It feels like I am wasting my time on a 50 hour a week job and only getting to spend 30 a week on writing.

It kills me.

More than one kind of tears?

Well this gal thinks so.

That chick cries a fucking LOT! I have like four reasons for crying/making-tears-to-keep-my-eyeballs-from-turning-into-ocular-raisins but she has reasons I have to look up in a dictionary! Lineal tears?

Is that like how many board feet of tears she cried this 28-day mentrual cycle or something?

What a friend she would be. She sees someone she hasn't seen in years, makes that weird, girl-squeal noise, hugs the startled and alarmed chick (who is, by then, thinking, "God, it's that fucking psycho-chick from that community college, adult ed class on mushroom identification! Why does she know my name?!?!") and then says "Wait! I need a phial to collect these tears of reunion!"

Which is not weird at all!

I would be her friend though. I like crazy people. "This is my friend Sally. If she wants to collect any of your body fluids, it's okay. It's for sciencey reasons. Not like perverted or voodoo reasons. I mean she's not going to, like, brine her chicken in your tears or anything." And my friends would give her that smile where they raise their eyebrows up really high.

Sometimes I don't think my explanations  necessarily make people feel less weirded out by whatever just happened.