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Jesse Jackson did one really great thing in his life, and I’ll always admire him for thinking of RIF - Reading is Fundamental - and I’ll always be disappointed in him for letting that die.
Children who read learn pretty quickly that they can do anything, so long as they put their minds to it.

If we hit the gang filled cities with a flood of books and could find a way to inspire little kids of every color to read, most of this racial stupidity would disappear in ten years.

If parents would turn off the damned teevee and hand their kids a book to read instead, the world would change in five years time.

No white kid who read and understood Huckleberry Finn would despise a person because they were black.

No black kid who read and understood Huckleberry Finn would  assume that every white person hated them because of their skin.

Every kindergarten should start reading Twain to the kids over their Oreos and milk.  By the time they’re in third grade and know Huck well, it would be time for Letters from the Earth.

That way, when a kid gets to the age where they want to hang out with their buddies on a street corner, they wouldn’t be whining about what color anybody is, they’d be competing for marbles instead of guns and drug dealers wouldn’t be able to trap them in their nets.

A kid who understood Huck would tell a drug dealer to go to hell.  A kid who understood Huck would be thinking about how he might get enough money to have himself an adventure, not the latest two hundred dollar tennis shoes.

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When one of my daughters was a toddler, that’s what she used to say to her father and I when she was happy.

Since that time, for perhaps thirty years, that’s the phrase I use for my husband.  It says everything, but sometimes I think it might not be enough to explain what I mean.

The way I feel about him is so big, very much doesn’t begin to measure it.  I’ve heard all the songs, and read the poetry, but those words fall short, too.

This morning as I drank my coffee I realized that thinking about him made my toes tingle, bringing new meaning to the phrase, “right down to my toes.”

We met thirty-six years ago this February.  Love changes in long relationships like ours, which is to be expected as people grow and change with the surprises life throws at you, both good and bad.

The kids are grown, and our bellies have, too.  Our hair is going gray and our bodies don’t always obey the commands our brains send them.

I don’t know other people who have been married as long as we have, at least not people who will talk about the things I’m often too candid about in public forums.

Here’s some news for all you young people out there with model perfect bodies and the energy of youth.

You don’t know a damned thing about love and desire until you’ve experienced it with someone you’ve grown to middle age with.

That man of mine is a thousand times more appealing than anyone who ever made the Sexiest Men list in People Magazine.

Even with his multi-colored moustache…

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I don’t even know where to begin on the many unsettling issues surrounding the Obama and Hillary battles.

 Hillary is a liar, of course, but that isn’t news to anyone who has followed her career through politics.

Obama’s preacher is a racist, but that isn’t news to anyone who’s ever been to a black church anywhere in the country and viewed the services through WASP eyes, which I have several times in the last forty years.

Obama doesn’t have much hands on international affairs experience, but neither does Hillary unless you believe her lies.

McCain will win the election - not because most people in the US want him to be president, but because Hillary Clinton would rather he win that lose the nomination.

I’m registered Republican, but you know, if Obama makes the ballot, I’m going to vote for him because I like him on a personal level and I enjoy the idea of being one of those middle aged female white folks the pundits claim won’t vote for him.

Hillary Clinton made this election all about race, and in spite of what her supporters would have people believe with their around the back not really supporting Hillary but gee, only blacks will vote for Obama media presence crap, he’s got as many white middle class votes as he wants or needs and he’ll get more before this is over.

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I finished my first book, or thought I had, 64, 107 words for those who are interested in these things…

It’s too big.  Not as in too many words, but as in too many characters and situations.  I am expected to chop it and expand it at the same time.  More sex and more description, less dialogue.

Maybe I should write a script instead.  I appear to be very good at dialogue.  ARGH!

Tags: Family, Writing // Add Comment »

One of my daughters has a dear friend who is a writer.  Over the years she’s mentioned him to me a time or two, but I didn’t really pay much attention until I began writing seriously.

He appears to be doing what I am doing this week, revising his book, the child of his mind and heart.  I feel this strange connection with this young man I’ve never met, which isn’t that unusual for me.

I have, over the years, loved the friends of my children vicariously, seeing them through their eyes.  More than once I’ve identified with their struggles and offered second hand advice to these strangers who are second hand friends.

I’m anxious to read the book this young man has written, I check in with his blog from time to time, and the more I read his thoughts, the more interested I am in his story.

I wonder sometimes if anyone reads my blog, I keep thinking I should look at my server logs, but I never do.  If people do read what I have to say, what do they think and do they ever return to read more?

From there I spin off into millions more questions and theories, and opinions about the monster the wuh-wuh-wuh has become.

None of it is earth-shattering, nor is this entry, it’s just another way to take my mind away from the necessary revisions on chapter twenty, and now I guess I’d best get back to it.

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Last spring, when I first began “the book,”  I immediately found that the story I thought I was going to write wasn’t the story my fingers actually typed.

This was a little disconcerting, but I went with it.  Three months in, the characters began to change direction, insisting that I had them all wrong, so I went back to the beginning and wrote the damned thing again.

This process repeated itself many times over the next few months, until finally, in the fall, I ended up with a nearly completed manuscript that bore absolutely no resemblance to even the fourth draft.

January came around and  by then, the thing had grown unwieldy, too many characters and too many stories being told, not to mention the 150,000 words I’d written.  I read it over two or three times and decided what I had was a series of books, all smashed together, so I went back to the beginning and culled out the characters, figuring I’d turn it into three books.

Somehow, those three books turned into six, which was okay by me, and even more okay with the publishing types who seem to like series books.

I spent the next six weeks sorting through characters, scenes, and motivations and when March came upon me, I was pretty sure book one was ready for the editor.  I sent it off and it came back.

“More description,” she demanded, “put the reader in the room, tell me more about this guy, I hate the name you chose for that guy, you need to do this bit earlier in the story, leave out that scene, add more to this scene,” and on and on.

A week ago I began implementing the changes and complaints, and finally, after nearly ten months of slogging away, I’ve got to where I need to be.

Book one is all but finished, at least in my head, and I know the plot lines of the other five, if only vaguely. 

At the last read, the editor assured me I’ve got something people will absolutely want to read, and she predicts a hit - or six hits - as the case may be.

The days slip into each other

I find I am unable to concentrate on anything other than these people who live only in my head.  I stopped picking up my voice mail months ago, I no longer participate in online groups that were once an important daily part of my life.

I didn’t accept any consulting work this year, resulting in a rather precariously low bank balance.  My husband is now paying my cell phone bill for me, and I’ll be paying my server fees via Visa and Mastercard.

When all is said and done, though I’m having the most fun I can remember in years.  There is much to be said for living in an alternate reality, no wonder people love Second Life so much….

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Sources in the Dallas police department have told a reporter that the Secret Service ordered metal detectors and searches of handbags, etc. to stand down more than an hour before Barack Obama arrived for his speech.

Read the Star Telegram Article.  You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to know that something is fishy about this.  Dallas is infamous as the death place of JFK, and political rallies have always brought out the crazy folks.

I’m not pointing any fingers, but there are plenty of reasons to suspect factions in both parties for facilitating this sort of thing.

Only a power hungry maniac would want to get rid of Obama in such a heinous way.  This is the sort of thing that makes me, a Republican, consider voting for Obama.

There’s something about the underdog, and an idealistic one at that, that brings out the American spirit in my heart.

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about what happened to the people who were most important to you when you were the most important to yourself?

those days when high drama was a pop quiz in geography and the possibility that betty bell had let leo mattasini get to third base?

where did they go, those beautiful young people from your past?

are they still beautiful, or did they wither away chasing pipedreams?

Tags: Life, Friends // Add Comment »

We buy lottery tickets every week.  Nine years ago I won $1356 in the Florida lottery after matching five numbers.  Since then, I’ve won a lot of free tickets and small prizes of $4 - $6 for matching three numbers.

Every few months, the jackpot rises from the usual 3 million to 50 million or so.  Most of the time I don’t think about what I would do if I won, but this week, I have a ticket in the Mega Millions, with a prize of 150 million dollars.

That is a lot of money.  If you won and took the lump sum, the actual amount you’d see after taxes would be closer to 60 million. That’s still a lot of money.

I guess most of us would pay off the mortgage and credit cards first thing.  Lots of people buy a really fancy new house and furniture and a couple of expensive cars.

I like the house I have just fine.  But, the reality of winning big is that the bloodsuckers come out of the woodwork  as soon as they find out where you are.

There are a lot of needy people in the world, people with sad stories that are actually true.  There are a lot more that are plain old con artists who are too lazy to work.

Everybody has relatives that think your money ought to be their money.  A part of each of us wants to do something nice for the people we care about.

From what I’ve read, that part is what ends up bankrupting most lottery winners within five years, or in some cases, six months.

I’m not much for fancy cars, but I would sure like to have one with an iPod dock that actually works.  Next on my list for a good car would be a comfortable seat, a trunk big enough to hold three suitcases, and maybe some soundproofing to block out road noise.

After that, well, I can’t think of anything I actually need or want I don’t already have, although I would really like a Kindle, and a MacAir laptop, an iPhone, and some small renovations on my house, new cabinets in the kitchen and hardwood floors.

I’d like to buy reasonably priced houses for my daughters and my sister, set up an income for my mother, who lives on Social Security, and I think I’d like to blow twenty thousand dollars on a business idea I’ve had for some time.

After all that, I guess I’d still have a lot more than 59 million dollars left.  I guess I’d take ten percent and set up a foundation to fund some of the things for my local school system that the lottery was originally invented to support, but never really did.

Art, music, textbooks, teaching aids, and some sort of program that provides kids with the things teachers who are with them every day know they need. School trips to museums, science lab equipment, those things that most schools are unable to provide anymore.

A foundation that teachers and concerned neighbors could apply to for things kids need that require dispensing in such a way that doesn’t work when bureaucracy decides.

Some time ago, I was in Walmart and a boy about ten was looking at the new Harry Potter book, wishing he could buy it.  He was with his grandmother, who he apparently lived with, and anybody could see they lived on the edge of poverty.  The book cost $17.

I introduced myself and told them that I worked for an organization that gave books to kids who liked to read, got their address, and ordered it from Amazon that night.

I could have bought the book in Walmart that day, I could have handed them a twenty dollar bill and told them to buy it.  But that wouldn’t have allowed them the illusion that the book came from a nameless organization promoting reading.  It wouldn’t have let them keep their pride.

Pride is a funny thing.  Lots of adults make really poor decisions based on too much pride.

Kids who grow up without enough of it grow up without hope.  A child without hope doesn’t do well in school, doesn’t care about his body, doesn’t care about the law, or think about long term consequences.

I think it would be a fine thing to fund a foundation that gives a kid hope.

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