More Asskickings for Stupid People

OK, I've been remiss again.

But here's why.  Montana.  Yes, you'll be getting installments of "Camp Tales" very soon, just as soon as I look over my journal and assess the calamities.

This was 30 miles from where Frontier House was filmed.

But I digress.  Here's a summary of the past month's events: Crackie came back.  Yes, I even beckoned and opened the door for him.  Stupid.  More later.  Cactus wrote me and got hung out to dry.  In fact, after I tore him a new asshole, I even patched it up for him and put a band-aide on it, just to show him I had no hard feelings.  Then I tore Crackie a new one and blocked him.

Well, it's all part of this journey I'm on.  I NO LONGER DENY my feelings, good or bad.  And no longer spare them for some stupid man.  He's going to know how I feel, and that's how it goes.

But there's yet another man on the horizon.  He's old school.  I'm going slow and keeping an open mind.  I watched and grasped The Secret, and things are looking different.

I think for so long I was internally screaming, NO MORE ASSHOLES, that I was drawing them like moths to a porch light.

So I changed up my way of thinking.  And it worked.

More later.

How About an Ass Kicking from a Writer?

OK, I've been remiss about posting, instead, reading like there's no tomorrow.

And revising the novel.

But it's time for a new gripe. 

As a writer, there's one thing I must bitch about.  I HATE it when I tell someone that I'm a writer and have to endure the following stupid remarks.

How to piss off a writer:

1. "I'm a writer, too."  (when they are not)
Firstly, writing in a way is like breathing.  Yes, everyone breathes, unless you are dead, and unless you are illiterate, everyone writes, but the association stops there.  Everyone is NOT a writer.  To become a electrician, you must apprentice, take classes--it's a long process, and not everyone can do what you do.  A writer is much the same way.  A writer spends 10-20 hours a week, minimum, (outside his/her "day job") writing/researching on his/her said project/s.  If you do not do that, you are not a writer.

2. "Are you published?  Can I get your book on Amazon?"
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH.  If I have to explain the very long, and sordid process of big east coast publishing houses one more time, they'll have to carry me off to the funny farm.  It takes years to get published, even at the first major step: literary journals and hell no, they are not available online at Amazon. Or worse still, the grocery store.

3. "Once you get published, you'll make lotsa money like Steven King or whoever it was who wrote those Harry Potter books."  Sigh.  Firstly, they are the exception, not the rule.  No one gets big advances anymore, not that they EVER did.  And you do not go into fiction-writing for money in the first place.  It's like pestering a fisherman about how big a fish he caught; he doesn't do it for that, and if you have to ask, you don't understand.

4. "Talk about stories.  I got a story you can write.  Let me tell ya."  And on and on and on they go blathering about some alarmingly dull anecdote.  DILLIGF?  Why would I or any other writer want to write YOUR story, something that inspires YOU?  This is ALWAYS SPOKEN BY A MAN.  In fact, this leads to my next pet peeve.

5.  "I'm gonna write a book some day about blah, blah, blah."  I might add that they will go on and on about this alleged idea that will never happen while a real writer is anxious to get home and check his/her mail to see what the dailies have brought in from agents and editors.

Please do NOT annoy a writer with the above senseless prattle.  Warning: a writer after a few cocktails has been known to behave like a cornered raccoon after hearing any of the above. 

Just sayin'.

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"New" stupid ass Blogger will not allow you to make paragraphs.  Right on, asshole web designers.  Rock on!

Delusional People

Uh oh. It's been over a month and I've not posted. No excuse other than I ordered about a dozen books from Amazon and have been reading profusely and neglecting to post or play my guitar every day. So here goes. Delusionality.

One of my neighbors I've written about before is married and is about as romantically-delusional as I've ever seen. When she looks at her husband, she sees the most hillarious, brilliant, talented man in the world. But when I look at him, I see an arrogant, rude asshole. So it gets me to thinking, how does one get to be so delusional, especially in romantic engagements?

Can you be calculating and intelligent in other walks of life, but only romantically-challenged? Or if you're delusional in romance, maybe you're just an all-around idiot but don't know it yet P.S. THIS post is supposed to be paragraphed, but Blogger, in its stupidity has "updated" their fucking site, and I can't figure out how to make paragraphs hold, thanks Blogger. Don't fix what's not broken or anything.

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Pretentions and Other Rants

What's in my bookshelf here? Well, this is my Western-Pioneer American history collection and Native American. I have the same-sized bookshelf in my hallway with women's fiction, then one more smaller one with more women's fiction and plays. Before I moved here, I gave away three giant boxes of books, and last spring, two more giant boxes of books to W.A.V.I. I still have two more boxes of books in my basement. Books are like socks. You gotta suck up and throw out the old ones sometimes to make room for the new.

Alright, I guess we all can be a little pretentious sometime, but I gotta vent.

There's some pretentious things I cannot stand. Let me give you an example from the way-back-file, many years ago, T. and I used to work for a huge textbook company. Per capita, it had one of the highest amounts of under-employed and over-educated staffs of any place I've ever worked.

I don't remember how the story went, but one night, one of the pretentious "book-buyers" invited us over for an after-hours party. In his living room, he pointed to a puny bookcase and raved about his book collection. It had the stock-gag commerical favorites: Steven King, Mitchner, Tom Clancy. And the token few "I KNOW this is a classic because I had to read it in college" books. You know, Steinbeck, Hemingway, yawn, Melville. Gawd, I HATE seeing people stuff their bookshelves with those, especially when I know they never read them or HAD to read them for college.

I didn't dare look at T, nor did T. look at me, for fear of bombing out laughing over his pretentious alleged hold over the literary market.

LOOK FOLKS, IF YOU DON'T REALLY READ BOOKS, DON'T TRY TO POSTURE THAT YOU DO. A real bibliophile can tell.

So just this spring, I was invited to a get-together of youngsters (20 and early 30-somethings), and it happened again.

People who really don't read much other than a token book or two a year, throwing up a bookcase, with most of the books, ones they've never read annoys me.

I don't know why this annoys me, but it does.

It annoys me the same way that all the Resolutionists (people who swear up and down after New Year's, that they're going to start working out), fill up my gym, get in my way, then disappear after one ore two token months, never to be seen again.

OR, say people who swear up and down that they "Cannot DRINK ordinary tapwater," then, heh, heh, you play a little joke on them and find out they can't even tell the difference, but that's fodder for another post.

'Til then? Hey, if you don't read, just admit it. Put your comic books on display or magazines or collection of troll-dolls from the 70's and call it good. Just be who you are, and quit postering.

Real writers and bibliophiles always know the difference. ARK!

Happiness is an Inside Job

Man, I've been really happy lately. Why? An increase in pay, a new man in my life, better job, an agent for my book or big publishing contract? No, no, no, no.

I've been expanding my horizons, and that's what's making me happy. Joining new clubs, meeting new people.

Like Lennon said folks, "Life happens when you're busy making plans." I'm sure Chris Stevens would agree.

You're not going to find happiness later on in that "future life" when you find a relationship/better career/better job/house/etc.

It really is in the NOW, man, in an Eckert Tolle-esque karmic burrito called life, so suck it up, folks.

Speaking of karmic things, I'll end on a quote from my friend Chris in Northern Exposure: "Some things are better left alone. Certain things were not meant to tamper with or possess. And that's OK. Because happiness doesn't come from Having things--right? It comes from being Part of things.

Get out there and walk your dog, plant a tree, hold the door open for someone and just laugh at the little things. Don't think about "work." Don't think about finding the love of your life.

Just enjoy the moment.

Spring's Giddiness

Man, Bennie and I went for a long walk for exercise and saw so many cool things today, the last day of Spring Break.

There's something about 70-something degrees and the snow all melted, the chirpies being back and the blue sky that just lends hope.

And I had a coffee date with an interesting dude who wasn't throw-up bad looking. Yay! In fact, he could almost be called cute, yay! Best of all, he did something that was SO CUTE. When he was getting ready to leave as we were sitting at the coffeehouse table, he cupped my hands together and put his hands around them warmly and said how much fun he had. It was such a warm gesture, that I was grinning from ear to ear.

Pretty good news after slowly recovering from Invisible Man and his hijinks, who is . . . tada, still invisible, shocker! In fact, when I was feeling really accountable and rock solid two weeks ago, I sent him two emails. One, just sort of telling him where I was at these days and asking about him, and one that was VERY as in "tell it to the therapist, baby" direct, as in "talking with the judge while you're being sworn in court" sincere asking simply "what happened with us and what were your intentions last year?" Get this, he ONLY responded to the one email and ONLY talked about himself and his father. Zippo. All "adult" and mature questions I had asked, zero response. ZERO.

Well, sometimes GOD yells in your ear, and sometimes he whispers. When IM sent me those sweet Christmas gifts and nice Valentine, I thought he was legit, and I thought there'd be a sincere conversation about what had happened to us. I thought GOD was whispering, "Give him another chance."

No dice. GOD was yelling in my ear: "THIS DUDE WILL NEVER, EVER COMMITT TO ANY WOMAN, EVER, EVER, EVER." So, thanks, GOD.

And, if all this isn't cool enough, another intersting dude who's not "throw up ugly" is writing me from Lead. And 1. he's from Oregon (Oregon people are usually very interesting) and 2. Has a cool natural science background like IM used to. I dig environmentally-conscious dudes. And, he DIGS history, especially Old West history.

Such good karma. I dig spring.