July 25, 2002

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  Panos suggested that my memoirs might be publishable.  That is my intention, when they are done.  I’ve written my first twelve years, and you’ve been sampling a few of the years of my adolescence and young adulthood.  Much of the rest is covered by letters, readings I’ve done, articles I’ve published… but I’m still working on it.  Once it’s all written it needs editing.  I’ve had offers to edit, but nothing firm or contractual.  Anyone who would like to help me get it published is welcome to toss a little something in the hat.  I’ll reward all donors with a mention in the dedication.  If I don’t get distracted by something that seems higer-priority, I’ll keep steadily remembering and writing it down.

  
  

  LuckyStars:  You said it as well as I could–”I don’t like to stroll through that part of my life.”  I’m not doing it for fun.  What I do in the comments I make on your blogs is fun.  This is Work over here.  And this Work is paying off, it is.

  
  

  compassion, you asked about whether at that time I was feeling like a free spirit or like a worm, I think.  The way I had it rationalized was that I was a cultural anthropologist doing research.  I’d never heard of Stockholm Syndrome, but as an empath I was vulnerable to identifying with my oppressors.  I identify with LOTS of people.  I was very much like an anthropologist gone native.  I added my own little twist to it by being my ingenious, competitive self.  I learned that in the “Man’s World” of the One-Percenter clubs, a woman could gain status and respect through outrageous and courageous behavior, and through mechanical and or riding/driving skills.  I had all of the above. 

  
  

  I tried to keep my reality tunnel “positive”, to look on the bright side of things, do my best to get by, and leave the world a better place than I found it.  I had fun along the way, along with the terror and pain.  Curses mixed with blessings is the story of my life.

  
  

  Getting 20 comments to a single blog is, I think, unprecedented before this.  Maybe I should leave a couple of days betwen blogs more often… naah, just kidding.  Things happened, and I was AFK.  I’m back.  Did you miss me?  During almost all my waking hours for the last couple of days Doug has been at the keyboard.  What follows was created on Schpeedy Trackbawl, my trusty but alcoholic old laptop.

  
  

  I had a little mishap. Monday night when I was done for the night, bleary-eyed and all written out of memoirs: wrung dry, so to speak, I screwed up. I was editing and proofing the blog that got posted on Tuesday, when I noticed that I’d gone on for about a page beyond a natural stopping place, so I cut that extra page and stuck it on my clipboard and…*sigh* …didn’t save it. That wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did. Today, I tried to pick up the thread again, and I couldn’t. I forgot what I was saying. I fiddled and fussed and played minesweeper and solitaire.

  
  

  Then I noticed what I was doing, got disgusted with myself, and decided to deal with it. I opened the thriller folder and started in on a scene that’s been under construction in my imagination for months. It just hadn’t jelled for me yet. But now it has, I think. It feels as if my little slip-up a couple of nights ago has broken the writer’s block that has crushed me for months. (If anyone doubts that I’ve been experiencing writer’s block, let me assure you that for me journaling and writing memoirs are not the same as writing fiction.)

  
  

  Now that I have this crucial scene mapped out, I want to get on with the thriller. I don’t know if I’m switching over from non fiction to fiction mode, but something tells me I should finish the biker saga first. Actually, I feel I should finish the entire memoir first, now that I’m on a roll with it, but that roll seems to have rolled to a halt. I’m at war with myself here. And all the time those two voices in my head are arguing over whether I should go on blogging about the distant past or get back to sweating blood to make a fantasy come real in words, a third party to the argument knows that my first priority is to keep a journal, to record, expose and analyse the personal events of the present, for the sake of my mental health and personal growth.

  
  

  It is Thursday, the second rainy day in a row for us. Greyfox is at the computer since he can’t be out at his stand when it is precipitating. He and I are slowly getting up to speed this morning as we recover from yesterday’s trip to town. He went to see his dentist, I to get the usual supplies and a few important extras such as a computer desk and materials to fix our roof before winter comes. Doug has just gone to bed (at 10 AM) after being up about 40 hours with only two brief naps.

  
  

  The computer desk is needed because we now have a scanner and no place to put it. A card table wedged between the back of the sofa (Couch Potato Heaven facing the PS2) and the dining room table (my jewelry work table) has served thus far, but will stretch no further. Before the new desk can be set up, there will be a great moving of furniture, tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth. But that is something for another day.

  
  

  Yesterday, after dropping the old fart at the dentist and filling a cart at Wal-Mart with everything from pig noses for Koji (the snack that smells you back) to a new game for Doug’s birthday (which he can’t play because our video card is inadequate) in addition to the aforementioned essential items, I hurt myself, overdid.

  
  

  Even minimal activity around the house causes muscle spasms, discomfort and discoordination as a result of this fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue I live with. Yesterday, I spent about half an hour in a big parking lot, loading moderately heavy objects on the roof rack, tarping and securing the load with bungees, and today I’m overdone, sluggish and sore.

  
  

  I have a story to tell about a little family moment here, which occurred yesterday as we were preparing to leave for town. Greyfox had cleaned out the cooler and Doug was putting the ice packs in it preparatory to loading the ice chest in the back of the station wagon. An ice chest goes with us on these grocery expeditions to keep perishables from perishing on the way home. Making that hundred-mile round trip through miles and miles of construction detours and hordes of Arvees from out of state, and returning home with sour goat milk, would be a bummer. Anyhow, our little mismatched group of individuals only marginally qualifies as a family, and such moments as these are rare and beautiful.

  
  

  Doug opened the freezer, snorted derisively, and asked, “Who put the cheddar in the freezer?” The natural presumption was that it had been his evil step-father the old fart, that being the sort of thing he often does. Doug often gets a charge out of twitting him about his absentmindedness. But this time, as we discussed our respective recent kitchen activities, I had to accept the responsibility for freezing the cheese. I had made grilled cheese sandwiches a day or two before. So I said, “It was probably me, I guess.”

  
  

  Greyfox came back with, “Yeah, I usually put it in the microwave,” and Doug answered, “…and I put it in the bread drawer.” That broke me up and then they started laughing and there were the usual self-congratulatory “gotchas” with which we generally acknowledge our better witticisms. We do love making each other laugh. Then Greyfox commented on its having been a nice little family moment.

  
  

  With that, Doug turned away and said casually, “Well, it’s time for me to get back to being aloof and isolated.” Greyfox came back with, “…and I, to being morose and sarcastic.”  Then they both looked to me for the capper. I asked, “Can I get back on the computer now?” Gotcha!

  
  

  So, Xangans, it’s time for me to put some effort into my health-and-addiction journal and/or that long-postponed thriller, while I avoid thinking about some of the more traumatic moments of my life with the outlaw bikers. Geez, the way that came out, it looks like I’m trying to challenge myself to do three things at once. Ain’t it great that I have the power to multi-task? But, seriously folks, I don’t know what’s going to show up in my blog next. I have several unfinished files to work on, and I do feel an urge to wind up the biker story and get it over with before I dive into the fantasy-world of my thriller, plus I realize that I must not neglect my healing journal.

  
  

  The final episode (or two) of the biker thing is going to be a series of highlights and low points, just some vignettes and anecdotes of the more memorable times that I’ve not yet mentioned. On the ride home yesterday, I discussed some of them briefly with Greyfox and he cautioned me to be sure I prefaced it with some warnings to the sensitive potential readers. High voltage, indeed, not hard to remember but impossible to forget no matter how hard I’ve tried. Extremely hard to relive as I write it down, this upcoming installment is a challenge. But for now, I’ll share with you that scene from the thriller that I finally wrote down the other night. Let me know what you think.

  
  

  ooogah, fiction alert. This is NOT A MEMOIR! I made it up, and it’s a highly unusual (for me) G-rated, family friendly blog.

  
  

  
  

  No setup.

  
  

  The snow had drifted in windrows across the curving parts of the road, and in mounds and streaks that concealed ruts and rocks. The narrow mountain track had seen too much traffic and too little maintenance in this season when all their equipment was busy maintaining roads and driveways for customers. On some of the straightaways, the surface was wind-polished ice covered with a dusting of granular snow like tiny ball bearings.

  
  

  The bus was fishtailing on every curve, and J.’s hand was light on the wheel, to sense which way the massive beast wanted to go, and so as not to oversteer and spin out. Cheez, in a moment’s flash of imagination, felt the weightless sensation of free flight and saw them soaring off the road. She erased the image and then let her mind channel white light. A bag slid off the overhead rack, and Celeste reached for it, grabbing it just as it was about to bounce into the well inside the front door.

  
  

  In the moment when the bus regained traction, Celeste straightened back into her seat with the bag on her lap and Cheez leaned forward to get a better view of the road and to murmur her approval and appreciation of J.’s driving.

  
  

  Then, as they were easing into the next curve, a left front wheel hit a rock in the road and they lost some forward momentum. The two women, one in the seat behind the driver’s, and the other across the aisle in the other front seat, reached for each other’s hands as the bus lurched and the rear end slid left. The bag slipped off Celeste’s lap as she slid off the seat. She closed her eyes, grasped her mother’s hand, and thrust the other hand out in instinctive defense. Her feet hit the floor and she swayed, knees bent, straining to keep from pitching headlong into the driver’s lap.

  
  

  J. slid the steering wheel ever so gently left and the momentum slammed Cheez against the wall and forward into the back of J.’s seat as Celeste came to rest with one hand on his leg and the other firmly gripping her mother’s.

  
  

  The bus was floating, gliding, sideways and still forward, and ever so gently, slowly, gradually, down. “Do buses have this sweet a glide path?” J. wondered, as Cheez got a chill of deja vu. Weightless for a moment, Celeste straightened and swayed back and plopped on her seat as the bus came to rest, on the road, and one switchback down from where they had just flown off. The springs creaked, it rocked a little, and J. smoothly shifted to granny gear and started making slow tracks back up the grade. Not even for a moment did he consider trying to turn around to go on down the mountain.

  
  

  Everyone was silent until they reached their skid marks. J. took a quick glance over the edge and the two women stared at the tracks as they rode by. Then Celeste started to ask, “Did that really…?” as J. shook his head and said, “We didn’t….” Cheez took a deep breath and said, “We will talk about this later. Just get us back up there. We’ll send a plow down ahead of us next time.”

  
  

  She sat back, told J. he was doing fine, “Just drive.” She got comcenter on the phone to have someone get a snowplow and sand truck warmed up, and to relay a message to the airstip that their ETA was delayed… maybe as much as an hour or two.

  
  

  Well, gang, how does it grab you?  Oh, BTW, thanks to www.hooleon.com, I got a set of nifty keyboard stickers for Greyfox.  The entire home row and most of the other letters had worn off our keyboard.  I took a pic of how it looks after I stuck all those stickers.  It’s at www.xanga.com/ArmsMerchant.  Greyfox has a new quiz, inspired by those of us who took his other quizzes and scored quite poorly.  In this one, the lower your score the better off you are.  Are you as deranged as he is?  I took the quiz and scored 9 out of 10, could have sworn that he hated kids, to judge by his speech and behavior.  Go figure!

  • 5:58 pm
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