Apple Season...

Her mother spread the blanket out under the old apple tree. They had packed a picnic lunch and she helped to unload the hamper and set out the food. 

The day was perfect. Warm still but you could feel the promise of colder weather in the breeze. The sky was the brilliant crystal blue that you got in the Fall. You knew the sunset tonight would be gold and pink and spread from the western sky all the way to the east. 

They ate lunch and talked about her school and her mother's job. They talked about her grandmother and the trip she wanted to take back to Massachusetts where her family was from. They had started there and moved westward over the years. She didn't know where they had come from before they immigrated to the United States. Her grandmother would tell her, "Everywhere" when she asked. She assumed that meant nobody really knew. Someday she'd take one of those genetic tests and see what her background really was. 

Her mother stood up and stretched. She started to pack away the lunch but her mother told her to wait. "I'm just going to look for a ripe one to share. Give me a moment."

She watched her mother search the tree. "She's older and doesn't give as much fruit as she used to. We are lucky to be able to find any of her apples to eat."

"Why do you call the tree she?"

Her mother found a ripe apple and did the delicate twist and pull pick that she had been taught. Don't yank the fruit from the tree or you might damage the branch. Twist and gently pull and a ripe apple will come right into your hand. 

"Well, because this tree is a descendant of the grandmother tree and all of those trees are she."

"The grandmother tree?"

"Yes. Your grandmother. Well your many greats grandmother. Her tree. This tree comes from her tree."

"Was she from Massachusetts too?"

"She died in Massachusetts so it was the last place she was. But I don't know where she was from originally. My mother says...."

"Everywhere."

Her mother laughed, "Yes, she was from everywhere. But she died in Massachusetts and they buried her with apple seeds in her mouth."

"They what?" 

"They buried her with apple seeds in her mouth and eventually a tree grew and bore fruit. The grandmother tree. With the sweetest apples. And the tartest apples."

"How can one tree have both?"

"Are you always sweet or are you sometimes a little tart?"

"I'm a person. Not an apple tree."

"Your words are your fruit. Your actions are your fruit. You are a tree and eventually will put down your own roots."

She thought about it for awhile. She liked the idea of being like an apple tree. Her own tree. With sweet and tart apples. 

Her mother took the ripe apple she had picked and sliced it in two offering her one half. "This apple is part of your heritage. The descendent of the grandmother tree in Massachusetts, brought here by John Chapman as a favor to your grandmother, many greats ago. One of many trees that were spread across the land waiting for others to find them. The seeds she was buried with were hers from her mother and came from a tree planted in a different land at a different time."

"That's a lot of history for an apple."

Her mother nodded. "It is, Lilith Eve, a lot of history."

She took a bite of the apple and as the juice filled her mouth her eyes opened to the world. She was everywhere.

Ghost Hunters...

"Are we rolling? I don't want to go into the room until we're rolling."

She looked back at the camera crew. No red light. "Not yet. Take a few steps back so we can catch you actually crossing the threshold then we will reset inside the room." Trying to get the shots just right was a challenge in these smaller houses. You didn't want the cuts to be glaringly obvious but there had to be cuts. Nobody rolled with multiple camera crews anymore. Not since the heyday of ghost hunting shows. 

"Do you have everything else ready?"

She nodded. She always had everything ready. She had worked for every ghost hunting show that had aired since she was 16. Fifteen years of being ready. Fifteen years of exploring haunted houses, graveyards, schools, insane asylums, barns, you name it she had been with a crew exploring the site. Filming ghostly encounters for the masses. 

Someone tapped on her shoulder. She looked back and saw that the crew was ready to go. Red light glowing. "And we're rolling...."

"This is the room we've all been waiting to see. The murder room. Walk with me." He crossed the threshold into the room and "CUT! Stop right there. Don't move!"

The camera crew tucked in around him now and shot from inside of the room for the rest of the scene.

She watched him work. Setting out a REM pod for communication with the spirits in the room. Using a Spirit Box to scan radio frequencies listening for words or fragments of words to communicate with the dead. The basic tools of the ghost hunting community. But he really was good. You believed watching him that he believed he was communicating with the dead. Not all of them could do that. Some of them you could tell they were using ghost hunting to springboard into something more lucrative. Maybe a stint on one of the reality dating shows. But not him.

She didn't know if he actually believed what he was selling, but he sold it well enough that he was still on the air and the others weren't. Which meant she still had a job. So she appreciated his dedication to the craft.

"Mazie? Are you here with us right now?" Silence. The room lit by candles even though the house had electricity. Darkness and shadows were important for mood. "Mazie, if you are here please give us a sign."

From behind her came her cue, a small tap on the shoulder. She reached into her pocket and hit the send button on her two-way radio. Just a quick tap and...BEEP! The REM pod lit up. 

He turned to the camera and mouthed, "You saw that right?" then out loud, "Mazie? Do you want to talk to us today?" Silence. A pause to build the tension. Then the tap on her shoulder again. Quick tap on the radio in her pocket. REM pod lighting up across the room.

This went on through a series of yes and no questions. Establishing that Mazie was in the room. She had been murdered. She wasn't alone. Others who had been murdered were with her. But none of the other names they had on their list answered the call. He switched to the scanner. She switched pockets and pressed the button on a small recorder she carried with her. 

"Tire, go, too, many."

"Mazie, I hear you saying that you are tired now. There are too many others around you and you'd like us to go. Is that right?"

"Go, soon, now, tired."

"Thank you, Mazie. Thank you for speaking with us today. We honor your wishes and will leave."

He backed out of the room with the camera crew tight on his face. If he didn't believe that he had just spoken to the dead he was one hell of an actor. 

"CUT! Freeze, don't move!"

The camera crew switched again to filming him from behind. Shooting into the room he just left. Catching the reflections of the candle light and the camera lights in the windows and mirrors. Casting more shadows, creating the illusion of movement. 

"Thank you, Mazie." he turned and walked down the hallway before stopping, "How incredible was that? Thank you for joining us on these special episodes of Ghost Gatherings, The Murder Files. Next week we will be in Savanah revisiting the Sorrel Weed House, won't you join us?"

The camera light went out and crew immediately started packing up. His face switched from open amazement to almost blank stare. He looked at her then, "Good job today. That flowed really nicely. Felt really good."

She nodded, "I think it's going to be a ratings hit for sure. I'll just get some publicity stills and see you all back at the hotel later."

He shot double finger guns at her, "See you later, investigator!" 

It was one of his favorite jokes. She smiled and gave him the guns back. "After awhile, paranormal!"

He was a dork and possibly a great actor, but honestly he was one of the best she had ever worked with. He got footage nobody else seemed to be able to replicate. Or at least nobody now that she worked for him and not them. Debunkers had proven over and over that there was nothing in the places he filmed. Or at least they had proven it to themselves and those that didn't want to believe in ghosts. 

She walked back into the room where they had just wrapped filming. She took the candles down from the mantle and the window ledges and set them out on the floor. Then she reached into various other pockets of her work vest and took out a different set of supplies. 

"Mazie? Are you still here?"

She felt the tap on her shoulder again. 

"Thank you for letting us film here today."

Tap tap

"Mazie? Do you want to leave this place?"

TAP TAP TAP

She set out the herbs and the water from the river that flows backwards and started her own production. People would still swear up and down that they saw Mazie in this room. Or heard her speak to them through the walls. But after tonight Mazie would be unbound. Free to go wherever she wanted to go. Move on to the next, whatever the next was. 

Ghost hunting shows were a huge hit. She had worked for all of them. But he really had the touch. She didn't know if he realized it or not, but he found actual ghosts in most of the places they filmed. 

And when he was done she stayed behind and set them free. 

"I am so sorry I didn't get here sooner, Mazie."

The rush of wind blew all of the candles out at once. 

She sat in the dark for a moment longer, then gathered her supplies and went back to the hotel. She needed some sleep. The Sorrell Weed House was going to be a big job.

No News is Still Making Me Crazy News....

So I'm a few months into my news diet and though I think it's better overall it's still not sunshine and roses everyday. I'm still keeping track of big stories and following two news people who I think do a good job of presenting factual information (Jessica Yellin) and historical perspective (Heather Cox Richardson) and I still get a morning briefing from NPR. Just enough to stay in touch with the world but I'm trying not to do deep dives into any one thing. 

But it's hard. I mean y'all are still following things so you are still posting things and sometimes, and I say this with all due respect, some of y'all post bullshit.

And I read it and think...hmm...is this bullshit? Because it has the faint aroma of bullshit. But I have not been paying attention to the news as much lately so maybe it's not bullshit and just stinks because we live in times that often stink. So then I look up the story to double check and...bullshit.

Now what I've been doing, for the most part, is just noting to myself that it's bullshit and moving on. Every once in awhile when the coffee wasn't strong enough or the tolerance level is just not high I will post something that is meant to point out that what the original post was saying wasn't exactly right. But for the most part I've been moving on because what I've really discovered over the past few years is that what is true and what feels true are often different and what feels true will win every single time.

Like right now you are seeing a lot about gas prices and Biden. It feels like high or low gas prices should be a reflection on the President but they aren't. Not really. Never have been. And I've been consistent in talking about this for years. But I know that if I go on one of my conservative friend's posts about gas and tell them that Biden has very little if anything to do with gas prices I will get slammed. So I don't. You are going to believe what feels like the truth. 

Which is a real shame actually. 

Because feels like truth can lead you to some really bad places. 

We should know that by now. We should have been able to see it. We've got climate issues and millions dead from Covid and a wealth gap that is astronomical. But it feels better to say that the planet has always changed and we haven't done anything wrong and can't do anything to change it. For a lot of people it feels good to be part of group that thinks they are being heroic by not getting vaccines or wearing masks. It feels better to say that people should be able to make as much money as they want, while holding out hope that someday we will be the ones making that money. 

The facts suck. You need to change. You need companies and big businesses to change. You need to look at how things effect others. You need to understand that you are mostly likely never going to be part of the 1%. There's a reason it's the 1% and not the 99%, most of us aren't going to be that wealthy. 

So instead we go with what feels better. What's soothing. What we can get our friends around us to agree to. And we insulate ourselves from the cold hard facts for the comforting feels. 

So now I'm doing a balancing act of trying to not be super deep in the news but also not being so isolated from it that I am missing the facts. And that's a trick. Because most news sites are not really good at facts over feels either. They are businesses trying to grab eyeballs and reasoned fact based stories don't do that well. Like I said, I have three choices right now. And one of them is more opinion extrapolation than just straight up facts only. 

And I'm trying not to curate my friend list to just people who think exactly the way I do, but more and more people who don't see the world the same way I do have shown themselves out. Or have posted too many really off the wall things and have been hidden away. 

So yeah...

That's the latest update. Not sunshine and roses just yet, but at least it's not always thunderstorms and thorns. 

Working on it. 

Chaos at Work...

Ralzatar was burnt out. Pun not intended. 

A millennia working in the bureaucratic depths of Hell was a millennia too long. He'd filed more paperwork and run more doomsday simulations than anyone else in his section. He was a lifer. One of the first to fall. Though he would tell you, if he were being honest, which let's face it wasn't in the job description, but if he were being honest he didn't fall so much as got pushed.

He thought he was going to watch Lucifer and his group get tossed out of Heaven but ended up a little too close to the velvet ropes if you get what I'm saying. One accidental jostle from behind and he was on the wrong side. He always assumed it was accidental anyway. Not really their speed up there to be malicious. He just hoped whoever did it was aware and wracked with guilt. Maybe that's how they started Catholicism?

Anyway...

He was burnt out, but it was all worth it because today, today he started in Chaos. No more "what if" simulations. No more filing endless paperwork on new acquisitions. No more ignoring items from the complaint department. Though that last part was actually kind of fun. He had a big red stamp that he'd had specially done that said NO! and there were little flames around the top of the letters. Pretty sweet.

But today! Today was a new day! 

"Ah, Ralzatar! Welcome in. Have a seat. I have some paperwork for you to fill out and then you can file it along with that stack over there." Graizaline waved toward a stack of paperwork that towered so high Ralzatar wasn't sure where it ended. Crap, this was just going to be more of the same in a new office. 

"HA! You should see your face! Nah, man, I'm just fucking with you. We don't file paperwork here. We are CHAOS!"

He was so relieved he couldn't even be mad, "You got me. So what do we do then? I'm ready to get started."

"Yeah, no. Nothing really. Watch. Crack a few jokes. Take bets on what will go wrong next. But we don't have to do anything anymore. It was all set in motion at the beginning and it's run like clock work ever since. I mean, clocks that barely work, for the most part. Ones that mark the hour a few minutes early or late but never the same few minutes and never in the same direction, but clockwork."

"So we are the Chaos Department and we don't actually cause Chaos?"

"Nope. Now, don't tell anyone or we'll all be tossed out and put into new jobs and nobody here wants that." With that Graizaline sat up straight behind his desk showing his full glory. It was a dark glory now, but he was still pretty fearsome. 

"Got it. No complaints from me. I could use the break for sure. But..."

"But...?"

"Wouldn't it be more chaotic if we actually did our part?"

Graizaline laughed and called out to the office, "New guy alert! Thinks we could make it more chaotic down there than it already is!" (common misunderstanding that Hell is below Earth and Heaven is above. The truth is Hell is below Heaven, thus the Fall, but it's all part of the same celestial complex and that's located above the known Universe)

This was met with much merriment. Listening to the Fallen and the accumulated Demonhoard make merry was not for the faint hearted. It still gave Ralzatar the creeps and he was one of them. 

"Look, give me your best idea for chaos making and let's see what we can do with it."

Ralzatar thought for a second. "What if we..." he trailed off here. Every idea he thought of he remembered it was already done. He had always assumed that it was the Chaos Department doing it. "Wait so you guys aren't the ones causing all of the problems down there? They are doing it all themselves?"

"Yep. They did it all themselves. Look, it was different in the beginning, I'll give you that. When they were really afraid of the big dude, when he would pop off every once in awhile and slaughter a whole mass of people, flood the world, burn down a few towns. He was the master at Chaos so they didn't create it. They feared it. And we didn't create much of it because honestly how were we going to top a world wide flood? We did a little messing around here and there. The Tower of Babel was a good one. Though people gave the big dude credit for that like it was a punishment, so why did we bother?

But then he got tired of it all and decided to turn it over to his kid. It gave us a chance to step in and do our last great piece. Didn't realize we were working ourselves right out of a job. But..."

"What did you do? The whole crucifixion part?"

"Nah, that wasn't us, that was him again. What we did was make sure the old religion was kept as part of the new, even though it totally conflicts. His kid is out there trying to establish this whole love and respect mantra we kept the whole destroy you if you fuck up parts. And then, and here, this was Zlantrialaza, and it was perfection, we brought in a guy who had never even met the kid and let him dictate huge parts of the religion. Convinced the Romans to toss out any books that showed women as equals and called Mary Magdalene a whore for good measure. Started years and years of just calling women whores to dismiss them. Do you know what all could have gone differently if they hadn't done that?

Well anyway... we did the extra cherry on top by adding in a fever dream by a rando who shared the name of an apostle that talked about destroying the world again. So the peace and love cult never had a chance."

"But you haven't done anything since then? For thousands of years you've just watched?"

"Yep. And I have to say, it's been impressive. They say Hell is other people and they've really worked to make that true."

"Wars, famine, despots, disease? That's all them?"

"Yep. They are amazing. Now just put your feet up over there and enjoy the break. I don't think you are going to have much time to get used to it. The way they are ramping up down there I'd say we've only got a few more years before we are all looking for new work."

Ralzatar took a deep breath and relaxed into his comfy office chair. Lumbar support. Now this was something to get used to. He opened a screen on his Earth viewer and watched a well known conservative radio host get hooked up to a ventilator while his last radio program calling the virus a hoax played in the background. Graizaline was right, there really wasn't much they could do to top this.

A Woman of Letters...

I read the letter that you wrote. 

The first time I read it I snuck up on it and read it cautiously. As if it were a snake that might bite me. 

I found it in a book of poetry. Pressed between the pages. Preserved there with what had once been a red rose. 

It had been there so long that when I moved the now dusty brown flower an image remained on the page. A faint outline, a memory of the rose. Now and forever a part of the poem it had been pressed against.

The second time I read the letter I read it slowly. Carefully. As if it were the chapter of a novel. A mystery that needed solved. 

Who was this woman you wrote to? I did not recognize her. Had I ever known her?

You loved her. This was clear. You loved her grace. Her delicate ways. Her lips like rosebuds kissed by the morning dew. 

I looked at my chipped green nail polish and imagined her fingers with their pale pink tips, delicate white moons rising in each bed. Reaching so delicately forward.

What was she reaching for? You didn't say. 

I thought of the words you had written so long ago and I made a wish. I wished that you found that woman. The one you so clearly loved. The delicate creature who loved red roses and poetry and romantic letters. 

I hope you found her and I hope she made you very happy. 

And I hope she recognizes the woman she sees reflected back in your eyes. 

Contemptuous....

Brent and I talk about the challenges of our current political and social situation in the United States quite a bit. How it's just mean. Deeply mean. Disturbingly mean. How quickly a disagreement leads to a death threat. And how hard it is to break from that. 

Freakonomics did a podcast this last week talking to Arthur C. Brooks about his book "Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt" Brent sent me the link to make sure I didn't miss it. I listened and it was all very...

Well. Very.

I mean I like the top line idea that there are really mostly decent people out there that just need to keep being decent. I like the idea that we can all have different beliefs and still get a long. I like the idea that being considerate of each other is still a thing that can happen but...

I also realized that I am further gone than whoever he needs to be speaking to. 

I'll give you two points where I just couldn't go there with Mr. Brooks while he was being so earnest in his "can't we all just get along" speech. First he talked about President Biden and what he needs to do to prove that he's all about everybody. That he is the leader that can bring back the United States to a point where if we don't agree, at least we can be decent to each other. See, what he needs to do is push for moderate things. With the first step being put moderate Republicans in positions to help. And not listen to the far edges of his party that are so radical in what they want. 

So basically let Manchin run the show? I mean...aren't we?

Oh, no, I get it. Manchin is a Democrat not a moderate Republican, but he's really so moderate that you can't tell what he is. 

And I have to say that whole line of reasoning always sets my teeth on edge anyway. That the way Democrats need to show they are good people who want to get along is to not govern as Democrats when they get the majorities but as centrist Republicans. And then everybody will be great. You do understand that's not why people voted for them right? 

And he said this knowing the history. Clinton and Obama were centrists. I know you don't think so, Republican friends, but they were. And they were fought and stopped as much as they could be. Which with Obama it was pretty much a complete stop. Ideas that had been Republican ones were stopped as soon as Democrats said, Okay, sure, let's do this. 

He also said that most politicians were really good and decent people. Most. 

He said this after playing a clip from Matt Gaetz earlier in the show. Matt Gaetz is a good person? Really? 

Again I direct you to the current voting records for basic things like, oh I don't know, raising the debt ceiling to pay for items already budgeted and money already spent (under a Republican president) and how not a single Republican voted to pass it. Not a single one. There are plenty of other votes just like that, keeping the government from shutting down? Nope, not going to vote on that. But if you guys want to argue about gutting climate change policies we will argue and persuade you to do that, before not voting to pass it. 

Over and over you see it. 

Reading the reviews for his book on Amazon and the low star ones were from Republicans who wanted to make it clear that Democrats were the worst. Absolute worst. They played dirty and couldn't be reasoned with and just wanted to destroy the country. And well, that's how Democrats feel about Republicans so I'm not sure that his book isn't about 50 years too late.  

So Brent and I talked about it at breakfast. And I said that my biggest problem with not acting like I think people are contemptuous is that I believe that some of them are. I do have contempt for a large swath of people right now. I find a lot of them to be flat out disgusting. I cannot fathom acting nice to them while they threaten Civil War and refuse to do anything toward stopping a pandemic and swear the last election was rigged and filled with fraud and do everything they can to shut down voting rights for large swaths of people so they can regain and stay in positions of power as minority majority rule. 

I find it contemptuous that people follow this man:

Edit: Image removed because I didn't want it to be the thing showing when I linked my page, but here is a link to a tweet containing the same image. And instead I am adding a lovely picture of  fall leaves.

If you can't read it it says: "Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the Fake News Media. Hope that happens to me someday. He was a classic RINO, if even that, always being the first to attack other Republicans. He made plenty of mistakes, but anyway, may he rest in peace!" 

If that's not contemptuous I don't know what is. 

And it's not just him. It's not just Matt Gaetz. It's not just talking heads on TV or on the radio, it's the trickle down (OH MY GOD, IT FINALLY WORKED!) to people they've led to believe this is how we talk to each other. 

This morning a friend of mine sent me a copy of a PM she had received from someone she had been friends with. You will see why it's a "had been" not a currently. Seems they were talking vaccines and my friend, who is Australian, had no idea how deep the fucking crazy runs here. She's seen my frustration but knows that it's personal for me. The death is a family situation. We know it's real. Though I really hope that even if we hadn't lost someone so early in the pandemic we still would have been all in on making sure we and everyone around us was as safe as we could help make them and us. Ready? This is how my friend's former friend decided to address her:

Nice right? And she's not being forced. I mean she has to get the vaccine if she wants to work where she is currently working, but she can quit. She can find a different job. She can try to find a doctor that will give her a religious exemption. She can do a lot of things. But what she chose to do was send this message to someone who she had been friends with. 

Now, I will absolutely admit that there are a lot of people that I just want to start posting FUUUUUUCCCKKK YOUUUUU on their anti-vaccine posts. Or their masks are dangerous posts. Or the government is faking all of this just to get more control posts. But I haven't started it yet. 

Yet.

So maybe I'm not too far gone?

I find what they are doing contemptuous but dismiss them instead of call them Old Hags so does that make it better? 

Or does the fact that I can't even be bothered to try and find some sort of common ground on the issues make it worse?

I'm actually not sure. 

But what I do know is that some things are worthy of contempt. 

Not everything. And most differences of opinions shouldn't be met with death threats. 

But...I'm also not ready to just do moderate things that Republicans like and pretend that capitulation is the only way forward when it means that people are dying from lack of health care and living in poverty and below due to unfair work conditions and pretend the planet isn't dying because it wouldn't be as profitable is we did something about it.

And I find the fact that he wants to act like he is being decent by suggesting such a thing well...

Tell Me The Truth....Ish....

Walking through the grocery store and catch a bit of a phone conversation. "I just need someone who will always tell me the truth..."

I didn't double back and tell them that they might think they need that but they really don't want that. Not if they want a long lasting relationship.

Then I got in the car, I'm listening to the Billy Joel station and the song Honesty comes on. It made me laugh. No, Billy, you don't really want honesty. Or at least not all the time. Then as I pull into the garage The Stranger comes on. Okay, maybe not that far either, but somewhere on the spectrum closer to honesty farther from the stranger but still veering toward the middle ground.

I know, I know, we've all been taught to say that what we want is complete honesty. You never want someone to lie to you. You always want them to tell you the god's honest truth. 

You don't. 

I think when you are around people who always tell the truth they tend to be assholes. Give me a well considered fudging of the truth kindness any day of the week over a blunt truth teller. Give me someone who knows what subjects to craftily avoid or skirt the edges of over people who claim that if you can't handle their truth you don't deserve them. 

This mindset started years and years ago. Brent and I were watching something (it might have been a TV drama or it might have been Oprah) and the topic of confession came up. Should you always confess your transgressions to someone? And the reply was given that you needed to think about why you were confessing and what the damage would be if you did versus if you didn't. At the time I was a firm believer in always telling the truth. No matter what. If your partner said "Do I look fat in this?" and they look fat in it you say "Yes, yes you do." So now you know it was really early in our marriage. 

But this opinion stopped me and made me think about it differently. The case on the show (again, I can't remember if it was actual people talking on a talk show or a dramatized thing) was about infidelity. And the question was asked, "Are you telling them because they need to know or are you telling them to make yourself feel better?" Hunh. Are you just trying to make yourself feel less guilty over something you did? Or do they really need to know? If you are just trying to feel better then you shut your mouth and live with the consequences of what you did. Right now, they don't feel badly about what happened. Because they don't know. As soon as you tell them, you start to feel better and they feel worse. It was something to consider for sure. 

But that's a big one. And people are going to feel differently about it. Me? I wouldn't want to know. Unless it changes the way he feels about me or if I need to worry about STDs I would just want to continue to think that there is nobody else. I know there are other people who are like, if you know my partner is cheating you better tell me and tell me right away. That's not me. I'm happy right now. Why tell me something that would make me unhappy unless you absolutely have to? 

But I'm really talking about all of the little lies and dodges in life that smooth things over. 

Dodges especially.

I think any relationship (friendship, romantic, business) you've had for a long time you know where the minefields are and you can avoid them. You know what subjects are likely to cause a fight. And you can decide, is telling the truth right now that important or is keeping the peace a better idea? Do they really need to know that yes, they actually are the world's worst driver just like their husband said they were or can you tell a story about a terrible driver you used to know instead? Skipping the part that though that person was terrible your friend is 100 times worse. 

Here is where it gets tricky though. I am a firm believer in truth. And in honesty. And in doing the right thing. And transparency.

Just with discretion. 

I'm mostly honest. 

As long as it isn't hurtful. 

So just know, I'll never lie to you. Unless I really think it's better than telling you the truth. Or if the lie is a funnier story. Or...

But really. Trust me. I promise to tell you the truth...ish.

Tricky Treats...

She had just kicked off her shoes when the doorbell rang. She thought about ignoring it. Seriously thought about it. It had been a long day. She hadn't even had a chance to pour herself a drink. Then a knock followed the ring. Fine.

She was halfway to the door when it filtered through. Fuck. It was Halloween. She had been meaning to grab a bag of candy for weeks and had kept pushing it off to later. Well now it was too late. She grabbed her work bag and started digging through it. What did she have?

"TRICK OR TREAT!"

Five kids holding out plastic pumpkins. 

"Okay, look, here's the deal. I forgot to buy candy so I'm going to offer you $10 for what you have. You get the cash, I get the candy to hand out for the rest of the night."

The witch in front screwed up her face, "Ten dollars each or ten dollars for all of us?"

"Ten for the lot."

"So $2 a piece? I've got more than $2 worth of candy here for sure."

Okay, so we had a negotiator. Fine. "Well all I have otherwise is 3 granola bars and one full sized Snickers. So that means only one of you gets candy, three of you get granola, and one of you gets nothing. Then I turn off my light and call it a night."

"I'll take a granola bar." Again from the witch.

That was quick. 

The witch shrugged. "I like granola."

"So what about the rest of you?" She looked out at the group. Were they all just going to let her decide for them? Wait, there was a flicker of movement. "You, blue pumpkin, you look like you have something to say."

Everyone stared at her like she had just grown a third eye. Whatever. 

Almost a whisper of a voice, "Both."

"Both? What do you mean both?"

Soft voice, staring at his feet, "Give me the Snickers and the $10 and you can have all of my other candy."

She looked in his pumpkin. Good haul so far, definitely could make that stretch for the night. "Done."

She grabbed a pot from the kitchen for him to dump his candy in. He paused before turning his pumpkin over and made eye contact for the first time. "And she gets a granola bar."

The witch held out her pumpkin expectantly.

"Fine." 

The deal was completed. The witch got her granola bar, blue pumpkin got his money and a full size Snickers and the three little blocky dudes each got a piece of what had been blue pumpkin's stash. "Pleasure doing business with you."

The rest of the night went by pleasantly enough. She had a chance to pour herself a drink before the next batch of candy grabbers rang her bell. She pulled a chair near the door and sat nursing her drink, her sore feet and reading a frothy romance novel between doling out the sweets. 

She was just about to call it a night when the bell rang one more time. She checked her pot for what was left. Two miniature Snickers bars, hopefully there weren't more than two kids out there. Though she did still have two granola bars left as well in case of emergency.

She opened the door prepared to empty out her stash and was greeted with, "HOW DARE YOU!"

"Excuse me?"

"Did you take my child's Halloween candy?" 

She recovered enough from being yelled at to look at the woman and see she was standing there with blue pumpkin next to her. 

"Take? No. We made an exchange."

"FOR A CANDY BAR?"

"For a candy bar and $10. We made a deal."

"And did you or did you not call him 'blue pumpkin'?"

"Well, yeah. I mean I could have called him, well, what is this? Brown sack guy?"

"He's Obi Wan Kenobi."

"If you say so."

"You mocked a child and took their candy. What sort of monster are you?"

"Who mocked a child? What are you talking about?"

"You called him blue pumpkin, don't act like you didn't know that you were taking advantage of him!"

She looked at the irate woman then at blue pumpkin. "Do you feel like I took advantage of you? Because that's not what it felt like to me."

"Don't talk to him like that!"

"Like what? Like he got the better part of the deal? Because, lady, I don't know what your issues are around this but he," she gestured toward blue pumpkin, "is a shark. He recognized that I let too many of my weakness show in the initial offer and he came in strong and hard. He got all the money on the table, and the full size candy, and then at the last minute got some granola for the witch as well."

"Did you just call my daughter a witch?"

"Oh was the witch your daughter? Checks out." She thought it was funny anyway.

"You saw the blue pumpkin and took advantage of a kid with special needs. Then you called his sister a witch."

"His sister was dressed like a witch. And what do you mean special needs?"

"That's what the blue pumpkin means! You see the blue pumpkin and you know that he is neurodivergent. You treated him differently than you would have another child."

She looked at the kid again. "Hunh. Well I didn't know that. I just thought he liked blue. So no, I didn't treat him any differently than any other kid. The only thing I did wrong, in my opinion, was underestimating how much of a shark he was in negotiating."

She could see she wasn't going to make any headway with pissed off mom here so she decided to take a different path.

"Hey, blu..Obi Wan, do you feel like I took advantage of you?"

He looked at his feet, "no."

She started to speak but he cut her off.

"I even got all of my candy back."

She looked at his pumpkin and saw that it was completely full. "Yeah you did. How did you manage that?"

He smiled then. "At all the other houses people felt sorry for me that my pumpkin wasn't as full as everyone elses so they gave me double the candy."

She nodded, "Nice. I tell you what, when you are in college and looking for an internship you come to me. You are a shark, kid. A complete shark."

She looked back up at his mother and saw her staring with wonder at the exchange. She turned her attention back to the child.

"I didn't know what a blue pumpkin meant. I promise you that. But I also promise you it wouldn't have changed my interaction with you either." She smiled at his mother, "I have two miniature Snickers bars and two granola bars left. Which would you like?"

"I do like granola."

"Of course you do." she placed a granola bar in her hand and then put the last two Snickers and the remaining granola bar in the blue pumpkin, "Share with your sister. And now if you'll excuse me I'm done for the night. Happy Halloween."

And with that she closed the door. 

She spent a little time on her computer Googling blue pumpkins before going to bed. She knew two things, first if it had been a thing when she was growing up she would have been a blue pumpkin kid. And second, he had even somehow gotten her to give up the only candy she had left in the house. The kid was a shark. She smiled to herself. Good. So was she. 

Universe Says What?

 Two contests in my inbox. One random one in my newsfeed. A seminar on creative writing offer on Insta.

Got it. 

I'll call myself a writer again. I'll try and hit those goals for the year. I HEAR YOU.

Registered for a wacky contest today. Micro fiction. They give you the genre, an action that has to be in the story and a word that has to be in the story. You then have 24 hours to write a 250 word story for submission. They randomly assign you to a group and the top ten in that group move on to the next round in December where they do it again and the top five move on. Then in February you do it one more time and there is an overall winner. 

I don't expect to get out of round one. But at least it captured my imagination and I'm going to give it a try, right? 

I'm not a big genre writer. I mean, not on purpose. I am, in fact, reading the genre definitions on their website right now because I don't actually know what makes some of these things genre stories. Like, I get it with romance (I think) there is a meet, a blooming relationship, a misunderstanding that tears them apart, a reconciliation, and a happy ending. But that's only because I used to read my mother's Harlequins when I was younger and I can remember telling her that each story had the same plot. 

But there are a lot of genres on their list and a lot of story types that I would have a really hard time with. Historical Fiction? In 24 hours? And 250 words? Eek! Oh and there is the whole spelling and grammar counts for 15% of the judges' scores and I believe grammar rules are for people who aren't creative enough to make up their own grammar usage so...

So, yeah, I don't expect to make it out of round one. 

But it will be a submission. And it's making me think that writing it will be fun. And I'm eyeing the other two in my inbox so that's a good thing right? And I think I have a short scene in my head for a fiction piece for here as well. Thought to be honest I'm holding it back until I find out what my assignment for the contest is because how funny would it be if my random scene in my head ends up working for their randomly assigned contest selections?

So here we go. I'm writing...I'm writing...get off my back...I'm writing.

(whew)

This Is What You Defend?

Trying to wrap my head around what people are defending right now. 

It's gotten louder and louder each October as more and more States decide to change Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day. A lot of people who probably never even thought about Columbus Day except to be surprised when the mail wasn't delivered or the bank was closed, come out in full voice about how we need to keep it the same as it always was. Because! Reasons! Doesn't matter that Columbus was a horrible person. Not just by current day standards, but by his own time. Drug back across the ocean in chains bad person. Doesn't matter that he had nothing to do with the USA. Doesn't matter that the version of him we were taught in school was a made up version completely. 

Somehow he is the hill they want to die on. 

Until Tuesday, when they forget all about him again. 

But watching people defend him is always weird. I mean, he's dead. He doesn't care if you like him or not. Watching people try to talk about whitewashing history and those woke snowflakes, when in actuality that's what the original taught in school piece was. Whitewashing. Cleaning up history to a palatable bite that made it easier to feel good about colonialism and westward expansion. Because that's easier than talking about seeing a peaceful people and the first thought you have is how easy it will be to enslave them. From his own journal. This stuff wasn't really hidden. I mean, one of the ships translates to The Prostitute. But sure, clean it up and serve it up. 

So it's weird to me to see people take such strong stands on how we need to keep it.

I'm fine with celebrating Italian heritage and Italian immigrants, by the way. I think having a holiday to celebrate would be fun. But it doesn't need to be a Federal Holiday. And it sure as hell shouldn't be in honor of Christopher Columbus. When you know better, you do better as Ms. Angelou said. We know better so we should sure as hell be doing better. 

Which brings me to Dave Chappelle. He went anti-LGBTQ+ again with a special focus on the T. Declared himself Team TERF. He's made jokes in this vein before and gotten called out about it. He tried to couch it that there isn't intersectionality. That gains by the LGBTQ+ community are somehow coming at the cost of gains in the African American community. As if there are no Black Queer people. As if Black Trans Women aren't especially in danger in their day to day lives. 

But see, he's a comedian. And he's just being funny. And we shouldn't judge him the same because... Reasons?

I think the fact that he is an incredibly famous comedian with an incredibly large fan base and casts such a wide net and falls back on it's just jokes makes it worse not better. 

I've been a fan of his in the past, but I just can't bring myself to support him anymore. And it won't matter. He's got that incredibly large fan base I just mentioned. And he's got a lot of people rushing out to say that it's fine, because it's just jokes. Comedy is supposed to make you think. It's supposed to make you look at the world in a different light. 

And in that way it worked. It made me look at Dave Chappelle in a different light and I think he's an asshole. 

Which is another brain boggler. Yesterday a friend of mine who is more liberal than I am (close your mouth, it happens a lot) posted about him and called him an asshole. A friend of hers came in the chastise her for that. He might not be an asshole. Just because he said this thing on stage which only an asshole would say, it's part of an act, you see. You would have to see what he does in his personal life to see if he's an asshole. 

What?

Like I said, this is not the first time he's gone to this well. It's not the first time he's made these sorts of jokes. Sure it's the first time he's announced he's Team TERF, but honestly you only need to announce that once for me to know you are an asshole so...

He's hiding behind it's just a joke. And it's working, we can't call him an asshole because comedy is different. Then he also brought out a version of "I can't be transphobic because I have a trans friend." Are you fucking kidding me? Mr. Chappelle, you walked away from your show when you realized people were laughing about the wrong things. You were their Black Friend that excused their behavior. And you are now pulling out this? Even though you've had numerous people in the trans community explain to you why what you are saying is actually dangerous for them. You don't get a pass because you know a trans person. 

But people will defend him. Because he's funny. Because he's famous. Because it's just comedy.

I disagree. Deeply. 

I've been watching people defend things that seem to me to be really clearly indefensible. We live in painful times.

Hunh...

 So at 4 AM this morning I thought to myself...

"Am I just not a writer anymore?"

I'm behind on the number of blogs I need to average for my goal. I'm really behind on fiction pieces. I'm not even in the running for submissions. And normally that would light a fire under my fingers and I'd be sitting in here every day force choking words out until they flowed freely again. I'd be researching quick submissions I could do to get those complete. I'd be reading writing prompts for inspiration. But I haven't been.

I have a couple of friends who are doing Inktober and I thought this morning that maybe I could steal their list and turn them into prompts. I could either just start with day 10 or I could do one big post incorporating the previous 9 prompts or I could double up on posts for a few days to catch up or I could just forget the whole thing because meh...

And that's sort of how I've felt about writing lately. Meh. I could...but then again I could not. 

That's not normally how writing feels to me. Normally it's a drive. If I've got a ton of ideas I can't get them out fast enough to be happy. If I have no ideas I feel adrift like I'm missing a piece of me. Even when I went through the really dark 2016 time I felt like I wanted to be writing. I just had nothing in the tank to give to do it. 

So I had to wonder, "Am I just not a writer anymore?"

Have I lost that spark? That drive? 

Of course this seems like a weird thing for you to be reading, that I think I'm not a writer anymore, because obviously, I wrote this. 

Yeah, I know.

And all I can say is that the part of me that wants to still keep goals in reach is overriding the part of me that is like why force myself to continue to do something that I've lost the drive to do?

And I feel like I should want to write. I feel like I must want to write and I'm just somehow not in touch with it right now. I feel like I want to feel like I should feel something I don't feel. Feel me?

I mean, come on, if I was a writer I could have figured out how to make that make sense, right? 

I read an on this day post in my feed from when I LIKE BEER was made a Justice on the Supreme Court. It was really good. One of those posts where other people copied it and reposted it because it just put things out there in a way that a lot of people were thinking but hadn't been able to articulate. And as I read it I thought...when was the last time you wrote something like that? Or even wanted to write something like that? And I don't know. Now, sure, I've been avoiding the news and ignoring the constant drumbeat of "be angry" that you get from the media. So maybe that's it? Maybe without the constant simmering of righteous anger I have no spark. 

Or maybe it's because the things I think about posting, about Covid and the assholes who are making this so much worse, just seem harsh instead of insightful. FUUUUCCCK YOU!!! Just doesn't seem copy and paste worthy, right? 

Or maybe because the things happening in my life right now are super specific to my life. Like do you really want to hear about house hunting? 

And maybe that's it. It's not that I've lost my drive to write but I've lost the feeling that what I'm writing about matters? 

Nah. That never stopped me before. I've written about the most ridiculous things in the past. 

I don't honestly know what it is. 

But I felt like I at least owed you this piece so if you were wondering what was going on you know it's not just you. I am wondering that as well. 

Boo!

Well here we are in October. Entering the fast downhill part of the year. When OctNovDecember happens. It is always just one bleed into the next during this stretch. September was kind of a slog, but I wrote about that before. Not sure why it was that way, but it was.

Still ahead of the curve in reading. Up 6 books from where Goodreads says I need to be. So that's good. Reading two really good ones right now: The Ugly Cry and The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina. I'm not done yet (about halfway through each) but would already recommend them. 

One more Discworld book to go. I think I'll read it in November to make sure I get it for the year but also have a little time to recover. It's taken me years to get through all of the series. Worth it, and I'm glad I did it, but 42 books is a lot. 

Weight/exercise. I'm at just less than a pound away from my yearly weight loss goal so that's good. Trying not to be bummed about it, since I lost over half of my goal within the first few months and it's been much slower since then. I had just started having dreams of adding (losing?) another 10 for the year. It's a bad switch in my brain that gets flipped so the slowing down is probably a good thing. And since it's the holiday smush it's good to be really close to goal as well. It gets much harder from here on out. 

I slacked a bit on my workouts. But I kept telling myself I wanted to make sure I wasn't sore for Disney. It was an excuse for sure, but it was my excuse and I used it. 

And we did haul all over Disney, as usual. Did over 20,000 steps a day according to Brent's tracker. Sore feet but not terrible. So, obviously, slacking on workouts was the right call. (I'm winking)

October I'm recommitting to my normal 3 days of lifting, 5 days of some sort of cardio. Need to keep that fitness up. Especially during the Holiday Slug Slide. 

Can you tell I'm just super excited about the Holidays again? I'm trying to not be a Ghoul/Grinch whatever a Thanksgiving Humbug would be called. But I feel it coming on. I'm not sure about decorating again, because Tig is still the chewingist cat we've ever seen. Seriously. Dude chews on or tries to eat everything! I can envision him ruining a few things, or ending up at the vet getting surgery to take whatever thing he swallowed that he shouldn't out of his stomach. So maybe one more year?

And we are still pretending we might be moving soon. We've looked at SO.MANY.HOUSES. I seriously feel so badly for our Realtor. She's great, but we are so picky and want something so specific that it's hard to find. Though we have found a few that were close enough to make offers on, but nothing that has gone our way. We are looking at three more tomorrow so, maybe? But because of that I keep thinking we might, maybe, possibly be moving in a month, so we don't want to decorate and just make more to pack. 

And of course the food. Food and holidays just go together. And this year we are going to have to change everything. Which will be fine. We will figure out whole new traditions, but it still sucks. I know that what I'm doing has made a huge difference in how I feel. I know that it's the right thing to do. But it doesn't mean I don't still miss the things I used to love to eat. So yeah, I'm not super looking forward to the next few months. Every season is a season of saying goodbye to a new food. I know it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but it still feels a little sad as I do it. 

So there you go. Another month in the books, another first day of the month blog, another I SWEAR this month I'm going to be so motivated moment. 

Boo! It's October!