OH my....

So this morning I dug through a box of stuff I've kept from mine and Brent's middle school and high school years. I was looking for a sheet of titles from a game of sorts we played in high school. I say of sorts because it wasn't a game as in there was an objective, but it was a game as in we all had titles and there were rules. It was odd, but it was harmless and we all had a good time with it. So anyway...I thought I had kept the list of titles over the years and if I had it would be in that box. I had and it was.

It was in a binder that I have the very few pictures from that time frame, none of them from school, camp and tours only. Cameras just weren't toted around everywhere like they are now. Which is sad. I wish like crazy I had pictures of people from those time frames. Also in that binder were things people had made for me. Sketches that Chad did, notes and letters from Brent, a few Van Halen logos which could have been done by anyone of us. We had VH on EVERYTHING back then. And then a smallish collection of bad poetry and story ideas and starts.

I say smallish because I know that they were weeded out at one point. Things were tossed and things were kept. I have no idea what I used to make the decision because most of the stuff in that binder was dreck. But at some point it was the best of what I had. Or it meant the most to me. One of the things that made me smile was one poem that was fairly long that on other pieces and notes I had the same poem started 4 or 5 times. That first line was in my head for a long time before I turned it in to something else. There was also the start of a song. The only song I've ever tried writing. I can still remember the tune. The problem is I don't write music. I don't know anything about how to write music. So song writing wasn't really a calling for me. But I kept that one attempt.

So much poetry. I wrote a lot of poetry. And I kept a lot of it. I feel like I should print it all here so Skippy understands that the bad poetry I write now is actually outstanding poetry on the sliding scale. I won't, because, oh lord it was bad poetry. Hormones and drama and free verse...not a good combination.

I've been writing for as long as I can remember. Writing or just telling stories. I used to make them up on the fly while we were on the bus traveling. You have to remember that there were no smart phones or hand held video games. You listened to your walkman if you had one, and not a lot of us did, you read if you didn't get car sick or you figured out ways to entertain yourself. Telling stories was one of my ways. It would be nice to have some of those back. There was a scary story that had a punch line of e-i-e-i-o that had the bus in suspense and then mad laughter, there was a ghost story about La Llorona that terrified an entire girls dorm up at camp, there were others too. But I don't remember much about them. Usually just a few lines. Or the laughter when the ghost did the e-i-e-i-o bit...

It's good to remember and to touch that writing sometimes. To see not only that I have gotten better, that helps on days when words don't want to come or the crisis of talent hits and I want to delete everything. But also to see that is a part of me. It has been part of me for a long time. Even when I had to let it go due to time and I didn't feel like a writer at all I was still making up stories in games for C and telling stories at work about baby corn and confidence issues. Trust me that one slayed...

I packed everything back up in to the binder then in to the box. It will all go away again until someday when I'm looking for something else out there. And I will look through it all again and cringe at most of it, and think, yeah, there was something here for some of it. And hopefully remember the tune to my one song. And maybe someday someone else will find the early writings of the famous author Denise Mastenbrook and think...


Oh thank fuck she got better!

Dead and Almost Gone...

If she had a nail file with her she would file her nails. Not because they needed it, but because it seemed to be the only thing that could capture how truly bored she was. She looked at her hands. Nope. They definitely didn't need it. So much for the old fingernails and hair keep growing after you're dead myth. Though to be perfectly fair her actual physical body was down there in the casket and she was sitting up here in the rafters so maybe her fingernails down there were growing.

She had separated from her body when they pulled out her heart during the autopsy. It was like she had been asleep up until that point. Awake and going about her day then darkness and dreamless sleep then SUUUUCKKK!!! being pulled out of her own chest cavity with her heart. She could see her other internal organs lined up on a work table with notes written by them. Condition, weight, color; it was a very surreal thing to be your first site of the afterlife. Here are your guts. Her heart was placed on the scale as well. Spoiler alert, it did not weigh less than a feather. So maybe this was her punishment. To have to sit through a funeral she had specifically asked not to have.

She couldn't get more than about 10 feet away from her body or she would not have been here. She shouldn't have been here at all. That was not the plan. When the mortician had placed her organs back inside her chest cavity and started to sew her up she had been confused. First off they were all supposed to have been donated, but maybe she had died in such a way that they couldn't have been. She had no memory of the actual dying part of her life. Which seemed like a real rip off. Like watching a movie on your DVR and realizing it ran long so you are missing the last 10 minutes. But okay, anyway, maybe her organs weren't good for donation, but why was he sewing her up just to cremate her? What a waste of time.

Then when he got out the make up kit, she knew. And she went from confused to furious. She had been really clear, very clear, as clear as anyone could ever be that she did not want a funeral. Never. None. Nothing. Donated, cremated, scattered. But no funeral. No grave. No head stone. No ridiculously expensive coffin. No. And while she screamed NO! over and over the mortician calmly reached down and turned up the music in his headphones and kept working. And since she couldn't leave she was forced to watch.

People were starting to file by the casket. Looking at her. She imagined they were thinking pretty much what she was. That she had never looked better. It was true. He had done a really nice job with her makeup. And she wasn't sure who bought that dress for her but it was a lovely color. The casket must have cost a fortune as well. Why in the world would he have done that? She had been so clear. No casket. Thousands of dollars for a heavy box with a silk lining. Even seeing it and seeing that it looked comfortable she couldn't understand why he would do it. She couldn't feel anything. She wasn't in that body anymore.

She looked down at the mourners filling the pews. Her nephew was there. Poor kid. She remembered funerals when she was that age. Boring. At least he had a video game with him. She wondered what he was playing and floated down to look over his shoulder. Oh she had loved this one. You had to pick up items on a walk to use later to build a house. He was about to walk past a crate that had tools hidden inside though. She reached forward automatically to point it out to him forgetting that he wouldn't see her and thuuup she was suddenly looking at the game from a different set of eyes. She pulled back as fast as she could and thuuup she was back looking over his shoulder.

Now this was interesting.

She floated over to where her mother was sitting and leaned in. Thuup. She was sitting in a pew thinking about how angry she was. He was just going to burn her body up and throw it out. No marker. No grave site. Nothing. Just gone. How dare he. Thank goodness she had found out in time...Thuup...

Well that explained that at least. Of course it was her mother. That explained the funeral. That explained the church. That explained the dress. She was a little mad that he disregarded what she had told him she wanted done but she knew better than anyone how hard it was to stop her mother once she was on a roll.

She looked around at the people nearby. Could she just pop in and visit anyone? Or did it have to be someone she was related to? One of her co-workers was viewing the casket so it seemed like a good time to check. She floated over to where he was standing and leaned in to him. Thuuup....She looked down at her own face and thought, Was she always that pretty? He really didn't think so, but maybe because she was such a ballbreaker he hadn't noticed. This might be the first time he had ever seen her with her mouth shut. She/he reached up a hand and wiped away a tear. He was going to miss her hard ass at work. And fuck he was so busy now trying to do both their jobs they better hire someone soon. Hopefully another ballbreaker. Thuup...she pulled back and then shot forward. He had walked away from her body while she was in his head. She had made it all the way to the back of the church while she was riding with him. As soon as she pulled out she snapped back within her range of the body. Now this was interesting as well.

So she could pop in on anyone. If she was in their space she could leave her body. She would hear their thoughts. Hmm...what else could she do?

The minister was walking in at that point looking through his notes for the service. Thuup...she was in and reading along with him. A sermon? Oh no. That wasn't going to happen. His hands grabbed the edges of his index cards and tore them in half while he suddenly thought, "No sermon." Thuup. She turned and looked at his face. He didn't look confused at all. He had no idea that it was her idea not his to ditch the sermon. Nice.

This could be fun. For however long she was stuck here it would sure beat floating over a grassy hillside near the family plot. She heard the intake of breath before she saw him. The rest of the mourners taking in that sympathetic sigh for his pain. For what he had lost. Everyone except her mother. Who watched him with angry eyes. Still not forgiving him for taking her away in the first place. And definitely not now that he wasn't even going to plan a funeral for her. Poor guy. He looked rough.

He didn't come look inside the casket, just took a seat. She knew he did that as his small way to honor her wishes. She floated down to sit next to him. Not noticing their friend Janice slipping in to the pew ahead of her. Thuup...She watched her hand reach out and rest on his leg. Slowly rubbing his thigh. She thought, once the body is buried his guilt will go away. Nobody suspects anything. He'll cash the insurance and we will head to Mexico to finally live the life she was keeping from us. Thuup...

She leaned in to him then. Thuup...Stop touching me. Stop touching me. Why did I ever listen to you? Why did I let you convince me to do this? Then her mind was filled with images of him laying in bed with a very naked and sweaty Janice. Talking about her. What to do about her. How to get rid of her. Thuup...

She floated in front of her husband and best friend for a few more seconds. Turned and looked back at her body laying in an expensive coffin that she never wanted. Remembering the last 10 minutes of her movie. The moment she realized that Janice wasn't helping her out of the water, she was holding her under. She had drowned. Accidental death. That was the note on the table near her lungs. Accidental drowning. The only witnesses were Janice and him. And he let her die. For the money. And a sweaty Janice.

She watched the rest of the funeral proceed trying to sort out her thoughts. Trying to piece together when it had started. How she had missed it. How she could have misjudged him so badly. Regret, so much regret. Then she looked at her mother again. Straightening her skirt, dabbing her eyes with a hand embroidered handkerchief. So much money. So much power. And yet she hadn't been able to stop her daughter from running off with him. The man she had tried to warn her about. He's lazy. Lazy people cannot be trusted. They will look for shortcuts. They are easily mislead. You deserve more than lazy.

If she had only known. Her mother was right. Lazy looks for shortcuts. And a big insurance payoff was a good shortcut.

Too bad for him he married a real ballbreaker.

Looks like she was going to go to Mexico.

She leaned in to Janice...Thuup.....

Quick...

I'm writing this under duress.

It's my own duress.

But it's still duress..

I'm in the middle of a book right now. It's so beautiful. And horrible. And well done. And right now I resent anything that takes me away from finishing it. Like writing this blog. That I promised myself I would do. Everyday. Write.

So under duress I am writing this handful of sentences.

Then I will run to the store for something to have for dinner because all I've had today is breakfast before I started reading and fruit because I can read and eat fruit at the same time. Now I am starving. And I had to pee REALLY BADLY. Because fruit has a lot of water in it. And I resented that as well. But it got me to close the book long enough to take care of these other things I really need to take care of.

The book is Beartown, it's by Fredrik Backman and if I hadn't already read Britt-Marie was Here and A Man Called Ove I would think this book was a fluke. A once in a lifetime novel. But it's not. It's just how good he is. Read everything he writes. Make sure you have time to do it, because you will resent everything that takes you away from it.

Like food.
And going to the bathroom.
And your own writing.

Seriously.

Father's Day...

It's Father's Day. Brent is in Germany. C is in Bend, I mean he lives there so that's not a huge shock, but still. I've been on my own since Wednesday and still have until this Thursday to go. The On This Day feature is filled with the 6 year remembrances from when Dad died. I'm on my period. What I'm saying is I'm a little emotional right now.

It isn't surprising to be upset when a parent dies. I mean, that's the expected reaction. But as I've written about before I was surprised about how much my father's death affected (and still affects) me. I left home at 18. My dad worked two jobs for most of my life so he was busy. I worked and went to school for the last few years I was at home so I was busy. I am not a daddy's girl, that's my sister. I have always been extraordinarily independent, and that includes from my parents.

But independent doesn't mean completely separate.

I have horrible nightmares sometimes. My dreams are always super vivid. I think most writers probably have vivid dreams. We pretend during the day so why wouldn't we pretend at night as well? Which normally is fine. I have vivid, odd, technicolor dreams. But when I have nightmares they are also vivid and odd. When I wake up from one it tends to hold on to me. I can feel the tendrils of the bad dreams trying to drag me back to sleep to pick up where we left off. In times like that I reach out and touch Brent and then go back to sleep. Just a reminder of him being there next to me works.

I think that's what happened when my dad died. I can do it myself. I don't need your help. I've got this. All of those things were mantras of my childhood (and some would say still are) but if I ever got in over my head I knew that I could reach out and touch my dad. I could get his help. I could call him to listen to the car make that funny noise, or help unlatch something that I was having a hard time with, or look at a problem and design a tool for me. I didn't have to have him help, but he was there if I did. And even though it had been years since I had needed to reach out and touch dad to get through the day, he was still available. Until he wasn't.

And I hadn't realized until that point that part of me was still taking comfort in the fact that I could always fall back on him if I needed to. But like having a nightmare when Brent is traveling, I had no way to reach him. To reassure myself that I really did have this, but just in case...

Over the years I've figured that out. And figured out that I still do reach out and steady myself with Dad. Or with Mom as well. Even when they aren't around they are so much a part of me that I touch them all the time. And when I really need to "talk" to Dad I hold his ring. My talisman of my father. And it helps me feel a little stronger. Because that's what Dads do. They make you feel a little stronger.

When I was very little my brother and sister and I were outside playing and the neighbor kids took something of ours (I want to say it was fireworks, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was now). When Dad found out he went and got it back. But he didn't just do that. He brought those kids back with him and we all had to stand in a circle and talk to each other. They had to return what they had taken and I think we had to apologize for not letting them play with us in the first place. It's a foggy memory on specifics. The lesson I got out of it though was that we all had to stand there and talk it out. All of us. It wasn't a case where we were better or worse, we all had something we had to say to each other to fix the situation and Dad made it happen. Dad was a fixer.

The one thing he couldn't fix though was his death.

There was no way to undo that one. To get him to open the latch I couldn't get to budge. To make a tool for me that was going to get me through that day and the next and the one after that.

Or at least that's what I thought when it first happened.

Now I know he gave me those tools a long time ago. I've got this. I can do this. Even if I need to reach out and touch my talisman. Or tell a story. Or make a dumb joke. I can touch him. I can get that support. He did that over the years. Quietly. While he was incredibly busy. While I wasn't even paying attention. He taught me how to make it on my own.

I hope Brent and I have done the same for C. I think we have. He is living on his own, working, paying his bills, finding friends and things to do that he enjoys. He can still reach out to us when he needs to. And I am really happy that he calls home once a week just to check in. But I hope that he has us with him all the time. I hope he hears our voices giving him the support he needs. I hope that when he feels a little lost he can reach out and put a hand on Brent and know that his father has him. Quietly. Even incredibly busy. While C wasn't even paying attention. I hope he knows.

Happy Father's Day.

Ideas...

I've talked about where ideas come from before. Or I guess more correctly I've talked about the fact that ideas come from everywhere. Something someone is wearing, something they say, a look on their face, a weird cloud shape.

Today was a when ideas come sort of day. I was cleaning today and that's often when I get a flood of ideas for stories. It's because my mind is free to wander during those stretches. It doesn't take a lot of brain power to spritz and wipe. Today a good chunk of the day was spent working on window sills and window blinds. Spray with water, let it soak, wipe it out. Spray again. Use some creative tools to get the grime out of the corners. Wipe again. Get the duster. Back and forth. Back and forth. Super boring...but because it's super boring my mind starts to dig around for something more interesting.

So I've got an idea on a piece for Muse (this is the longer thing I've been working on); I've got the opening scene for a writing prompt Dana sent me a few weeks ago; I've got a little better idea on another longer piece that showed up in my head this week. Not a bad day's work.

Now of course the issue is I need to capture those ideas in a more concrete way so they don't just float away and become, "What was that again?" ideas.

And that is the real writer's challenge. Most of us know where our ideas come from. Many of us even know how to trigger a bunch of them to come. But trying to get them from our heads on to paper in a way that makes sense...that's the challenge.

And the next challenge is deciding if it's any good. That's where I am with Muse right now. I have pieces of things that sort of hang together. I think a lot of the pieces are not bad. What I am not sure about is if it will ever be good. A good solid story. I still don't have a plot. But I'm trying not to get too bogged down with that and just write. Get it out there first and then see what I have. Or don't have. But get it out there.

And that's the hard part. The how of writing. I've got the where and the when, but man that how trips me up a lot of the time. How do I get it out of my head and on to paper without it flitting away. How do I translate the scene that I see (like with the writing prompt) into the right words so you see it too? How do I keep that really fantastic line of dialog in my head long enough to get a note written about it? How?

I told Dana today that there needs to be some sort of machine that translates the visions into writing. You could press a button behind your ear and BOOM off to the computer the story goes. Done and done.


Maybe I should write a story about that....

Short post....

Short post today.

I have some other writing that I am working on. I have FIVE!! books that came in from the library I am trying to finish. Two of them are due in 3 days so you see how that is going.

I have a list of chores I want to get through while Brent is traveling. I took painting off the list because I forgot to have him help me move some things and add that to no screens to keep the windows open it seemed like a good chore to put aside. BUT I still have a good long list to get through.

Today is always a melancholy day anyway so I'm puttering through that.

I have a bunch of things on the DVR I really want to watch that for some reason never seem to get watched. Plus about 80 episodes of Steven Universe and Lemony Snicket and The Handmaidens Tale and...

Well I am a little scattered is what I am trying to say.

But today I am going to wallow in the melancholy and read for the rest of the day.

So this is a short post.

That totally counts.

It does.

Safe Spaces...

I was going to write this yesterday but that was before we had two mass shootings in one day and it seemed inappropriate. Then I reconsidered and felt that it was probably more appropriate.

You all know that I've joked that I need a trigger warning for the phrase safe space. And it does make me crazy. Trigger warnings and safe spaces. Not that I think they are always a bad thing, but I think they are an abused thing.

I've talked about friends giving me trigger warning for movies. It might contain vomiting (I have a sympathetic gag reflex), it might contain hand injuries (I have multiple scars on my hands from injuries and it literally makes my skin crawl and my stomach churn to see one happen), it might have any other number of things I have issue with seeing comfortably. And so I go in to (or don't depending on the warning) knowing what is going to happen and being prepared. But what I don't do is stand outside the theater and tell everyone else what they are about to see and that they shouldn't watch it because it makes me uncomfortable.

The same thing with safe spaces. But with safe spaces my general feeling is that they don't exist. Not really. We try to communicate with people that this is a safe space. Which can mean that you can say anything you want without judgment OR it can mean that certain things are never said here OR it can mean that we don't talk about issues OR it can mean we are free to talk about all of the issues. The problem is your safe space and my safe space can be totally different things. And the no judgement part? Please. I guarantee you if you have a no judgement zone safe space set up and someone broaches one of your trigger warning areas you are judging them.

And it REALLY bugs me that so many colleges have embraced these things. College should be the furthest thing from a trigger warning safe space area. It should be a challenge zone where you either can defend your ideas or you need to explain why you are still holding on to them in light of new facts. Critical thinking; not safe spaces. Logic; not trigger warnings. Learning to live your life with other people who have different ideas than you do. Learning how to hear things that you disagree with without writing off the person as ignorant. Unless they really are. But if you cannot argue the opposite point without shutting down the discussion you don't get to make that claim.

I've talked about my parents raising me to question everything not realizing that the first thing I would question was their religion and the second their politics. Or if they thought I would question those things they didn't expect me to come up with the answers I did. But I did. It didn't stop them from loving me or me them. It didn't even stop us from having a few passionate discussions about those differences. We believe different things. There are things I am positive my family is wrong about. And things my family is positive I am wrong about. But we still can sit down to a meal and have an eye rolled filled conversation that ends with everyone hugging. My mother is a lot of things, but she is not stupid and I would imagine she would say something similar about me. To write off her ideas as dumb would be disrespectful at best and ignorant on my part at worst. There are things that she believes that I think are idiotic. But I never think she is. There is a difference. The idea is repellent, not the person.

We lose that a lot of the time. Especially in politics. We are tribal about our politics now and we feel the need to make the other side less than. And I get it. I have a very hard time not getting angry when discussing the social issues I believe in. And I lost my cool more than once last year dealing with people who didn't understand that in a system like ours if one candidate is clearly the lesser of two evils you vote for less evil. You might think you are going to sleep well casting your third party vote but please believe if you aren't voting for less evil you are campaigning for more. That's why it's a fucking expression in the first place. And I tried, I really did, and I still try to understand that other point of view. But it's difficult. I know very good people who made what I believe to be a very bad choice. But again, that's what I believe. And I know they believe something else. So they aren't banned from my life as I try to create a safe space trigger free zone. Even if I roll my eyes or shake my damn head or ask if they are being willfully obtuse or rant to Brent about them while I try to construct a more coherent argument than, "are you fucking high?"

Because there are no safe spaces. There are no judgement free zones. I know they are judging me right back. My third party not voting for evil is the best choicers were indignant that I could choose someone they saw as clearly flawed instead of someone better. But no one was perfect. There never is anyone perfect. And I didn't think their champion was the answer anymore than they thought mine was. So they rolled their eyes, and shook their damn heads and asked me if I was being willfully obtuse and probably thought I was fucking high. But they are still around. Because they understand that my world might not be a trigger warning free safe space zone but it's a place where I expect you to argue AND still hug it out, bitch.

I've called Brent the closest thing to a safe space I have. I came in to our marriage really angry. And he stayed. I was mean as a snake at times. And he stayed. Though he is always clear I was never mean to him. He listens to more ranting and venting than anyone should ever have to. He listens to my arguments about a subject that I'm still forming and sometimes gets to hear me blow out the steam and come to a different conclusion once I explore all the "but maybes." But it's not really a safe space. Not really. The men in Brent's family have heart attacks. Massive ones. His father died at 58. My father had his first heart attack in his mid 50s. Brent is 48. We are in the zone. I feel it lurking at times. He had a scan done when his dad has his heart attack and he's waiting right now for a new cardiologist recommendation (his old one retired) so we can keep on top of his heart health. But we're not safe. No matter how much I insist we are both living to 100.

My father (as I mentioned) had heart disease. My mother has cancer. My grandmother had Alzheimer's, these are the monsters under my bed. My DNA isn't a safe space either.

Yesterday a group of people in San Francisco went to work and didn't come home because a co-worker killed them. Yesterday a group of people in D.C. were playing baseball with colleagues and a man opened fire. Yesterday a lot of people went to bed and woke to a massive inferno raging through their homes. Yesterday more than that happened that wasn't major enough to make the local news. We don't have safe spaces. Not really.

Health. Disaster. Crazy people. These things mean that our world is not safe. It never has been and it never will be.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that because it's not safe; that because there are real dangers out there we should be scared all of the time. We shouldn't. But if you are trying to demand that people only say what you think they should say, and only think what you think they should think you aren't making the world a safer place. You are making it a place not worth living in. The challenge of ideas is where you grow. The acceptance of people in to your life is where the good is. If you only spend time with people who see things the way you do you will only see what you've always seen.

A few years ago I was stung by a bee. Weird complications to that sting almost killed me. Because of that I had a phobia of flying insects. Bees especially. I had massive panic attacks. But I love flowers. So I wanted it to stop. I stood by the flowering bushes and watched the bees flying. I told myself over and over that it wasn't a big deal. That I had even been stung before and had been fine. That if I wanted to live a life without panic attacks at flying bugs I was going to have to fix this irrational fear. And eventually I did. I didn't do it by insisting that no bugs enter my area. I didn't do it by stopping my obsession with close up flower pictures. I did it by challenging my fear. And rediscovering that for the most part, bees don't want anything to do with me either.

That's what I want the safe spaces and trigger warnings to be. See what bugs you (so to speak) and deal with it. Learn about it. Question it. See why it bothers you. Find people who disagree with you and talk with them. You don't have to agree with them. You don't even have to like them. You absolutely don't have to change your mind. But you should be willing to open it.

There are no safe spaces.

Not really.