Who Says Romance is Dead?

"He looked in her eyes and said, 'I love you. I've always loved you. It's always been you.' She released a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding and fell into his arms." Susan closed the book and held it to her chest. "Isn't that the best?"

Craig gave her a puzzled look, "The best what?"

She rolled her eyes, "The best ending. The most romantic thing. She fell into his arms because he always loved her."

"Uh no. She fell into his arms because she had been holding her breath for who knows how long and passed out. I mean, who doesn't realize they aren't breathing? She sounds kind of dumb to me. Is he going to have to remind her to breathe? Is that going to be their thing? He's too stupid to tell her that he loves her before they both have miserable times with other people and she's too stupid to breathe without noticing? Tell me they are both sterile."

"You are the WORST!"

"I'm the worst? I am at least aware when I'm holding my breath. I know that if I have always loved someone then dating 12 other people is not a great idea. How am I the worst?"

"It's romantic."

"It's ridiculous."

"You're ridiculous!"

"Sure, at times, but I'm not tell me to breathe ridiculous."

"Fine tell me your favorite romance."

He thought for awhile. "Die Hard."

"You pick Die Hard for everything."

"It's not my fault it's the world's most perfect movie. Romance. Action. Christmas. First movie to cast Alan Rickman. It's really the best movie out there and there should be no other movie's above it."

"Wait, that can't be true. That's not Alan Rickman's first movie."

"Yep. Completely true. If there was no Die Hard there would be no Snape and then what would you cry about when someone has an Always tattoo?"

"I don't cry at Always tattoos."

He looked at her and raised his eyebrows.

"Fine. But come on, Always...it's just..." she sniffed.

"So romantic? You know how he was a dick to her and then she married that jerk James and he STILL carried a torch for her? I think Lily had really bad taste in men."

"James wasn't a jerk to her. And you only see him as a teenager when all boys are jerks so I'm sure he got better."

Craig nodded, "Sure, I'm sure he did. And stopped tormenting people who were different and didn't form a secret society that thought they were better than everyone else and try to overthrow the government and..."

She threw a pillow at Craig, "You are just being difficult!"

He smiled, "I am. But at least I'm breathing on my own."

She glared at him and then sighed, "What am I going to do with you?"

He held out his arms, "I guess release your held breath and fall into my arms because I've always loved you. And I've always made that really clear. No need for a dozen failed romances for me to realize it."

She wanted to pretend to be mad for a little longer but couldn't. She laughed instead and did fall into his arms. With a little extra push just to knock the air out of him a little. "I guess you should have held that breath a little."

Closing Time...

It had been a really lovely day. She had enjoyed the breeze and the chance to air the house out a bit. Get the stale air smell from the winter a chance to blow away. It was great. That's what she kept telling herself while she went window to window closing them down and making sure the nail strips were back in place before sunset. It really had been worth it to fling them wide open this morning. Even if putting everything back to rights was time consuming. Really.

She was on her second pass through the house. She had found three plugs in the tracks that had prevented the windows from being completely secured the first time. Little tricks that she knew to look for now. She made a note to put a reminder in the home owner's newsletter. People sometimes got sloppy.

As she drew the iron shutters on the upstairs windows closed she lamented again how stupid she felt. She had seen it all happening. She just hadn't recognized it at the time. She should have known. Her husband had told her that was ridiculous, how could they have known? Even seeing it right in front of them, they didn't know. But it still felt like she should have.

The first day they questioned anything was a beautiful day like today had been. They were heading out for a hike and saw the construction starting on the development across the street. There were large concrete tubes laid out in the field. They talked about them. How massive they were. How much infrastructure was needed to turn those fields into a housing development. They weren't happy about the houses, of course, but only because they had purchased land on the very edge of town. It was supposed to be the urban growth boundary. Nothing but farmland after their house. Nothing but open fields all the way to the West Hills. But progress, payoffs, and development came anyway. They joked that they must feel now how their neighbors a half mile in felt when their house went up.

It wasn't as funny anymore.

The next thing they had puzzled about what how deep they were digging out the foundations for the houses. Who needed a basement like that in the Pacific Northwest? It's not like they got tornadoes here. Most likely you were just inviting flooding. But still it looked like all of those houses would have basements. Maybe the influx of people from out of state wanted houses with basements, people liked to get what they were used to after all.

Then the houses went in. Small houses for the size of the basements really. Which they actually thought was nice. So many overly large houses on tiny lots had been built lately it was nice to see a few smaller spaces. Maybe they would be reasonably priced. That would be a change as well. Their own house had almost tripled in value in the time they had lived there, of course that was before. But the last weird thing they noticed (during construction that is) was that there was never a notice put up about sales. No model home open for perusing. No contact number for purchase. Nothing. Just a new development going in with no option to buy.

Apparently there didn't need to be. As soon as the houses were complete the moving vans and trucks rolled in. A fully presold neighborhood. Even in their tight turn around market that seemed amazing. Times were really changing.

They didn't realize how much.

The coyotes were the first to send a warning. Of course she didn't realize it at the time. Like everything else she saw it but didn't really see it. Or in this case heard it. The coyotes were going crazy. She was used to hearing them at times but not so loud, or so close. She wrote it off to the new development pushing them off their land. But then that didn't really make sense because they hadn't howled like that during construction. Maybe it was that the houses were no longer empty. When they were empty maybe the coyotes felt like it was still their land. Either way they were going crazy now.

The second night of constant howling she went to her window seat in her bedroom and looked out to see if she could spot them. They were gathered in the grassy open space between her house and her neighbors. At least 40 of them. She had never seen more than one or two gathered together. Five would have been a large pack, but this was incredible. She ran downstairs to grab her camera, hoping there was enough light to get a clear shot. She went to the front window and opened the blinds wide. There seemed to be even more there. They howled and yipped and cried. Coyotes sounded a bit like a child screaming when they really started going. The hairs on her forearms raised and she felt a shiver down her spine. Purely primal reactions. Then the wild dogs gathered in a tight group and ran together. A pack on the move. It looked like a massive shadow racing across the grass, she lost site of them and was about to go outside for a better look when...

Well she wasn't sure what it was. Not at the time. Her head couldn't make sense of what she was seeing so it just wiped it fairly clean. Nothing here. Just a trick of the moonlight. The shapes hadn't made sense and so she disregarded them. Protection from the truth is rarely protection after all.

But the coyotes were gone. They never came back.

Smart animals really.

Then the reports of break ins started. It was all very odd and she didn't really know what to make of it. If she hadn't known her neighbors, and if it hadn't been multiple reports she would have thought someone just got confused. Because nothing was stolen. The houses were just opened. Things were moved around. Things obviously looked through, but nothing missing. Nothing gone. Just opened.

The police had no answers, and weren't really sure that a crime had been committed. Probably just mass hysteria. Since nothing was stolen, nothing taken it was much easier to believe that they were all being paranoid. Who would break into a house just to rifle the bookshelf? Or rearrange the junk drawer in the kitchen? Or when it finally happened to her turn a few pictures around? It didn't make any sense and so it was dismissed. And the police stopped responding to their calls. "Just those crazies again."

By the time they realized what had happened it was too late. The sheriff's office relocated. They didn't want to respond. There was nothing they felt they could do anyway. Not about the big things. And the daytime small things really didn't matter anymore. They were on their own. Those that stayed. Because where could they go? Nobody would buy now. And there were rumors that it wasn't just their neighborhood. It was spreading. Underground. Like roots taking hold.

So the neighborhood association got a little more involved. They added features to their houses like iron shutters on the inside. Window, nail bar, shutters. Lock it up tight. Some people kept it locked up day and night. She didn't. She knew she could take what came during the day. The helpers. She had torn one of them apart with her bare hands after all. They feared her as much as she feared the ones they helped. It had made her a favorite target but they started it after all. They hadn't realized she was out of town and they missed her when the came to her house. When they had rigged the window to not shut tight. She caught one out on its own when she got back. Now they knew.

She got the house secure for the night a full half hour before the alarm on her phone warned her of sunset. She got her crossbow and her rifle out of the closet and made herself comfortable in the overstuffed chair in the middle of the living room. The middle of her house. The farthest spot from any door or window. Ready for the darkness. Her husband's killers were coming. They always checked her house first. She was always ready.

Am I Allowed?

We live in a perpetually offended society. And an always angry one. I've talked about how hard it's been to find that not mad space for myself. And I'm a happy person at my base. It's who I am at my core. Hell I was telling jokes at my dad's funeral because laughing is more natural to me than anything. Even laughing while crying. It's who I am.

And it's who I've worked hard to be. I made sure that the angry side of me didn't win out when there was a chance it would. I've said it a million times, Brent deserves a medal for our first few years of marriage. I was not very nice at times. He will tell you that I was always nice to him and that I was smoking hot so there was no problem. But I was angry. I was angry at life. And then I realized that life didn't give a shit about if I was angry or not, it was just going to keep going and the only thing I could do was go along angry or go along happy. I chose happy.

I choose happy.

But man...there are times...

And then you have to wonder, is this something I get to be mad about?

Do you know what I mean?

Sometimes people get offended about things that have NOTHING to do with them. They are just looking for a fight. Or they are just looking to signal to their group that they are on the same page. I try my best not to get offended at things in general. I can get pissed. I can find things to be idiotic. But to truly offend me you need to do something personal.

Usually.

But the past few days I've found myself offended. Like I see things posted and my face does it's my face thing and I am offended. It's offensive. I've walked away. I've shut Facebook down. I've done extra sit-ups, I've gone for a walk. I've read a book. I've done whatever I can to stop from writing, FUCK YOU YOU IGNORANT FUCKING FUCKER as a response. So far it's worked.

But let me be really clear, FUCK YOU YOU IGNORANT FUCKING FUCKER is what is going through my head when I type the words, "No. Bill Cosby is not the victim of a lynching. Bill Cosby is the recipient of overdue justice."

I'm offended on behalf of the women he raped. I'm offended that he who preached at the black community to put down the pound cake and take responsibility thinks it was fine for him to pick up the quaaludes and rape women. I'm offended that his legal team and his wife and political cartoonists have tried to tie his trial and conviction to lynchings. And his wife today to Emmett Till specifically. And this is where I wonder if I have that right.

The on behalf of offense. I try to stay away from it. But sometimes something is so genuinely wrong that it's offensive even if it's not yours to own.

I wrote about going to the National Museum of African American History and Culture while we were on Sabbatical. It's a heavy day. The history is hard to take in and let it soak in to you and live with it.  Even for someone who felt like they knew a lot of it. I didn't know all of it. I didn't feel it as much as I did going through it all from the beginning.There is a lot there. But one of the areas that is the hardest is the Emmett Till room. It's the one area where you aren't allowed to take pictures. You just take it in. What happened to him. You feel it. As a parent I think I felt it very personally. It's hard. It's painful. It's still painful.

Bill Cosby is not Emmett Till. Bill Cosby drugged and raped multiple women. Emmett Till did not whistle at or flirt with that one white woman. (And please note the difference in the "crime") Bill Cosby will spend his time either under house arrest, where he is now, or in jail. Emmett Till was abducted from his house and beaten to death. Bill Cosby received a trial. The men who killed Till were acquitted in theirs. The woman who accused Till in the first place admitted she lied. Till was killed by her husband, who was acquitted by an all white jury but admitted to the killing soon after. Because of double jeopardy it didn't matter and he was safe. Emmett Till's mother insisted on an open casket funeral so people would have to see what they did to her child. Bill Cosby was sent home with an ankle monitor.

Just this last week a museum was opened in Montgomery, Alabama. It's a memorial to the 4000 victims of lynching from 1877 to 1950. When a black man accused of a crime could be ripped from his home, or from a jail cell and beaten, burned, hung, killed, by a mob. For the crime of being black. Let's be clear here,even if there was an actual crime that could have gone to trial he was killed for being black. It's part of our history in this country. We should be facing it, dealing with it. I absolutely agree that it is still more difficult in our justice system for a black man to get fair treatment. We see it in the outcomes of cases. The percentages of convictions. Of arrests. Of shootings by officers. There are deep inequalities that started with those 4000 and the system that was built around that thought.

But...

To use that?

Like Clarence Thomas did when Anita Hill was brave enough to come forward.

Like R. Kelly is right now.

Like Bill Cosby.

It's offensive.

And if it's offensive to a middle aged white woman I cannot fathom how offensive it should be to the black community. So yeah, I probably don't have the right to be offended, but I am. Deeply.

I'm offended by the comparison. I'm offended by the yeah but (insert white guy here). I'm offended that once again the women are being treated as an afterthought. Women who are victimized often don't come forward because they get victimized again.

Lynching. Instead of the evidence shows that he was guilty and for once the statute of limitations wasn't run out while he preached about personal responsibility.

It's offensive.

And if you cannot be offended on behalf of the women he raped, or the 4000 men who were actually lynched, or the list of black men who have been killed in our recent history for doing such heinous things as selling loose cigarettes or driving with a legal concealed carry then...

FUCK YOU YOU IGNORANT FUCKING FUCKER!

I Will Follow You...

Death had been following her for about six months. Not like a feeling of dread, or a bad medical diagnosis. But Death. The person. Or thing. Or being. Whatever Death was in a physical form, Death was following her.

She was taking it very calmly. Probably because she had sort of eased into her awareness of the situation. The first time she saw Death she was driving down the road. She looked in her rearview mirror and there she was, driving the Escalade behind her. This time Death was clearly masquerading as a woman. Long hair, lovely blouse, manicured nails on the steering wheel. Cadaverous mask of a face staring back at her.  At the time she decided it was a weird trick of light.

Really weird because the face didn't go away when the driver changed lanes and pulled up next to her at the next stop. Well, it did change, it got more skull like and less just newly dead looking. It was a definitely dead look. But she still wrote it off as a weird trick of light. Or possibly something the woman had done on purpose. Who knew anymore what people were doing with their makeup.

The next time she saw him, and it was definitely a he this time, was at the gym. She had just finished a really tough Zumba class and was heading for the water fountain when she spotted Death at the squat rack. Really good form in his lift, but definitely a skull for a face. She shook her head and got her drink. The class must have taken more out of her than she had realized.

She didn't see Death again for a few weeks and had just about forgotten about seeing Death at all. Then she and her husband were at the grocery store and she saw the ugliest dog. One of those so ugly it was cute dogs, but didn't quite make it to cute. She asked her husband what breed he thought it was and he said, "Looks like a chihuahua to me." She looked again, it didn't look like any chihuahua she had ever seen before. "With that face?" Her husband looked again, "Yeah, looks like a chihuahua." She took a picture of the dog and decided to post it online to get their friend's opinions. Later when she looked at the picture she could see it was clearly a chihuahua. "Did the sun make it look different? Like highlight a lot more gray in its fur?" She asked her husband, showing him the picture, "Nope, it looked just like this."

From that point on she noticed Death at least once a day. She decided it was like when you buy a new car. You never notice all of the other blue cars until you buy one and then they are everywhere. Once she gave in and realized she saw Death she realized Death was following her. She decided that it was her subconscious telling her that something was wrong with her health. Trying to get her to go to the doctor. She made a doctor's appointment. If she was going to get a warning like this she knew it was good to heed it. Maybe she could keep Death at a little distance.

So she had a full checkup. And got a perfectly clean bill of health. Physically at least. She was debating the call to the psychiatrist. She knew that there were probably drugs she could take to help her with her delusions, but did she want to? After all if you know you are crazy and it's not really affecting you then is it really crazy?

She thought about this a lot. Was it worse to go crazy and not know it or be fully aware of it like she was? And if she was having these delusions was she having others? And again, did it matter?

When she told her husband she had been seeing things he suggested an eye appointment. Then when she explained what it was she was seeing he did not agree with her that it didn't really matter. So she went to the psychiatrist. Who, much to her surprise, did not prescribe drugs. Instead she suggested that it might be a stress condition. So the treatment, for now, was to take notes. Mark down when she saw Death and where. How she was feeling at the time. Look for a common feeling or situation.

There wasn't one.

Or there wasn't one she could find.

She saw Death when she was tired. She saw Death when she was well rested. She saw Death at the grocery store, at the movies, picking up her kids from school. Death was male, Death was female, Death was young, Death was old, Death was human, Death was animal, one memorable time Death was an entire flock of birds. At least once a day, Death. And then today before her appointment she saw Death by her doctor's office. When her psychiatrist asked about the last time she saw Death she told her, just now, on the street. She described what Death was wearing, how she had her hair styled. Her doctor listened and took notes.

The next day her doctor called her and asked her to come in and please bring her notebook. She had never had an emergency psychiatric call before. Maybe she had found some sort of pattern after all? Maybe there was a cure? Instead there were police officers.

Seems like doctor patient confidentiality goes out the window when there is possibility you are a criminal.

The woman she had seen leaving the doctor's office had been a patient. Had been because she had died last night. Under mysterious circumstances and where were you between the hours of and who can verify that? She and her husband had been at the movies. And then a late bite to eat. A phone call to him was the first verification and a check of receipts was the next. She was in the clear. But they still took her notebook.

Her doctor apologized, but explained that she had no choice really. When the police questioned her she had to tell them about the sighting the day before. One patient seeing another and calling them Death. She understood didn't she?

She just shrugged. She was more concerned with the fact that the quiet officer, the one who she assumed would play bad cop if her alibi hadn't checked out had given her one last look as he left. One last look with his empty cavernous eyes. When she saw the news later about the armed robbery she knew who the police officer was that got shot. And it all finally made sense.

Death hadn't been following her, she had been following it.

Catch Up Time!

Okay, I'm behind on my pace for blogs for the year. Time to make up the ones I've missed and push me a little ahead so I can not worry about the other months where I miss a few. Or more than a few like last month.


So here we are! The triumphant return of BLOG A DAY IN MAY! TA DA!

Also known as the...seriously, girl, get your shit together write-a-thon.

Either way there will be something new here daily.

Dana sent me a list of story prompts so I'm excited to use a few of those. And, as always, I have thoughts about the world so there will be a few more of those.

So today is the first blog of May. It's the letting you know it's coming blog. It's the oh that's right I need ideas to write I should get some of those blog. Yes, the space filler blog!

Because honestly, I have nothing today. If I hadn't already decided this would be my May goal, I wouldn't be writing. I have nothing but half formed thoughts that are more appropriate for status updates.

But now that I've made the commitment they will come. That's my belief.

Or hope.

One of those.

But for today I don't have anything fully formed. So I'm just letting you know they are coming. Fiction, rambling, rants. Existential crises. The usual.

And since it's taken me somewhere close to three hours to write nothing here I'll just leave you with the promise that it has to get better this month. Has to.

Good luck to all of us!

Okay...really...okay...

The monthly goal for April was to get a piece submitted. It was in service to my great goal of submitting 3 pieces this year. I'm four months in to the year and haven't submitted anything so April was pretty much a do or die milestone in my head. And as normally happens when I think about submitting it was pretty much die.

It is like all of the voices just stop talking to me. They go off into a corner and read their own stories but don't share them. Or they give me small pieces of other stories, not the one that fits the theme for the contest or publisher or where ever I'm am thinking I will submit.

I worked, reworked, stalled, started, stalled again and then finally gave up.

Well sort of gave up.

I gave up on the themed pieces I was trying to write and found a Flash Fiction contest that was 1000 words and that was the only restriction. No theme. No starting line. No pressure. I can knock 1000 words out standing on my head. It's what I do.

Except, you know, when I want to submit the piece. Then it's a struggle.

BUT I did it. I wrote a piece. It's okay. It's not the best work I've ever done, but it's not bad. It's a very me sort of story. Which means that the one person who will really appreciate it has already read it, but it's still going in to the contest vat.

Tomorrow.

I wanted it to sit a day, and that was today. I will re-read it outloud word by word tomorrow morning to try and catch any glaring errors then I will send it off to be judged.

When I win I'll share the link with you all to read it.

Momentum...

Have you ever watched rain drops on your window? Or condensation on a drinking glass? Or spray on a shower door? The way a drop will form at the top of the glass and start to work its way down. If it is a lone drop it moves pretty slowly, but as it picks up more and more drops on its way down it speeds up.

This morning after my shower I watched the drops on the door for a little bit. I had done a quick swipe with the squeegee but not a really neat job because I was just going to clean the glass in a few minutes anyway. So there were gaps where there was no water, and spaces where there were pockets of smaller drops, and a few spaces where there was more water. Slowly a drop would start to make its way down the shower glass. I would look ahead to see when it was going to pick up the first few drops on the door. When they wouldn't be a lone drop anymore but a few drops joined together. Then I would wonder how long it would take before the slow slide down the door became a speeding race to the bottom.

It amused me.

But then I started to think.

This is like ideas.

And the space at the top of the shower where one drop is moving alone is like our pre-internet age. You might have had some wacky ideas, but you were pretty much alone in them. You might pick up a few stray drops here and there, but most likely it was a slow ride to the bottom of the glass. Now? No matter what you think you can be joined with more drops that think the same way you do. And then you have momentum.

Good or bad.

I listened to a podcast this morning on how they used a radio soap opera in Rwanda after the genocide to try to unite the country. It was really interesting. The gentleman whose idea it was was a survivor of the Holocaust. He had been studying how such a thing happened and what could be done to prevent it. When Rwanda happened he knew he needed to do what he could to make things better. It was really interesting (Hidden Brain podcast, I highly recommend them all) but one of the things that was mentioned that made me pause was that no political leader starts out thinking about genocide. That it's a process that happens that gets a country there.

There are steps. Or single drops that have to join, to keep beating my metaphor in to the ground. You have to bring a country along with you if you want to accomplish horrific things. Hitler couldn't have just taken office in Germany and said, "Hey, we're going to kill the Jews, and GO!" and have it done. There had to be the conditions for it (desperate financial times, still war torn from WWI) there had to be a population that was easily targeted (Jews in this case, Tutsis in the case of Rwanda) and people had to be walked along a path of dehumanizing their neighbors. But once they gained momentum they were in. Regular people helped round up their Jewish neighbors for the Nazis. Hutus slaughtered their fellow countrymen with machetes wiping out entire villages.

All of those drops joined together and racing to the bottom.

And here we are now. No matter what you think or believe you can find a group online to support you. Conspiracy theories, anti-science on a variety of levels, racist, homophobic...the lists go on and on. Even things that you might not think of as negative, necessarily. At least not at first. How many political groups can you join? And how many of those are actually just a front for "we're better, the other side is stupid" memes? Or religious or anti-religious boards? Watch where you spend your time and who you spend it with.

Jonestown didn't start with Kool-aid. Nxivm didn't brand women on their first day. There are steps. There are buy-ins along the way. They both seemed like good ideas to those that joined, at least at first.

You all know I'm not silent about my opinions. You all also know I have a temper and can go on a pretty good rage rant. But what I've been trying more and more to do is temper it. To show my disgust with what is happening in the world today but not spew more negativity out there. Now, my more conservative friends might not agree. We have a difference of opinion where the negative line is. I don't think pointing out that the president has done something I find reprehensible to be spewing negativity, I think it's trying to keep it from spreading. The whole "this is not normal" stance.

I also am trying to keep from posting on anything public that is really negative. If I post on a public feed it shows up on my friend's timelines. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't. And sometimes I feel like what has been said shouldn't just be left there without an opposing view. I want other people to know that there are other drops out there like them. That it's not all brackish water right now.

So it's a balancing act.

Which leads me to ask you, where is the momentum in your life? What are you focusing on? Where is your energy? Who are you seeking out? Who are you joining?

Pay attention. Look at what you are saying. Look at what you are doing. Make sure you aren't racing to the bottom with a group that you really never intended on joining. Better to be a slowly moving drop of positivity than a flood of  nastiness.