Craig J. Sorensen

Cleansing

2012-01-24T05:21:00.004-05:00

In a whirlwind, like in my present life seems to be, I always try to find time to just quiet my mind and get caught up in the moment.

Last week, we were in the San Francisco bay area at my new job. So much to absorb: The work, the chore of looking for a place to live.

My first day on the job, some people I talked to mentioned how dry it had been -- months without rain. Being a western-raised kid, I know how these can go, and that made my appreciation ten fold when the rain started coming a few days into the trip.

If you've ever experienced a drought, or lived on a desert, you will know what I'm talking about. When that first rain comes, there is a smell like no other. An earthiness, a freshness, hopefulness and realization.

All that, in a little fresh rain.

The drive from SFO to the little hamlet where we resided for a week was filled with finding our way, dry cool weather and promising clouds.

The return drive was dotted with remnants of rain from the clouds that had come to bear fruit over several. At one point, it seemed like there was this tiny cloud, just over head. It seemed our car was the only one with the wipers on.

Probably not, but this was one of those moments, where reflection upon the busy week, the striving and accomplishing and wishing to do better, peeled away, washed by the gentle, cleansing rain.

The Change of the Guard

2012-01-14T07:53:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I walked through a former warehouse that is all but empty. Once home to hundreds of diverse employees, there are now less than fifty. A call center once brimmed with activity, and my first days with the company were spent there, because the Data Processing department was out of space.

I sat amongst a group of teenagers and barely-twenty-somethings, myself not being much older than them, but perhaps my life experience to date separated me.

As a current friend and former employee walked through this large, empty room, I told him a story of how the young call center women giggled when we bought a catalog which featured sexy men’s clothes, modeled by sexy, well endowed men. The newly acquired catalog, based in California, was very different from the many catalogs the company ran. There were so many unusual happenings with this company over the years, that some of us said had more lives than a black cat.

Walking through that building often filled me with memories in recent times. Perhaps it is because it is so empty, that it can hold endless stories.

People often say, “if I could write a book…”

Well, I can, and probably will, write a book about my experiences at the place where I worked for over twenty-five years. But for now, I catalog my last memory as an employee of this company. The memory of leaving it for the last time. The bittersweet feelings of leaving behind friends, of wondering what the future holds for them.

The conflicted thoughts that come with the change of the guard.

My future rests where the sun sets over a vast ocean, thousands of miles from where I now live.

My future rests with a young company that struggles to keep up with its growth. I know they will keep me busy, and challenge me in a hundred ways.

That’s my kind of challenge.

The First Load

2012-01-09T06:28:00.004-05:00

Yes, we have been dutiful in divesting of things we do not need. Each year, we sell, give away, trade or otherwise divest of things we know we aren’t going to use.

But sixteen years in the same house, a house with numerous nooks and crannies, insures that, unless we sort through all of the stuff on a regular basis, stuff will collect. It can be surprising how much.

With our impending move west, we have begun to do those little minor projects around the house to fix the annoying little things that one learns to live with over time.

Such as that garage door opener.

See, it’s probably been a decade since anyone has parked a car in our garage. I blame it on the garage door opener, but that’s just a rationalization. Unless it is a moped with training wheels, there isn’t a four wheel motorized vehicle that could fit in our garage. Knowing a fellow is going to be coming this Wednesday to repair the opener, it became necessary to clear some space for him to work.

Know what we found?

Computers. As far as the eye can see, computers. It could work as a modern museum to the PC. A career computer geek like me, married to a geek, father of three now adult geeks, is bound to collect them over time. And damn those computers were expensive in their time.

Perhaps that is why they sit in the garage collecting dust. “I may have use for these some day.”

Saturday afternoon, I opened the back of my twenty-one year old Isuzu Trooper and we filled it to the top with computers, monitors, printers and a few pieces of dead, expensive stereo gear. Once thousands upon thousands of dollars of stuff, now bound for the electronics recycling bone yard.

Years of service, they gave us. Learning, writing, making art, building websites and blogs, dialing in (and I do mean dialing in) to my work to take care of a production issue.

But their time has passed. I have a new computer, sparkling bright it boots up in a minute. No way those old computers will ever find purpose again. No way we’re going to ship an Isuzu-load (and that is just for starters) of old gear to our new home.

Onward and upward

New Year, New Challenges

2012-01-04T19:06:00.003-05:00

I figured it out. Worked it out mathematically, and I have spent almost half of my life working for my current employer in various capacities. I've worked at two different locations across the country. For a time I worked in a home office for them, serving both locations with a 14.4 modem, a fax machine and a phone with two lines so I could do computer / fax with voice at the same time (needless to say, I was hot shit back then.)

Remember that 14.4 modem sound?

Those were the days.

Twenty Five years. Ronald Reagan was President when I started working for this company. There are maybe a half dozen people who are still working there from when I started. And, for the past sixteen years, I've lived in the same house. It's the longest I've ever lived in one location.

It's never easy, with so much invested, to say good bye.

But this week, I am saying good bye to the company I have worked with for half of my life.

Sometimes, an opportunity comes along, and you just have to take it. A young company navigating a bold new business proposition. In Silicon Valley, they are growing at break neck speed. Run by a man who I have a rare admiration for, and struggling to keep up with the demands on it, I could not resist the generous offer.

So, I will be moving across the USA for the third time in my life. In the coming months, I'll be blogging about this impending move.

For now, I'll be working from my current home, a little taste of those 14.4 days, but with DSL and a cell phone, email, internet and remote access and all.

I'll be busy. Busy as hell, methinks. Preparing a house for sale, learning new technology and new business principles, traveling to the location of my new job to meet the team, and scouting new houses.

So while I may not blog so often, I think I'll have a lot to blog about.

I hope you'll come along on the ride with me.

Oh, and if you'd like to buy a little memento of my impending journey, you can keep an eye on this new blog, created and managed by my lovely and talented wife, DeDe, where we are selling off stuff that has collected over the years.

Puppy Holidays!

2011-12-21T06:29:00.002-05:00

Just checking in with blogland. My life continues to be a whirlwind, and it doesn't look like it will stop blowing soon.

And this is a good thing!

I promise to come back and at least scratch out a meaningful post, but it won't be until after the new year.

So, until then, I wish you all happy holidays, and all the best to you as 2012 begins.

Go With the Flow

2011-12-13T04:24:00.003-05:00

That is what I'll be doing in the coming weeks.

Take it, Josh Homme and Queens of the Stone Age:

Several irons in the fire and seeing if they become red hot, lukewarm, or whatever. One of them is rather substantial and will require some serious attention. I can't really say much about any of these things right now.

Of course, there is the craziness that is the holiday season on top of them irons.

So if you don't see much of me around the Internet in the next few weeks, you'll know why.

I hope you have a fine holiday season.

Wandering the Docks

2011-12-09T07:07:00.013-05:00

After my brothers and I meandered up the majestic Oregon Coast, we settled into the town of Newport, where we had an excellent lunch downtown at the Chowder Bowl at Nye Beach.

Of course, I had a chowder, the "Slumgolian Chowder," which was a lovely thick clam concoction, with a sprinkling of tiny Pacific shrimp. Delicious.

Stomachs full, we descended upon the docks.

In a way, this was one of my favorite places that we visited. I've always liked factories, working class places and things. As we approached the docks, the crab traps, waiting to be loaded on to ships and pressed into action, caught my eye:

But what I loved most was walking along the docks, and taking in the various boats. Being a work day, some were being loaded, unloaded, worked on. Some were just at rest.

The artistry, craftsmanship, and the wear of honest toil on the boats commanded my interest:

Until I reached the outermost dock, and looked out over the bay to the iconic Yaquina Bay Bridge, which these fishermen look upon and travel under day after day. A landmark, a milestone, not a tourist destination:

We lingered at the docks for a while, then did a little shopping downtown where I bought a T-shirt with a deco style drawing of the Yaquina Bay Bridge on it for my son.

As we left Newport, we stopped at the bay lighthouse, where I was able to get some nice shots of the bridge from the outside of the bay:

And that was where the camera ran out of memory.

We visited two historic lighthouses as we traveled back north. I didn't get a single photo of them, but that was okay. The pictures I had shot were here and now and alive with the day. The lighthouses were historic and cool to see and learn about, but they were someone else's history.

Wandering back through these photos evokes the unseasonably warm, perfectly clear, late September day that my brothers and I spent together.

A day that will always be special.

The Draft

2011-12-05T04:25:00.012-05:00

Folks that know me well know that I love the road. Long haul, short haul, in between haul. I sometimes muse that I must have been a trucker in a former life.

A couple years ago, I found a cache of 1960s trucker magazines called Overdrive at a flea market. I bought them and promptly set out read them. I read the technical stuff, and they even included occasional fiction that varied in quality from quite bad to outstanding. All in all, I had a fun run reading through the magazines.

Around that time, there was a contest announced: Erotic stories set in the 1960s. So I set out with some ideas that came to me reading those magazines, and created a pair of characters, who I brought together in the cab of a Peterbilt truck after meeting on the tarmac of a truck stop outside Reno, Nevada.

But the final story was over 800 words too long for the contest, and I couldn't figure out how to cut that number of words and keep the energy of the story, which leans heavily on the banter between the contrasting characters. I didn't feel comfortable submitting it to other places that came to mind.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I saw a call by the inimitable Kristina Wright for romance stories. Now, I think my take on romance probably strays from the norm, but one of the things I love about Kristina is that she is an adventurous editor, who will take chances on strays. (Like me!)

Long story short (okay, it's too late for that now) I submitted this 1960s story, titled "The Draft" to be considered for Best Erotic Romance 2012 and I was very pleased to find that Kristina indeed did include it!

Now, Best Erotic Romance 2012 is available for purchase.

And to whet your appetite, here is a taste from "The Draft". Hop in the cab. Let's drive:

A waitress in her mid thirties approached. She was kind of pretty in thick black cat glasses. She had an Olive Oyl body that she carried with strange grace. “Well, as I live and breathe. How ya been, Dave darlin’?”

His soft accent begat a warm drawl. “I been good Mary Jo. How ‘bout you?”

“Well, just dandy. Ain’t seen ya’ in ages.”

“I had a run o’work up and down California. Good to be on the east to west again. The folks is nicer.” He winked.

Mary Jo pushed her pencil through her bright blonde hair, piled high enough to stretch a five foot seven frame to a over six feet. “You want the usual, hon?”

“You know what I like!”

Mary Jo turned to Sarah. “And for your lady friend here?”

“Just acquaintances. A cup of coffee, two poached eggs and dry toast. Separate checks, please.”

Mary Jo popped her gum. “Sure thing, hon.” She walked away.

“That’s some plain eatin’, little lady.” Dave lifted his brow.

“I like it fine.” Sarah felt a little defensive. She eyed Mary Jo. “Old friend?”

“You meet a lot of people on the road. Some real fine people.” Dave’s eyes locked briefly on the waitress.

“Your friendship extends beyond Ham and Eggs.”

“Were that true, it would be none of your concern, little lady.”

“My name’s Sarah, not ‘little lady.’”

“Well, you ain’t big, Sarah.”

Sarah collapsed her fingers over a swelling smile. “I’m a little chubby.”

“You’re built like a woman.”

Sarah pursed her lips.

“You don’t like being a woman?”

“I like being a woman just fine.”

“Where you headed, little… Sarah?”

“Idaho.”

“Big place. Any spot in particular?”

“Nampa.”

“Nice town. I can take you as far as Winnemucca.” Dave pointed to a new, bright red Peterbilt semi with a sleeper outside the diner.

Sarah had planned to find a Travelodge and a garage in the morning. But she was near broke; that’s why she was going back. It wouldn’t be her first hitchhike. “You think my car’s bad?”

“It ain’t good.”

Sarah knew it was true. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take that ride.” She eyed the big omelet with home fries and toast with cherry jam that Mary Jo set down in front of Dave.

“I can pay.” She picked at her carefully chosen breakfast.

Between orderly, but ravenous bites from his plate, he said, “for what?”

“The ride.”

“No point. I’m already going that way.”

When they left, Dave held the passenger door of his truck open. Sarah paused until he walked away from it. She climbed up and closed the door.

And here's the Table of Contents. A list of authors that I'm honored to be included with:

Introduction: Simply the Best
What Happened in Vegas - Sylvia Day
First Night - Donna George Storey
Another Trick Up My Sleeve - Heidi Champa
Drive Me Crazy - Delilah Devlin
He Tends To Me - Justine Elyot
Guest Services - Angela Caperton
Memories for Sale - Andrea Dale
The Draft - Craig J. Sorensen
To Be in Clover - Shanna Germain
Honey Changes Everything - Emerald
Cheating Time - Kate Pearce
Our Own Private Champagne Room - Rachel Kramer Bussel
Till the Storm Breaks - Erobintica
The Curve of Her Belly - Kristina Wright
Dawn Chorus - Nikki Magennis

Let's be careful out there

2011-12-02T04:46:00.007-05:00

I used to love the TV show, "Hill Street Blues." DeDe and I watched it for the first time when we were young and stationed in Germany. We settled in every Thursday night with a cold drink to follow "life on the Hill."

The watch Sergeant, Phil Esterhaus used to implore his charges after each roll call with this tag line:

Good advice then, and good advice now, even if you're not working on the mean streets.

I've been getting a lot of cold calls lately at work. "Mr. Sorensen, this is (insert name here) of (insert company here.) We are a company that..."

Recently, some of these calls will come in, and either shortly before, or shortly after, with an email.

One of my business responsibilities in the past was to manage business end of the marketing email process of the company I work for, so I'm quite familiar with the Can Spam act that covers emailing permissions.

Now it's one thing to get a call, and another to get an email. But it is quite another to get both. Based on the services the caller / emailers were offering, I gained a bit of a notion who could be selling my name, number and email. But I needed more.

And so I began emailing back (I'm much better at writing it than saying it, oddly enough.) "Thank you for contacting me, but first I'd like to know where you procured my email address and my phone number and my name from."

Mostly, I do not hear back from them. Oddly enough. One fellow did write me back "Our marketing department provides leads from lists of people who they have contacted via email and have shown an interest."

"Rest assured," wrote I, "while I have received emails from you" (I had to do some research to find this fact, as the preliminary emails had come from a different domain and company name) "I have never shown an interest in your company. Please provide me with a contact within your marketing department."

Oddly enough, I have not heard back from him. I have not heard back from any of them, but for the last three weeks, these "coordinated cold contacts" have stopped.

In this day and age of social networks, and the means to marry information based on shreds of connections, it is getting harder and harder to separate the tares from the wheat. Sadly, there are a lot of tares out there, and they seem to be growing more prolific by the hour.

Spammers and scammers abound. Even intelligent people are getting hoodwinked. I have seen cases within my company where some "reputable" companies have tried, and sometimes succeeded, in bilking some very savvy folks.

I read an article this week that addressed one phase of this modern dynamic. Anecdotal proof of the above assertion.

I know many writers and artists out there are small business proprietors, and as I said, really, no one is immune. As such, I share this article from CNN/Money magazine with those who are interested.

It's not my hope to make people paranoid, but to inform. The art of the con is not a new thing, but new vehicles for its conveyance are being exploited.

So, when you're out doing business in internetland, I beseech you,

"Let's be careful out there."

One Way Up

2011-11-30T04:33:00.012-05:00

The first morning I awoke at my brother's place at the Oregon Coast was a day marked by perfect weather.

Seemed that was a recurring theme. So warm for autumn, and none of the characteristic rain that makes it so lush out there.

So, I took my cup of coffee out the back yard that overlooked Devil's Lake, and snapped my first few photos of the place. The serenity of the early morning before the sunrise:

And waited for the sun to clear the hills to the east:

The prior day, we had traveled north along the coast. On this day, we headed south, our destination being lunch in Newport. We drove along highway 101, famous for its many twists and turns, and it beautiful views of the coastline:

One stop was at a small island, very close to the mainland, with an oft photographed tree. We descended down the hill, to find that the water was low enough we could walk out onto the island. I photographed from both perspectives, mainland with reflections in the water:

and on the island, directly below the tree:

As we shot on the island, the water had continued to rise (it should not be remarkable how fast this can change, given the enormity of the Pacific Ocean, but it was indeed impressive.) We had to navigate along unstable rocks, trying to keep from landing in the waters.

I took a deliberate course; the prior day we had talked about a woman who had come to the coast and underestimated how a misstep on the rocks and broke her ankle. The rocks that were exposed were few and far between, and it seemed it took forever to cross back to the mainland.

But we did return, and without soaking our shoes through in seawater.

And we continued south...

Sex Sells the Vote

2011-11-26T08:24:00.005-05:00

Whether sex truly sells, or how well it does it, is a point of contention. Certainly sex has been used to sell everything from cars to rice.

Now some are trying to use it to buy votes.

The votes still need to be tallied to see how well they're working, in the long run, but let's give them an A for effort...

Oregon Coast

2011-11-21T04:28:00.013-05:00

Better late than never, eh? I'm finally getting around to editing my photos taken at the Oregon coast, where my brothers and I had our reunion.

The Oregon coast remains one of my favorite places on earth. The topography, the foliage, the sheer variety that can be found in a relatively small area, all combine to make it a place one can just get lost in.

The day I returned to the Oregon coast could not have been more beautiful. We set out early from my brother's home in Portland. In very little time, we were in the countryside:

And passed through a tunnel of welcoming trees:

Then we stopped for breakfast at a unique little cafe in the bustling town of Otis Oregon: (note the impressively sized post office to the right of the cafe)

After a little manual labor, shuffling mattresses from one of my brother's coastal homes to another, taking that old set to the dump, then completed the cycle by picking up and hauling a new set from a store to the house we had pulled the first set out of (whew!) we headed north up the coast, and stopped at Neskowin Bay. It was still early enough that mist shrouded the hills that guard the bay:

As we departed the bay, this piece of driftwood, caught my eye:

We headed north to Pacific City and had lunch at the Pelican Pub and Brewery, right on the water. Re-fueled with some wonderful fish tacos, we set out to the beach. For most of the Oregon coast it is illegal to drive out on the beach, but this was one exception. We entertained ourselves watching a Ford Explorer get stuck, but mostly enjoyed the rich dunes:

And a young family playing with a kite:

We wandered along the coast, a place I had not seen since I was a teenager. Was it as I remember? In a way, I suppose, but so much changes in a person's perspective over the course of thirty plus years. There is absolutely no doubt that I appreciated it much more. Part of that was the reconnecting with my brothers, but it was also just the simple majesty of the Oregon coast.

After our dedicated work to do the mattress shuffle in the morning, our eldest brother took us south down the coast to reward us with a meal at Tidal Raves. Along the way, we stopped to train our cameras on the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean.

There is a phenomenon called the "Green Flash" where the setting sun sometimes turns green briefly before it disappears. I took a couple dozen shots. No green flash.

But it didn't matter. This is the Oregon coast:

And we went on to Depot Bay for a fine meal. The end of a day of discovery and re-discovery.

In the News

2011-11-16T20:43:00.006-05:00

Cue Samuel L. Jackson...

"Enough is ENOUGH! I have had it with these motherfuckin' cockroaches on this motherfuckin' plane! "

Facts are sometimes stranger than fiction.

Pavement Ends

2011-11-14T04:47:00.006-05:00

The town of Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania likes beyond the end of Flat Iron Roof Road.

I never made it to Boiling Springs.

A half mile down Flat Iron Roof Road, a sign: PAVEMENT ENDS.

I suppose a smarter man would have turned around, and gotten back on the main thoroughfare, headed north to a road with more than one lane, and one where the pavement didn’t end unless you took the unadvisable choice to drive off the shoulder of the road.

But you have to remember, I’m a bit of a country boy. The road to the house I grew up at was unpaved, and is to this day. How hard could it be? The map said it was 1.8 miles to my next turn off from the start of Flat Iron Roof Road, and I’d already covered .5 of that. Even my rudimentary math skills could reveal that 1.3 miles away, I would be on my destination road, and who knows how long it would be if I turned around and took my chances without a local map.

(Note to self, next time, take an old-school local map.)

Bottom line, I had an appointment and limited time in which to make it. My best bet, take the 1.3 miles of unpaved, unmarked roads.

Did I mention the leaves that covered Flat Iron Roof road? No? Well, let me say, leaves covered Flat Iron Roof Road. And it indeed is a very, very narrow road, and minimally tended. It was a very, very rough drive, and my speed probably didn’t get above 10 MPH. The leaves disguised large holes in the road, and I started to feel like an old west settler in a Prairie Schooner. I watched the odometer click…

click…

click…

Until I was past the 1.3 mile mark from when I had gotten off the pavement. Completely nestled in trees, there was absolutely nothing else in sight, and it was awfully quiet.

Now, being a writer, I have a vivid imagination, and I’m not afraid to use it. And yes, I did consider these deep, dark woods in context to the movie Deliverance, which is one of the very few movies that really creeped me out. Still does.

Flat Iron Roof Road is just wide enough to fit a car, so the only way to go the other way is to back up. Not an easy chore on a twisting, turning, leaf covered, unpaved road.

So, I drove on. Yes, I was sure I heard banjo music in the distance.

But I drove on.

Finally, on one side, a house.

I exhaled. One house became two, and up ahead, pavement. No road markers, but glorious pavement and a line down the center. I turned onto the road, and within a half mile had found a sign that indicated I had reached the road that the luthier lived on. Just a few miles up the road, the house I was looking for.

Okay, so my destination wasn’t Boiling Springs, and that’s why I never made it there. But, hey, I have to keep the suspense up, right?

Right?

In the end, my Martin guitar found its way to the capable hands of the luthier, and there it remains, the crack in its top and its very dry condition being healed. I mentioned to him that I’d come via Flat Iron Roof Road. "Never heard of it." He was more than happy to give me alternate directions back to the main road I was going drive back home on.

I followed his instructions to the letter and had a nice, uneventful trip back home.

When I go back to pick it that guitar, I think I'll bypass Flat Iron Roof Road.

Flat Iron Roof

2011-11-07T19:28:00.006-05:00

So, I told you about the recent Rickroll I endured.

“Big deal, happens all the time to all kinds of folks. That doesn’t prove the Internet is out to get you.”

No, perhaps not, but the Internet was not satisfied at a simple Rickroll. No, that turned out to be a warning shot across the proverbial bow. The Internet was not done with me. Not by a country mile.

My Martin guitar developed a crack down the top, and needed the attention of a reputable luthier, so I searched the Martin website for someone not too far away, skilled in this particular brand. As luck would have it, there was one a mere 45 minutes away, according to Google maps, that is.

I phoned the fellow and made my appointment. Affable chap.

He’s out in the country, a smaller town than the one that I call home. I printed that Google map of the very direct drive from my house to his shop. After leaving my town, there were just two turns to navigate then I’d be on his road.

With my Martin guitar riding shotgun, I set out.

The first road from my town would be the longest stretch. A familiar road I’ve traveled countless times. I reset my odometer and monitored it closely, looking for that first turn: Flat Iron Roof Road.

Okay, so the name of the road gave me a bit of a chuckle, but this was out in the country. I’ve heard of stranger ones. I drove for about a half hour up a familiar road, until it ascended north beyond my previous explorations, but I had my trusty map, and the odometer clicked off like clockwork.

And, right where it was supposed to be, there was the sign: “FLAT IRON ROOF ROAD.”

Heck, this was easy. And why not? Google maps have always pretty reliable, right? Yes, the road was a bit narrow, no center or edge lines, but nicely paved. And the map said it was just 1.8 miles on this road until I would be on the road that led to my ultimate destination. I mean, really.

What could go wrong?

I turned up Flat Iron Roof Road and started into dense woods.

Wait. Was that banjo music I heard?

To be continued…

Windmills

2011-11-02T04:30:00.007-04:00

The last time I went to the Oregon Coast, I had just gotten my driver’s license. My dad let me drive the family car into eastern Oregon. I passed a car on the freeway, and started back over to the slow lane.

“Not yet!” Dad said. “A good rule of thumb is to not start over to the other lane until you can clearly see both lights of the car in your rearview mirror.”

I didn’t drive all the way to the coast that year. I wasn’t really up to it. Still learning, and an eight plus hour drive would be beyond my capacity.

During my recent trip out west, my middle brother and I set out for the Oregon coast early on a beautiful Tuesday. We started earlier than we needed, figured we’d make some stops along the way. He took the wheel first, but a couple of hours in, I took over, probably not far from where dad took the wheel from me on that last trip to the coast when Gerald Ford was President.

This day was perfect. Windy, and in that, perfect.

I’m sure there are thousands of things that have changed since I last went to the Oregon coast, before the United Stated turned 200 years old. I know that the number of the interstate changed. The towns along the way are bigger, or in some cases smaller, but the change that stuck with me was the windmills.

Hundreds of windmills.

Miles and miles of windmills. They never seemed to end, all along the Columbia River basin they were strewn. At one point, we saw a semi pulling a single blade of one, and while the windmills are obviously large where they stand, I was positively stunned at just how large this single blade was. The driver of the semi was struggling to make the off ramp turn with the thing.

Perspective.

I don’t know if there were many windmills when I last traveled to the Oregon coast, when I was still in high school and H.A.S.H. jeans were all the rage. (Does anyone remember those decidedly northwestern designer jeans, with a star on the right back pocket, of the 70’s?)

The windmills would, for this trip, come to represent the time I was having. It was a tie back to my trip to Ashtabula with DeDe, where just outside our room, a single windmill turned during the days.

Windmill, harnessing of the wind for power, is a very old technology that is coming into vogue. I, for one, am glad for this, as it is one of the least intrusive ways to harness power.

Something old, renewed.

As I drove the long interstate through Oregon, windmills on the left, and windmills on the right, I was always certain, when passing a car, to insure that both headlights were firmly in my rearview before I changed lanes.

And I drove the rest of the way to my eldest brother’s place on the western end of the state.

A wonderful drive, a completion of a cycle started years ago.

Hear, hear

2011-10-30T05:04:00.008-04:00

I'm not usually a "me too" kind of guy, but some times, it's appropriate.

I agree with M. Christian, who agrees with Alan Moore, who said:

"A sex scene is a way of getting over very important character information, just as much as a fight scene it, and the reader really shouldn’t be looking at it as, ‘Oh, this is purely thrown in for titillation.”

For another lucid opinion on what erotica is, check out Lisabet Sarai's excellent post at Oh Get a Grip!

I hope the weather is pleasant where you are. We're recovering from a rare October snow storm. This year's weird weather continues.

Rickroll

2011-10-28T03:09:00.004-04:00

Rickroll

Psst. Keep it down. It might hear you.

The Internet has it out for me. I’m not kidding, it’s stalking me. At first, I thought it was just chance occurrence. No, it’s done it a couple times.

Shh! It’ll hear you!

See, first there was this Rickroll. If you don’t know what a Rickroll is, let me explain. If you do know, well, maybe this story will sound familiar.

Say you’re a fan of John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin and Them Crooked Vultures, and you do a search on You Tube of blues musician extraordinaire, Seasick Steve, who JPJ played with. You’ve got to check that out right?

Awesome! Love that homemade-hubcap guitar Steve is on. But look, over there, on the right of the screen, a recommended clip. John Paul Jones solo. Not one with a lot of recorded solos out there, got to check that puppy out. (Unfortunately, sharing of this clip was disabled, so here is a link, if you’d like to check it out.)

Here

But wait, what’s this? "John Paul Jones Epic Lemon Song Bass Solo (VERY RARE)"

How could a JPJ fan resist? The mouse quickly darts to the right, almost with a mind of its own.

Wait, I'm no fool. That isn’t John Paul Jones. Rickroll! That's the song “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. Sigh. A four year long running joke. I thought I’d gotten past those, could see one coming. I guess it was bound to happen.

To cleanse your mind of the Rickroll, apply John Paul Jones’ awesome post Zeppelin song, “Snake Eyes” to the affected area:

Anyway, the internet wasn’t satisfied with just the Rickroll. Oh, not a chance of that.

More on that later…

The True Terrain

2011-10-24T05:21:00.005-04:00

When I tell people I’m originally from Idaho, those who know of it but only at the most basic level, will often assume that the winters must be so much harsher than here in Pennsylvania where I live now.

While this is true up in the mountains, the Treasure Valley, where I grew up, was actually quite mild. It surprises many that, in twelve years of public school, I never had a single snow day.

Lord I wanted one, but my feelings about school are another matter.

When I have returned to Idaho via airlines over the years since I moved away in 1980, there has always been a comfort, a familiarity, that overcomes me when we begin to descend, and I see the familiar brown soil and scrub vegetation of the foothills that lead into Boise airport, and this most recent trip back to Idaho was no exception.

Despite the fact that the population is growing in leaps and bounds, and vast stretches of land are being gobbled up by developers, the unique desert terrain remains in effect outside these influences.

There is a smell, a rawness, that comes when a rare measure of rain hits this soil. We were treated to a very brief rain on my second day in Idaho, as if just to underscore my love for this scent. A wonderful, brief, resonant moment.

Visits with family, meeting my brother’s granddaughter, the first born of the next generation of our family line, and a total character, right in line with the Sorensen way.

But the trip at hand was about three brothers, reconnecting. The brother three lives in western Oregon, so after some family meals and a few drives around the Treasure Valley, we started out for the long drive through the state that borders Idaho on the west.

We enjoyed the Coen brothers movie, True Grit with popcorn and root beer on the last night in Idaho for this trip, then got to bed early.

We would start early.

To be continued…

Loop, Endless

2011-10-18T04:22:00.004-04:00

Back in the early 1980’s, when I was first getting into the computer biz, they released a book called The Devil’s DP Dictionary, which was a lampoon of computer related terms of the time (remember when Information Technology was called Data Processing?)

Anyway, one of my favorite gags in the book was the definition of Endless Loop. First you find, under "E":

Endless Loop – See Loop, Endless

To which you go to the L section:

Loop, Endless – See Endless Loop

This tickled me no end. It tickled me up until, well… It’s best if I just explain.

Chicago was the scheduled change over in my flight from Baltimore to Boise. I got off my plane in concourse C, at around gate C10, and I headed toward the middle of the concourse to find one of the Departure boards. It took me a little while to spot one. It read:

Boise, C31

The far end of concourse C, but I had plenty of time. I stopped along the way, got a bad cup of coffee and a good croissant and continued on my trek to C31. Above the door, of the gate:

C31 – Puerto Vallarta

Um, did I read that board right? I went to the nearest Departure board.

Boise, C2

Pretty sure I didn’t read it that wrong. But, what the hell. I’m only 51, I can handle this walk. I don’t even need the conveyor belts. I sauntered the length of concourse C, but something told me to double-check the Departure board as I neared the far end.

Boise, C31

Oh, Come on! (Note that a smarter man would have known he was at about gate C10, closer to C2, and continued to that one to check in with the associate there. But this is the man who removed the input connection to his old dishwasher, and when the water spewed out, didn’t turn off the valve right under the sink, no he ran downstairs and turned off the water into the house.) Ahem.

So, you can guess what happened. I turned around from the board that declared C31, with my bad coffee and my un-eaten croissant which was beginning to grow stale. I walked the length of concourse C, stubbornly staying away from the little conveyor belts, and returned to C31 – Puerto Vallarta.

“Pardon me, lovely miss, keeper of Gate 31, checker of bags, scanner of tickets, assigner of seats-” said I, with a smile most fetching.

“You’re going to ask me if this is the gate for Boise.” Clever girl.

“That thought had crossed my mind…”

“As far as I know, yes, this is for Boise. I'm still checking.”

Comforted, I sat down at one of the open seats facing C31, and ate my stale croissant, glad that it hadn’t formed mold yet. I drained the last of my bad coffee, now cold.

A familiar voice, clever, smooth and creamy, echoed from the podium by C31. “For those of you flying to Boise, there has been a change… Gate C8.”

Sigh. And I reversed directions yet again, down the length of concourse C.

Yes, I used the conveyors.

See Endless Loop.

Getting a Grip

2011-10-15T03:51:00.005-04:00

Pop quiz:

What to Emma Thompson:

Dave Grohl:

And I have in common?

Well, probably not a thing, but I didn't let that stop me from mixing the three of us up in my post as a guest at Oh Get a Grip! today.

The topic this week is "Works in Process" and I'm sharing an excerpt from my current labor-of-love novella titled Hair Mettle.

Please stop by and, get a grip with me!

Bound, and couldn't be happier...

2011-10-10T19:21:00.005-04:00

With everything that has been going on during and since my vacation, I forgot to mention an upcoming collection, Shanna Germain's first collection with Cleis Press, which includes one of my stories.

The amazing collection is called Bound by Lust and the lineup is impressive. I'm proud to be part of it. Check it out here.

This collection is extra special for me because my contribution is a personal favorite, something a little different about an elderly couple called "A Beautiful Corpse" that I wrote a couple of years ago.

When I read the call for the collection, and saw it was Shanna who would be editing, my eyes lit up. I love and admire her style, and I thought that this unique tale might appeal to her.

Happily, it seems I was right.

Here is a little taste from the collection, the opening refrain from "A Beautiful Corpse:"

I sometimes wonder if I’d even be able to get out of bed without you. What, with my lower back the way it is. After a night’s sleep, it might as well be a rusted ball joint, for all its flexibility. I wish everything was so stiff.

And what about you, getting down the stairs with that knee that only bends twenty percent of what it originally did?

No, you pulling me up to position, and my bracing you down the stairs, well, it’s just a part of our day.

We never talked about it, but I came to realize you bought into the idea “live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse” as much as I did. And what a beautiful corpse you would have left. Oh, that day we met. You seemed so sweet and innocent, your skin was white as a dove, your eyes blue as an early spring sky, your hair a rare red like a five-alarm fire.

Heads turned to you like to a meteor falling to earth. Not the least of which was mine.

First came learning that you weren’t so innocent. An aggressive lover back in a day when “good girls” didn’t do that, you opened my eyes, opened my clothes, stripped me nude and lay on top of me. You opened my throat, my mouth, my legs. You took my voice, my tongue, my cock. You took me the way I was accustomed to taking women. You weren’t my first lover, but the way you opened me, you might as well have been.

Bound by Lust is available for pre-order.

Things I missed...

2011-10-05T19:56:00.008-04:00

My lady...

Gibble's Red Hot Potato Chips...

Writing...

(no, the above is not my computer, but I do dig it anyway.)

Things I didn't miss?

Rain.

Seems it rained most of the time I was out west. When I first got there, DeDe told me the forecast was for rain until the day I would return. She said I would be bringing the good weather back with me.

Well, the day I returned, it was not only raining, it was gushing. My first words stepping from the old Isuzu Trooper were "sorry, I'm a miserable failure at bringing back the good weather."

But I was welcomed home warmly anyway.

I had a great vacation. Enjoyed the company of my brothers, and the wonderful scenery of the Pacific Northwest (pictures to follow,) but it's good to be back.

Oh, and that weather? Well, the rain finally hauled ass out yesterday, and today was perfect.

Yeah, it's good to be home with my lady, eating Gibble's Red Hot Potato Chips and writing.

Life is good. Hope yours is too.

Playing...

2011-10-02T06:08:00.004-04:00

Last week I was out west with my brothers, a reconnecting of sorts. We haven't seen each other in years, and when we do see each other, there is always some sort of family event involved, so we see each other here and there among other activities.

Middle brother came up with the idea that the three of us get together, just to spend time with each other.

I had high expectations for the event, and was surprised that it exceeded it.

I got to see other family members as well, spent some time in the rapidly changing landscape of the town I grew up in. The three brothers went out to the beautiful Oregon coast, truly one of the most magnificent places on the planet.

I envy oldest brother who lives near and has a place along it.

A very, very full week, and by the time I got back to long-term parking at Baltimore-Washington International Airport last night, I was plenty tired.

So, today I rest, and tomorrow, I will play...

Yes, catch up. Sorry.

Oh, in my travels, I saw the product whose image graces this post, and I must have it! So I'll be placing an order from Melinda's soon.

Anyway, if I owe you something from last week, I promise it will be coming soon.

Hope your week has been a great one!

A Song Before I Go

2011-09-23T04:06:00.005-04:00

A song to say good bye to R.E.M. who called it quit as a band this week. Sorry to see them go, and I wish them the best in their future endeavors, whatever they might be.

This song was my first exposure to them, and was an instant favorite:

And with that, I bid adieu. I'll be away for a week or so, but promise to return with photos and tales of my travels around the Northwest USA.

Western Flyer

2011-09-21T03:26:00.005-04:00

At the end of this week, I'm flying west, to the land where I grew up. Land of my forebears (at least in the last century or so,) land where my mother and brothers still reside.

Usually when I get together with family, there is some sort of event behind it, but this gathering is just about three brothers getting together and reconnecting in a way we really haven't been able to in... well, in decades.

Good conversation, good food, good memories.

Limited access to the Internet.

So pardon me, if you don't see my (virtual) smiling face around blogland until after October 2.

Don't trash the place while I'm gone...

(Special thanks to DeDe for the beautiful painting, "Sunset, Oregon Coast" above.)

Storage Wars

2011-09-16T04:42:00.006-04:00

I'm not a big fan of TV show. I tend to like some of the HBO series like The Sopranos, and The Wire and I watch each season of A&E's Mad Men when it first runs. Otherwise, I mostly watch movies or music programs, and whatever everyone else is watching.

Don't even get me started on "reality TV."

And then came Storage Wars. I saw the commercials for the program and thought "what a stupid idea!"

One night DeDe was watching it, and I turned my attention to it.

And I was hooked.

I don't know what it is. In part, I suppose, it's my fascination with finding treasure among trash; I love flea markets and yard sales, and have lifted up some really nice finds for pennies on the dollar, but I've also made some bum purchases and foolish sales myself.

To quote Omar from The Wire, "it's in the game, yo."

And I must say, sometimes I love a good game.

As the buyers go through their newly purchased lockers, I love to try to find the gems before they do, and revel in the surprises they unearth. Both good surprises, and bad.

But more so, the fun in Storage Wars is the cast of characters. The maestro of abandoned storage locker purchasing, Dave, plays most of the others like a harp from hell. All except for Barry, who is an outsider who just has a good time looking for unusual things for his collection. This makes him a fly in the ointment for the others as he sometimes bids them up. Darrel seems bound and determine to prove himself, but often goes home empty handed. Auctioneer Dan has that distinct style of a master salesman and that fast rhythm as he tries to get the most proceeds from each locker.

A young couple, Jarrod and Brandi, learn the ropes along the way and bring some sex appeal.

There are a few reasons I should kind of enjoy Storage Wars, but there is absolutely no reason I should love it.

But I do love it so.

With the next new episode on Wednesday, I can hardly wait.

Meanwhile, DeDe and I are going to hit some flea markets today.

Who knows what we'll find?

It's in the game, yo.

An Author's Dream

2011-09-13T04:24:00.006-04:00

Early this year, I took a bit of a hiatus from short story writing, which I have been working on steadily since 2005. My intent was to finalize some edits to a longer work, one that I've been developing, rewriting, reworking, rethinking, retitling, reconstructing and generally tinkering with since 1988.

I brought some writing closure to it a few weeks ago, and I'm now working on the publishing side. Meanwhile, I'm taking a hiatus from my hiatus, and doing some short stories again.

Kristina Wright's call for romantic military themed short stories spurred me on, since my novel has a military theme too. For a time, I worried that my short story writing chops might have gotten rusty, but now I have three short stories I'm working on, and it feels good to get the more immediate feeling of starting and finishing a story in a comparatively short span.

And what does all this have to do with the title? Well, I don't know that I'm living any Author's Dream, but I'm still loving what I do, waking every morning and doing some aspect of writing; my favorite kind of work.

I'd love to be living Erin Morgenstern's Writer's Dream. The one thing I take heart in, is how much effort she put into writing her book, "Night Circus." I take heart in that it seems she wrote it out of love for the story, and it grew naturally and organically, sometimes unpredictably. I understand at least that much of her experience.

Do I believe that if I put such effort into something I write, I'll have a bidding war by major publishers over my work?

I'm not delusional.

But I do believe in happy endings, even if they might be much more modest happy endings than a six figure advance and a movie deal.

All said and done, I wish Erin the best with her first novel; I hope it meets the expectations laid upon it. It does seem an intriguing idea, though not necessarily the sort of story I usually gravitate toward.

Me, I'll work on a few more short stories while I continue to work on the publishing side of my novel, and find it an appropriate home.

And in doing so, I dream on.

Up Next? Locusts.

2011-09-09T04:58:00.006-04:00

In the north east, an earthquake followed closely by a hurricane. In Texas, epic drought and wild fires. All around where I live, record flooding, the Susquehanna River is running higher than it did for Hurricane Agnes, which was called a "hundred year storm."

As in, once in a hundred years. Well, that was in 1972, significantly less than one hundred years ago.

Yesterday, people at work who live six miles away were trying to figure out how to get home, with so many roads closed. Water treatment plants are getting flooded, and one of the great ironies of flood comes to pass: In a flood situation, it is often hard to find potable water.

I don't know, folks. I'm thinking locusts next.

That's all I can say.

Oh, and if you see water in front of your car, and can't see the road beneath it, please, please, please don't drive into it, even if you think it's shallow...

Observation

2011-09-05T05:17:00.004-04:00

Today, someone special to me hits a milestone. That point in one's life where AARP starts tracking a person down like a hunter with a sub-machine gun -- "Join our club, damn it!"

Why should I be the only one on AARP's most-wanted list, eh?

Far from being on that list, we spent her twentieth birthday in a charming little odd shaped apartment in the small German town of Leitershofen. We had so much to learn, about ourselves, about each other.

I took off from work early and bought an assortment of gifts, which I hid around the apartment, and prompted her to find them, sometimes having to prompt twice! "I've got a headache, could you get me some aspirins from the medicine chest?"

She came back with the aspirins. Ahem.

"Um, come with me." I took her back and pointed out the perfume.

It was a wonderful day, as I found that my lady, usually very observant, could become so focused on a task that she might miss things around the task. One of the many charming things I love about my lady.

Today her birthday falls on Labor day, which is fitting, because she's a hard working woman. I'm going to keep her lazy, as best I can: Make her breakfast, take her out for lunch, and general spend time in her company.

Happy birthday, My Sweets.

Irresitible

2011-09-02T04:51:00.005-04:00

Indeed, resistance is futile.

From the opening story by Heidi, to the closer by Donna. And all points in between including stories by Janine, Justine, Elizabeth and,well...

Here is the full lineup for Rachel Kramer Bussel's collection...

It's certainly Irresistible!

Actually, that's the name of the collection as well...

Twice Shy - Heidi Champa
Safe for Work - A.M. Hartnett
Repaint the Night - Janine Ashbless
Same As It Ever Was - Cole Riley
Out of Control - Karenna Colcroft
Warrior - Kate Pearce
Hypocrites - Alyssa Turner
The Pact - Elizabeth Coldwell
Exposing Calvin - Rachel Kramer Bussel
Six Eyes, Two Ears - Kris Adams
Renewal - Delilah Night
The Netherlands - Justine Elyot
Predatory Tree - Craig J. Sorensen
The Mitzvah - Tiffany Reisz
After The Massage - Kay Jaybee
Pink Satin Purse - Donna George Storey

The collection is available for pre-order at Amazon!

I Went Back to Ohio

2011-08-31T03:15:00.003-04:00

In the months that have followed our trip to Ashtabula, Ohio, I’ve returned there many times in my mind.

Some moments of our lives are inexplicably memorable. Nothing about the moment seems memorable as it is happening. I distinctly remember sitting with DeDe in our apartment in Germany, a beautiful spring day, watching Armed Forces Network TV, and the TV movie The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank was playing. It was just a perfectly, pleasant end of a work day while I was in the Army, but for some reason, the moment stuck, and the feeling I had then refreshes me like a cool drink on a hot day. I have a number of such memories of seemingly mundane moments that I cherish.

But all during the trip to Ohio, I knew this would be memorable, and not in the “what a nice vacation that was” sense. I knew it would be memorable, and three months later, this is proving out.

Certainly, becoming a part, in some small after-the-fact way, of DeDe’s past is part of that. Certainly having a frame of reference when she tells me about AHS, or the Library where she used to seek solace between the covers of books, and the bowling alley across the street where sometimes the kids would cut class is part of this. I walked on sidewalks that she once trod so many years ago. I witnessed her spirit, or at least the reflection of it, in her beautiful, sometimes tired eyes.

But other things stick as well. Ashtabula is seriously depressed. Many lovely old buildings are in disrepair or abandoned. The roads are often very rough, centerlines faded until they are almost non existent. Construction has been started, and ended, leaving half grown projects around town. But the Ashtabula Art Center, another place that DeDe has treasured memories, is as beautiful as the day it opened.

But as remarkable as any fact is that the people of Ashtabula are so warm and nice. I’ve done a bit of traveling, and these people’s kindness and spirits ranks with the best. The food was great (well, the sushi, not so much) as was the service. This is not a tourist hot bed, but it is truly a nice place to go and to be.

In DeDe and my first years of marriage, the song “My City was Gone” by The Pretenders was released. We bought the album Learning to Crawl on Vinyl, then later replaced it with CD. All along the years, we’ve listened to this song, and sung the words, “and the farms of Ohio, had been replaced by shopping malls. And muzak filled the air from Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls.”

Over the years, we talked many times of going “back to Ohio.”

But you know how things are. Things happen when the time is right.

In May of this year, there was no doubting that the time was right. It had been thirty years since we had last been; we set out. And though it may sound cliché, the timing was perfect. Perfect weather, perfect little motel, perfect marina down the hill, perfect park, perfect lakeside retreat to skip stones into the immeasurable distance.

Perfect.

All through the trip, we listened to satellite radio to be our soundtrack, which also was perfect. But I kept waiting for the familiar bass strains that lead into the song, “My City was Gone.”

It never played.

DeDe’s city, as it turned out, was immeasurably changed, but not gone. Like her it had soldiered on through tough times, and came out the other side with a great spirit and warmth that some might strange considering what it has been through.

DeDe’s city was not gone, and I’m glad it wasn’t.

I’m glad I went.

The Earth Moved

2011-08-24T04:55:00.003-04:00

Indeed, the earth moved.

Yesterday, I came home early to try to fend off a case of the creepin' crawlin' crud. As I sat, quaffing a Powerade, we heard a soft rumble. A couple of items on shelves shook softly.

We'd been through them in Southern California during our three years there, so it was not entirely foreign, but in the context of Pennsylvania, it was. DeDe said, "why are we having an earthquake?"

I had to wonder myself. There is an uneasiness that accompanies earthquakes, and that becomes even more prevalent when one considers the temblors that impacted Haiti, Chile, New Zealand, Indonesia, and most recently Japan. Those events notwithstanding, there still is a loss of basic security that we take for granted when the earth begins to quake.

In three years in San Diego, we felt several quakes, and they never really got to be "old hat." And so it was yesterday when the earth moved under our feet.

Gentle though it did move in our distant proximity to the 5.9 epicenter.

Less than a mile away at work, our daughter wasn't aware of it until she tried to make a call for a co-worker who had a flat tire; she couldn't call out. Reports of the event came over her web connection. Our son, working at a new start up store across town, where trucks come and go several times a day, but where none were scheduled for yesterday wondered why he'd felt a truck pass by so close.

As I sat and waited for the soft rumbling to stop, I recalled the first earthquake I had felt in San Diego. I was at work, and things felt uneven. The monitor on my computer began to toss from side to side rather dramatically. "Earthquake," a co-worker declared flatly, and he stood up and went to an archway. He stood there until the rumbling stopped, then sat back down like nothing had happened.

I had recently moved out to California from the eastern US, and my former boss called me. "You ready to move back?"

"No, I'm good."

And I was. It wasn't the reason why I moved, and I went through several more.

Still, I don't think I'll ever get used to earthquakes.

The Scent of a Morning

2011-08-20T04:53:00.006-04:00

Yesterday I drove my son to his work early in the morning. The sun had just risen, and light Pennsylvania haze turned the orb bright orange in my mirror of my old Isuzu as I turned and drove west.

Cars beginning to move along York street and the smell of exhaust.

Yesterday was all about smells. For some reason, the air near my house smelled slightly meaty. The high-school football stadium that I drove past is being fully renovated, and there is the aroma of freshly turned earth as the heavy equipment, just starting for the day, beeped on the reverse gears, groaned on the forward ones. Nearby, relegated to a side field usually used by little-leaguers, this year's crop of orange and black clad students begin to prepare for the impending season.

The football field renovation is far from done, so I wonder where the boys will play their first games. It will be soon. Autumn, mercifully, is not far away now.

I drove on, and the largest cemetery in town smelled sweet. Sort of like anise. The smell of spirits bedding down for the day? Good night, I mean, good day, ghosts.

I've known all along that the town I live in is a fragrant one. A number of industries and business in this small place see to that.

And this makes me happy for where I live. Happy for those moments when I'm out driving in the wee hours, because the smells seem more alive then. More fresh.

I hope things smell nice where you are.

The Edit Year

2011-08-15T04:15:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, in retrospect, I’ve noticed that certain years have had, what seem to be cohesive themes. The year I started writing in earnest, 2004, was a year of creation; I wrote hundreds of thousands of words, many of the were crap. In 2007, when I had my first stories published, a year of self realization.

A year of poetry. A year of rhythm. I’ve had these along the way. Is it strange that I give my years themes? Probably.

Nonetheless…

This year is not yet done, but it already has its theme: The Edit Year. And by this, I don’t just mean editing as in stories, though I have done more of that than any time before in my life, but I also mean in other ways.

DeDe and my trip to Ohio, that I have been exploring on this blog, was in away, the editing of some life experience. Editing out misconceptions, splicing in long lost facts, clarifying points, making order of disenfranchised events.

Musically, I found a strange middle ground: Years of playing around with guitar and drums led me to try my hand at bass, and in it I’ve found satisfaction. My rhythmic ideas have merged with the tone, and I’ve found a comfort with the instrument. I feel at home on the bass; it is a splicing of two theories (at least in my mind.)

At work, we continue to try to replace our highly customized system solution with an out-of-the box one. Much to learn there; there is no doubt that this is an editing of sorts, taking one solution and trying to fit it to another. Trying to blend of two realities.

I’ve been editing the purpose of my blog. I’m still working on that, but getting very close to making sense of it. or at least I hope so.

A good friend is dusting himself off from a failed long-term relationship, and now he moves forward, having to look backward. Editing the things that remain precious from his prior life into a new one. It is a hard edit.

Okay, maybe I’m using the word editing liberally, but in my mind it makes sense.

Back to my editing, in a writerly sense. This year I have done so much of this, have searched through what works and what doesn’t. I’ve adjusted my technique, and thankfully had some excellent help.

One of my weaknesses in long pieces is my middle game. I have this tendency to edit the fuck out of the beginning and end of a book, and somehow the middle doesn’t seem to get the same result. I’m conscious of the weakness, but a weakness it remained.

Until a week or two ago. DeDe and I were talking creative processes, and I talked about my issue. And she presented to me, such a simple solution. A numbingly simple solution. A slap your head and call it macaroni (I have no idea what the fuck that means, maybe I should edit it out) solution.

“Edit cover to cover for continuity, then break the book into small, equal sized sections, and edit theses parts in random order. Then do a final edit for continuity.”

Fuck. Why didn’t I think of that? Doesn’t matter, because the idea is there now.

I took a book I had finished, but felt like it needed something. I knew it suffered from the sag at the middle (like me.) I broke it into three chapter sections which I worked in no particular order. It gave me a fresh perspective as I worked each section.

I’m in the middle of my final continuity edit, and I’ll be damned if the book isn’t a lot stronger now.

It’s never too late to learn. It’s never too late to edit.

Corner Where Hope Began

2011-08-08T20:07:00.006-04:00

With full stomachs from our excellent breakfast at Perkins, the last place DeDe had eaten before she left Ashtabula, we launched backward in time to the very first place she had lived.

Nearby, her first grade school, an abandoned building scheduled for demolition, but defiantly standing, overgrown basketball courts behind and a long field that extended from them to a factory. It was here that DeDe and her first boyfriend set out each day from school to their homes.

Each day, he carried her books, his mother followed a respectable distance behind, until they reached the top of the street where DeDe’s house was: Hope Avenue. There, he handed her the books, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and bid farewell.

After DeDe and I spent some time at the old school, we went to Hope Avenue, and we lingered in the car for a few moments as she took it in. She stepped from the car and I followed, as she walked up the street. For most every house on the street, she could name the families that lived there, often all the kids in the family. She told stories of many houses: The neighbor lady who detested most of the kids in DeDe’s family because they were destructive, all but DeDe. This neighbor took meticulous care of her yard, and she liked DeDe as she appreciated its beauty. A few houses down from hers, she recalled that a kid ran straight through a plate glass window. It was the same last name on the mailbox.

I couldn’t get over how much she knew about these neighbors. You see, she was about seven when they moved away from this house.

When we got to the corner where Hope Avenue began, we stopped and turned around.

“Is this the place where your boyfriend used to send you on your way.”

“Yes.”

I kissed her on the cheek. DeDe doesn’t blush easily. She blushed, and gave me a smile that reminded me of when we first met. When I first held her hand, put my arm around her.

We walked up the uneven sidewalk of Hope Avenue. A walk she had taken so many times as a little girl. As we walked, she told me more stories about life on Hope Avenue for a short period of time in the 1960’s.

And as we walked, I found a poetry in the name of the street. I’d known of the unpleasant stories of her life on Hope Avenue, and had, until that moment found the name ironic. But her memory for the lore of the street, her knowledge of the people, illustrated a little girl who was dealing with a family she did not understand, a place she did not fit. And so, she searched. She found other people, other lives, and she poured herself into them. And in them, she found her glimmer of hope. Enough hope to carry her for another decade, long after she no longer called Hope Avenue home.

We slowly walked back to the car. Took one more look at the house.

We set out to drive to the next house she lived in.

Musician Logic

2011-08-05T04:36:00.002-04:00

…sometimes we’ll write something and let it sit for long periods of time. It’s amazing what doing nothing to a song can do.

-Mark Hosking of the band Karnivool, Guitar Player interview, January 2011 issue

T’is true, the good that nothing, applied in appropriate measure and at the right time, can do. I love it when a good nothing comes together…

Happy Friday.

Breakfast Bookends

2011-07-30T05:25:00.006-04:00

There are those who say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I think it was an ad agency selling some sort of bland cereal. Cue deep voiceover, “part of this nutritious breakfast.”

When I go out to breakfast, I have a litmus test for any new restaurant I go to. I order an omelet. I love me a good omelet, when I can find one.

On Route 20 in Ashtabula, Ohio is a Perkins Restaurant. This was the last place DeDe ate before she moved away in 1980 to join the Army. Early in the morning, she met her Recruiter there, and he bought her breakfast. She sat at a booth that overlooked the end of the Fort Avenue, where she had lived in most recent times. She wondered what the near future would bring, and despite the fact that it involved yelling drill sergeants and climbing towers and throwing live grenades and a miserable hot freaking South Carolina summer, deep down she believed it would be better than what she had known in the years of her life to date.

It was mid-morning, a beautiful morning, and the place was not too busy when DeDe and I arrived at Perkins. A homespun, friendly waitress seated us and brought us our menus. I asked DeDe where she had sat that early morning she left. A look over her shoulder, then over mine, and she determined it was either in the booth we were sitting in, or the one next to it, as they were the only places where the view to Fort Avenue was right.

The waitress returned. I ordered a ham and Swiss omelet.

And as DeDe and I sat, I appreciated that this restaurant was sort of pended. It was an older Perkins, had a natural, countrified look. A new extension, a small room off to one side encapsulated in glass, was new, contrasting the age of the place.

We waited for our breakfast, a little small talk and some thoughts on where we would go and in what order for the day to come. I looked in DeDe’s eyes, and remembered them from when I had met her, not long after she had that last Ashtabula breakfast in this very restaurant. A young woman, both strong and vulnerable, she was one who put on a cheerful face that surrounded mysterious and dark eyes. Petite and sort of girlish, there was an age on her.

And though we were about to embark upon a journey, working through places she had lived, places she had gone, I saw a youth in her eyes as I looked across the booth here in 2011. Anticipation? Yes. Apprehension? Yes. But a certain freedom was clearly part of the formula.

I expected rather standard fare from our breakfast. Perkins is, after all, a chain, and predictability is a key part of the equation. And yet, the omelet I got was the best one I’ve ever had at a Perkins (I’ve been to quite a few Perkins over the years, all across the US.) It was one of the better omelets I’ve ever had. Period. We resolved that we would come back the next day, to this very Perkins. Maybe just to confirm that our breakfast was indeed that good.

But this first full day in Ohio stretched out before us. We had places to visit, memories to unearth. We finished our delicious breakfast, and it was indeed the most important meal of that day. Not far away was the house DeDe spent the first years of her life in. We would walk paths she hadn’t walked in years.

Unearthing pasts is hungry work.

A Cool Gap

2011-07-26T05:23:00.006-04:00

This morning I woke up to find the air conditioning not on. Doesn't seem such a remarkable thing, until you consider that it's been on for I don't know how many days straight, with breaks very few, very far between.

Hotter'n a mo-fo.

Last week I did some shopping in my twenty-year-old Isuzu Trooper (with air conditioning that does not condition the air, but makes a hell of a noise in not doing so) and it was about 100.

Along came some rain.

Yay!

Not yay. It was that sort of rain that hits the ground, turns to steam, and just makes things hotter. I got home drenched, and not from the rain. Prosecuted a long, semi-cool shower. Thankful for the A/C that was running 24/7 in the house.

Yesterday, some real rain came in the afternoon, and though it's still sticky, it's cooler. A short lived break, then on to another heat wave, or so say weather prognosticators.

A good day to stay in and write.

I hope conditions are nice where you are, or that you have good air conditioning.

The Rules of the Room

2011-07-22T03:40:00.006-04:00

At the fulcrum of our trip to Ohio was one of the smallest motel rooms I’ve ever stayed in. It was rustic, and not in the carefully-crafted-wood-furniture-bent-into-shape-with-bark-still-on-it sense. It was more in the not-antique-but-old-furniture-complete-with-old-school-color-tv-sporting-fuzzy-picture sense.

We picked it for its location. A town DeDe remembered just a little, and less than a half hour from our destinations. It overlooked Lake Erie, and this was something DeDe really wanted. We deliberated on a number of possibilities, and this small, local motel got good reviews online, with one caveat: “The rooms are quite small.”

Ahem. Yes. We noticed. On the upside, the first day we arrived was bitter cold, and the heat unit, which looked very much like the one that heated my grandparent’s shoebox house in downtown Boise back in the 60’s and early 70’s, could bring the temperature up in quite quickly.

When it worked. Mostly, it worked, with a little prodding. And, no matter, the day after we arrived, the temperatures started to play nice. Very nice, for that matter.

DeDe and I came to love our little motel room. In a day and age where on-grounds restaurants and coffee-makers-in-rooms are the standard, this little place had neither. Nor did it have phones, and cell phone reception was a hit-or-miss affair. Quiet, overlooking the lake, adjacent to a park, where I saw a momma deer and her little ones wander along feeding, then disappear into a nearby stand of trees in the early morning.

No coffee maker in room, DeDe and I went out early each morning to buy two cups of coffee. One extra-large-extra-strong with a couple of squeezes of half-and-half to take off the edge, one medium gourmet roast with a measure of half-and-half as well. We bought them from a convenience store that we would visit daily, pick up the local paper, and return, talk about the day to come and firm up our plans, and generally enjoy each other’s company, she in the small side chair, me sitting on the bed.

When DeDe wanted to get away from the memories, we returned to this room, and truly it began to feel like a home. Walk down to the marina, or just walk in the park, and admire the nice old houses near by.

And, of all these things, the thing I loved the most about the place was the atmosphere. Genuine, workmanlike, it suited me; I could hear the echoes of the voices of fishermen who came up to put their boat out in the marina below.

Fisherman? Why do I assume fishermen? Check rule number five, underlined, in the below set of rules from the wall just inside the door of the room:

If you can’t read it, it says, “Positively no cleaning fish in room.”

Of course, I also like the last rule: “KEEP NOISE DOWN OR YOU BE ASKED TO LEAVE.” Night one, we had a rather drunk fellow check in, who be rather loud in the wee hours, and as far as I know, he never “be asked to leave.”

All things said and done, I loved this room. It was a haven. It was a brief home. It was awkward, and for some reason, I slept quite well, despite my usual insomnia.

The room was the thing they were thinking of when they invented the word cozy.

I’ll remember it more completely and fondly than the best hotel room I’ve ever stayed in.

Making Pledges

2011-07-18T04:11:00.005-04:00

The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made president should, on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are the problem.

Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Sometime I’ll tell the story how I was very interested in politics in my youth for what, upon reflection, looks like it may have been hours, heck, it could have been days. Suffice it to say, I now write fiction, computer programs and project plans and manage to not be Politically Correct.

Now, I watch with morbid fascination, as those who have been elected to govern The United States wrangle around and around, putting its economy at risk going back and forth, back and forth as they try to find a satisfactory middle ground on the matter of the country’s debt ceiling.

Hundreds of these “leaders” were stupid enough to sign a document that they would not increase taxes. Senator John McCain, running for President in 2008 declined to sign it as it would hamstring him if he were made president. On that account, I admired his thinking.

Here’s the thing. Sometimes taxes have to be raised. Sometimes they have to be re-distributed, and to sign a blanket agreement that limits the way one might approach a problem is absolutely stupid. Now, those who did are stuck, wrestling with their pride and the threat that next election year they will be ousted for making a sound fiscal decision. And the tax raise in question is really just letting a tax break for the wealthiest Americans lapse in 2012. Pardon me, but if I was one of the wealthiest Americans (I am not, but for the sake of argument) I would be willing to put some money back into our government to insure we can pay our bills, and keep our economy strong.

Here’s the other thing, oh signers of blanket agreements before the facts unfold: Yes, you signed this blanket document, pledging a vow to the ideals of a lobbyist, who shares the same name with a cute Sesame Street Muppet.

But you signed a more binding and important oath: to govern this country responsibly.

So fucking do it.

I apologize for this political diatribe, and pledge forthwith to never do it again.

Well, until the next time I do it…

Forgiven?

Still Overpass

2011-07-12T05:23:00.004-04:00

On day one, as we approached the motel where we would be staying in northeastern Ohio, DeDe had become increasingly nervous about what she might feel as she looked upon the places she’d lived or been. She worried about the floods of memories that might greet her. The days she had lived in Ashtabula had been hard, and though she’d faced many memories, sometimes proximity releases unexpected wolves.

For our first evening, we had planned to just visit a few places near the motel, places with scant, mostly good memories. But we realized we forgot some things, and decided to go into the town of Ashtabula, where she grew up, to shop for a few specific items; the town we were in had very little in the way of places to shop. We found a superstore on the west edge of town. We could have taken our purchases, and headed back to the motel, and left our explorations of her past haunts for the next day, as was the plan. But we decided to turn westward, just to pass by each key location and take a look at what had changed in thirty years.

It was as if DeDe had never left. She directed me around the town ably, remembering things that were still there, and pointing out the many things that were gone. We passed by houses where she had lived from age 0 to age 19. But one place was different.

As we drove the main road through town, DeDe directed me to take a left, where we passed a failed strip mall, which had been built and died in the relatively short span of time she had been away. She was taken a little off guard as we ascended over an overpass, also constructed somewhere during the brief life of the strip mall.

Beyond the overpass was the only place where I saw her truly confounded by her surroundings. We ran the full length of the road until it reached the top of a hill. We turned around in the parking lot of a school she had once attended, and returned down the road. She got her bearings, named different places along the way: Where she’d walked her paper route, where she used to walk home from school, a little store her sister and she used to go in on the way, then we passed a place where houses once stood.

To be clear, DeDe knew that the houses were gone before we traveled. She’d heard that they had been leveled for some sort of greenbelt.

Across the street from a large facility near the overpass, a facility that appears to be all but closed, stood a field. Extending down one side of a garage at one end were used cars. We drove past this place several times as it all sunk in.

The houses, four in total, two which she had lived in, were gone, and in their place, a simple place of commerce. It was not what she had expected. Purchased by a relative years before, and with great plans declared for it, the houses had simply been razed, and for what purpose?

In a sense, the notion that the houses which had been leveled had become a greenbelt had become a sort of symbol of redemption. Something beautiful and natural standing where pain had been. But… a car dealership? Just more commerce in a town that reeked of failed commerce?

She was indignant at the result, and each time we passed, she pointed at the familiar auto repair garage, then to four houses that weren’t there, used cars poised for purchase on the remains, and named each house like a ghost only she could see.

And somehow, this expression of indignation released a deep layer of tension. We returned to our motel, several towns over, far from the immediate memories. DeDe, nerves uncoiled after the first shock of reality, slept beautifully through the unseasonably cool night.

Tomorrow, the first full day in Ashtabula loomed less ominously.

We crossed that overpass too many times to count over the course of the trip, and it seemed almost purposeless. We rarely saw other cars on it, never saw trains pass on the tracks below. An overpass, seemingly serving no real purpose. A simple railroad crossing would have done just fine.

We later discovered that the houses had been leveled, and the foundations left standing naked for many years, only recently being filled in by the owner of the garage who finally bought the land to expand his business. That, in itself, is a story.

But for this first drive through town, and for several days to come, this was a place we would drive by, time and time again. DeDe pointing to the site of each house, where rows of cars now stood, and naming each one.

Perhaps, a lingering goodbye.

My Romantic Side

2011-07-07T04:05:00.006-04:00

This week, I was quite pleased to find out that my story, "The Draft," will be included in Best Erotic Romance 2012. It's a story that I started years ago and have edited off and on since. A true labor of love, as befits a romantic story.

I was indeed happy the story was selected by editor Kristina Wright.

Then I saw the table of contents, which is not only a serious dip of the ladle into the erotica / romance talent pool, but includes a good many of the authors that gathered for a dinner in my neck of the woods a couple of years ago.

So special down-home congrats and a "glad to be between the covers with you," to my friends Donna George Storey, Emerald, Erobintica and Heidi Champa!

Best Erotic Romance 2012
Table of Contents

Introduction: Simply the Best
What Happened in Vegas - Sylvia Day
First Night - Donna George Storey
Another Trick Up My Sleeve - Heidi Champa
Drive Me Crazy - Delilah Devlin
He Tends To Me - Justine Elyot
Guest Services - Angela Caperton
Memories for Sale - Andrea Dale
The Draft - Craig J. Sorensen
To Be in Clover - Shanna Germain
Honey Changes Everything - Emerald
Cheating Time - Kate Pearce
Our Own Private Champagne Room - Rachel Kramer Bussel
Till the Storm Breaks - Erobintica
The Curve of Her Belly - Kristina Wright
Dawn Chorus - Nikki Magennis

The collection is available for pre-order at Amazon.

Another Year Older

2011-07-04T05:27:00.005-04:00

The good ol' US of A is another year older today. 235 years old, it is.

Makes the 51 that I turned last Friday just a babe in the woods. And like most babes in the woods, I still have lots to learn.

It was a great birthday, with humor and lovely gifts and family and one of my favorite meals of all times, and a beautiful birthday cake with marscarpone frosting.

Yum.

A couple days before the birthday, I got a rejection of a short novel I'm shopping around. It was very complimentary about the writing, they want to hear more from me, but stated there were problems with the middle of the book.

Being honest with myself, after I'd sent it out, I'd had a niggling about the middle of the book. The first lesson learned is I have to listen to myself fully before I go sending out a submission.

Anyway, as I reread the section, I realized that there were indeed some clunky points in it. I was hanging on to some images that had been part of an earlier draft of the book, and really wasn't necessary, and might even be construed as confusing. I stripped out the crap and combined two chapters into one.

As I did this, I realized something more crucial. The story, in it's current form, also had some "half-measure" writing. By this, I mean I had attempted to tailor the book in such a way to make it more salable (or at least, in my own mind, it was.)

I've often said that I'd rather be rejected for my work not fitting a call than accepted for writing something that isn't "me."

In this case, I was rejected for writing something that isn't me.

And I'm grateful. I'd have never been happy with the result if it had been published.

Happily, the book is not that far from the mark. I need to go back and return the imagery and the characters to their intended form.

The second lesson learned is that sometimes a present can come wrapped in ugly paper, and hold an excellent gift within.

For today, I will barbecue some meat, and enjoy the good ol' US of A's birthday.

Anyone who has been watching the news lately, that this country has lessons to learn too, but I won't go into that here.

Happy Fourth of July!

Traveling a half-span

2011-06-27T05:17:00.005-04:00

Northeastern Ohio, like many places with long histories, and where the snow falls copiously in winter, is home to many covered bridges. As DeDe and I planned our trip and researched the area, covered bridges were a recurring theme. I thought I might want to visit one or two that were in close proximity.

DeDe, as always, was a step ahead, and planned for us to visit a very specific one. More properly stated, a half of one.

After our first day of travel, we were predictably hungry. DeDe chose a place had been constructed just a few years before she left Ohio, and the memories that it carried for her were largely good ones. It was conveniently located not far from the motel we would be staying in.

It seemed a great place to start her journey. As it turns out, it was an excellent one.

The place DeDe chose for lunch smelled wonderfully of old wood. It was dark, as befits a structure with minimal openings for windows. It was like no restaurant I had never been. “Is it how you remember it?” I said as I took it all in.

“Pretty much.”

Covered Bridge Pizza, in North Kingsville Ohio, was constructed using parts from a covered bridge which had been painstakingly dismantled. Half of the span had been reconstructed in the location where we were, half in another nearby town. We took our lunch late, and had the place pretty much to ourselves.

Before that moment, I had only visited a few places from DeDe’s past, and those had been thirty years before. Those had been when I knew DeDe just a little, before we explored the scars of her past together. Truly, I knew so little of the details that made up my lady then. I felt that I knew so much now.

The sub was good. The company, of course, was excellent, but it was the look in DeDe’s eyes as we talked, as she took in this place from her past for the first time since she had been a teenager, that told me she was beginning her voyage already.

I thought of covered bridges, and that when you pass over one, the river below disappears from view. You are suspended above the rapids, only knowing the soft sound that filter through thick boards as you traverse above and move on.

In a sense, she had been upon a covered bridge with her memories for the past thirty years, surrounded by old wood, hearing only the echoes of the rapids. What she had realized as we decided to make this trip, was that it was time to know what the river below looked like, face them, so she could move on to the next destination.

Yes, I had come to know her well in the prior thirty years; we knew we were about to learn a good deal more.

Warning: Romantic Content

2011-06-20T04:58:00.004-04:00

I’m not the most romantic man, but I do have my romantic side, which tends to come in fits. Forewarned is forearmed: This is one of those moments.

This is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. The music, the words, the whole package. Plays in my head, probably daily. Funny, but when I went to look it up last week, I didn’t even know who had done it. I was surprised to find it was from a band I have long enjoyed, The Climax Blues Band, whose album “Gold Plated,” I wore to as smooth as a baby moon hubcap back in the 70’s. This later release, the song “I Love You,” I remember only from the radio.

Since then, I never looked back. It’s almost like living a dream.

Thirty years, to the day, I stood on a rock, with the gorgeous redhead in the below picture, and spoke a vow to her. The song above had been released just a year before. Somehow, in all those years, I never managed to put this song and my lady together. I’d never put the song and the band together either, but that’s not too surprising as most of the band didn’t like it.

Sometimes one person can see a thing more clearly than those around him.

There are those who say that everyone experiences second thoughts on their wedding day. Some have told me I’m delusional, some have said I’m full of shit when I say I did not experience even a pang of second thoughts on my wedding day, or on the days leading up to it. But it’s true.

I started to write a poem late last week, thinking forward to today. I wrote while I was listening to the song. Wrote a few stanzas. Some weak, some promising. The usual first draft. Edited, wrote a little more. And I played this song over and over, and remembered some thirty-odd years ago.

Thinking back on where I was…

I was playing around, feeling down, hitting the beer.

A writer always wants to find the right words. It’s what we’re expected to do. But sometimes someone else already said it so well. Sometimes that writer had the foresight and consideration to put those words to music. Such is the song, “I Love You” from Climax Blues Band. Words and music by Derek Holt.

Thanks again for being my friend, and straightening out my life.

To the lady who married me thirty years ago today I say:

If ever a man, had it all, it would have to be me.

I may finish that poem some day, but now, I feel complete.

A Past with a View

2011-06-14T05:15:00.004-04:00

As DeDe and I planned our visit to her home town, we began to consider that, being her first visit in thirty years, where we would stay was important. Is it best to thrust headlong into the fray, stay right in the heart of it all? There was indeed a nice bed and breakfast, just three blocks from one of the places where her family had once lived. There was a place along the river with a view to some familiar places. This seemed the best approach, and we teetered on the edge of making reservations at one of these two.

Back in the late spring of 1995, we moved from Idaho to Pennsylvania. The drive across the US was necessitated by a job change, so while we did pause in a few chosen destinations, the trip was set to be relatively quick: Six days.

One brief stop that DeDe wanted was to take a look a Lake Erie, and we determined one of the most convenient places to stop was the city of Sandusky, Ohio. It was near the freeway we were traveling.

DeDe looked forward to seeing the lake, though this was many miles from her hometown. Perhaps because it was many miles from her hometown. The day we passed Sandusky, and turned from the freeway to drive to the shore, clouds began to gather and consolidate. We rushed down toward the coast. We arrived and were able to see maybe a few of miles into the massive lake and no more. And we got about thirty seconds of this limited view.

The storm began. And it was not just rain. The rain was pouring down so hard, the only way I could navigate was by the taillights of the car in front of me, my windshield wipers on high speed, and really not doing any good at all. It was probably the most violent storm I’d driven in to date. We had a room reserved many hours down the road, and the day was fading. The only thing I could do was manage to retrace my steps back to the freeway, driving very slowly, guiding on the beacon of the lead car. Not long after we got to the freeway, the storm cleared out.

She had gotten a view of the lake, but since that trip, she has wanted to get back to the lake, and see its total breadth. Sometimes we considered that the time must not have been right in 1995, and fate intervened. So when we finally decided it was time to return to Ohio, we knew that taking in Lake Erie would be an important part of it.

We began to consider that, with some memories that might be stormy and intense, we should not stay right in the town where she had lived. We widened our search for lodging, and looked at a resort town to the west of her town, then a crossroads town to the south, where there was a nice, new, Holiday Inn Express and a Hampton Inn. Most larger towns have one of these now, an impersonal place where a couple of good chain-style motels crop up.

But then it all made sense. We decided to stay in a small town north, along the coast of Lake Erie. The motel had just six rooms, and the only negative comments we could find online about this it was that the rooms were small. It sat far from resorts and masses of weary travelers, within walking distance to the edge Lake Erie. We would be certain to get a good view of the lake, unless violent storms that lasted a week descended upon us!

We arrived, sixteen years, almost to the day, after that storied visit to Sandusky, at the small motel that sat on a bluff overlooking a harbor and the lake it served. And though there was no violent storm waiting for us, an unseasonable cold had settled into the area the day before, and was continuing in earnest. The air was bitter as I opened the door to the car.

We settled into a chilly room, and started the heater, which smelled old and pended, but threw heat in rooms by the barrel full. The room went from fifty degrees to seventy quickly.

Outside, through the haze that accompanied the unseasonable cold, we could see the marina below, and the harbor it served. The edges of the breakwall that defended the harbor disappeared into the mist.

We had arrived at the edge of Lake Erie, but DeDe still could not see clearly into its Great Lake expanse.

Ticking Slowly

2011-06-09T05:04:00.004-04:00

It's only Thursday. Another week that seems to be ticking slowly.

I am not complaining, mind you. I'm just noting that I've had many weeks lately that seem to linger, though I am plenty busy.

Since taking the vacation, I'm sleeping better. Rising around 4:00 or 5:00 instead of 2:30 - 3:30. Well, today it was more like 2:30. Hopefully the exception that proves the rule.

Happenings at work making me wonder what tomorrow will bring, but in truth, it seems that is always the case; I imagine I sound like broken record on that account.

I'm reveling in watching my kids navigate their young adult lives, impressed by each of them in their own way, and wishing them the best as they move forward.

Today, work looms with its questions. Today, I still try to figure out the next step in my writing; another thing that seems to be stuck, in a certain way.

So much to figure out, so much to do. For now, I'll be thankful that time is ticking slowly, and take each day as it comes.

On the Road Again

2011-06-07T05:23:00.003-04:00

I’ve driven on some of the finest, well maintained roads; thick pavement smooth as the blade of a knife cutting butter. I’ve driven on pock marked roads that wouldn’t let the car get over ten miles an hour without jumping like a train that left the tracks. Long, true roads, wide as six cars. Narrow roads that barely hold one.

I like roads, and the challenges they afford. Roads are transitions, in real life, and symbolically. I can’t count how many times I’ve said I was a long-haul trucker in a previous life. I’ve driven across the US a couple of times, and up and down it as well. Four hour trips, four day trips and longer. I enjoy other forms of travel, but give me miles on the road any time.

So it was an easy decision when DeDe and I resolved to traveled to Northeastern Ohio to explore her distant memories. It was a mere six or seven hour’s drive. Child’s play.

DeDe and I have traveled together since we first met. We flew miles and miles to come back to the US when we got married in June of 1981, then back to Germany as a married couple. We would fly again, take trains, and of course, drive, many times over the ensuing years.

As we took off from our home for our planned journey to Ohio, the sun had not risen. I drove a couple of hours on familiar thoroughfares, then she, the co-pilot, navigated a rather sticky series of changes in State College Pennsylvania (note, I have still not given in to GPS,) after which, we settled on long, true interstates across the middle of the state, then veered up to the north on a sparsely populated freeway.

The place we approached she had not been to in thirty years, not since we came back to marry. She had certainly talked of this place over the years. Difficult memories, a few good ones. And that was part of the point, to find more of the good, make sense of the bad. Still, we talked little of these things as the drive progressed. We talked about the weather, talked about memories that went with the songs on the satellite radio.

Back where the journey started, our house is close to the Maryland border. When we head south, we often talk about how we can easily tell, without looking at the “Welcome, Drive Gently” signs, when we get into Maryland, by how much better the roads are (you Pennsylvanians know what I’m talking about.)

Now as we approached Ohio, using a rough, small two lane road DeDe was not familiar with, I said “we should be in Ohio soon, or are we already?”

“Oh, you’ll be able to tell, when the roads get better,” she said.

It was not long until we saw a sign declaring the Ohio border. The tires sounded a little louder on the pocked and patched roads. The paint that usually demarks the edge of the road and the center line had been almost obliterated by age and disrepair.

“Yes the roads are... well, they are different, aren’t they?” I said.

And she laughed. “Welcome to Ohio.”

Boulders and Pebbles

2011-05-31T05:41:00.004-04:00

When I write a story, my favorite subject is transition. Life changes, eye opening shifts, bending perspectives. Sometimes large, sometimes small.

A shift can seem monumental, a boulder that falls to the water then, mysteriously, results in a spit of a splash. Sometimes a pebble drops in a lake and seems to result in nothing, until you see how large the ripples are as they extend outward.

Speaking of lakes, not long ago, DeDe and I went to a town on the shore of Lake Erie. It was a place that I have been to only once, and that visit was years ago. It was a brief visit, and one that left me with fragments that have take on a great meaning with the full measure of time.

The place has much greater meaning for DeDe. But, like me, she had not been back in a good many years. To go back would be a voyage of discovery for her, and I held absolutely no doubt that the journey would momentous. I knew, just being part of this, that I would feel a part of this transformation and would sense this gravity as an observer.

How wrong I was.

Truly, this was a voyage of change for me, personally. A great change.

When I blog, just like when I write a story, I like to blog about changes. Witness my explorations of my time in Germany, my Army training days, the changes when we have moved long distances. And most of these are at least, to some degree, a more distant memory.

But this is story of change in the here and now. It is a story how, me seeing places for the first time, and seeing DeDe’s recognition of these places, not seen since before I met her, has made me grow in leaps and bounds. It has changed my perspective on DeDe, and it has changed the way I view myself.

It was just a week. Actually, it was less than a week, but it felt like so much more. That too, is a marvel. As most of you know, vacations go far too quick. This one seemed to linger. In a good way.

Each day revealed new things. Each day we ventured forth, and explored new places, explored old memories. And of all the things that happened, there was one sure thing that came from each and every day: Change.

So, for the next few weeks, I plan to ponder this seemingly small pebble of a voyage, and how the ripples have already begun to form and grow.

It all started in a rented car, on a rainy, dark, early morning. A six hour drive, two long time companions and a satellite radio…

Still On Vacation

2011-05-27T05:14:00.004-04:00

Well, in a way. I am back to my nine to five, and have been the entire week. Such a busy week it has been.

And yet, I'm still on vacation.

Usually, when I take vacation, I use a fair amount of the time for writing. Certainly, I enjoy this time. Writing is my creative passion; I write nearly every day. Vacations, weekends, holidays, workdays. By all accounts, this is a good thing.

Which leads to the ages old question: Can the be too much of a good thing?

Maybe it depends on the thing. And what is too much?

Aside from a couple of blog posts, I haven't written a thing in nearly two weeks. The empty spiral notebook I took on vacation remains empty. I haven't opened a single Word document.

Feels strange, but feels freeing, in a way.

To not write for a stretch of time feels cleansing.

In The Analects, Confucius said: "There are three hundred songs in The Book of Songs, but this one phrase tells it all: thoughts never twisty"

Thoughts never twisty. I've always liked that phrase, and I try to live by it.

I've been writing so long, so consistently, that I forgot what it feels like not to write. I've taken a day or two here and there not writing, but it's just not the same thing.

Thoughts never twisty.

Perhaps thoughts, ideas, writings, creative ventures, are like phone cords. Eventually, the just twist around themselves, and you need to unplug one end and let the thing unfurl back to its natural form.

This week, I read, I watched The French Open tennis, played some music, talked to my family, cooked, worked. But no writing.

Yes, I've missed writing.

But stepping back, taking a breather, has let me clear my mind, untwist some things and clear up my focus. Maybe on the other side, I'll find new inspiration, or a new perspective on an old one.

Sure, I'll get back to writing, probably sooner than later. But for now, I'm enjoying the sensations of my creative thoughts untwisting.

Right now, I hear the sound of tennis balls hitting rackets and clay, and players grunting as they hit ground strokes and volleys, so I'm going to get a cup of coffee and enjoy.

I hope your week has been a fine one.

Back in Town

2011-05-23T05:25:00.005-04:00

A week behind me. It seemed a whirlwind, and yet, the blink of an eye.

A venture to a place I've been to only once before, and that, thirty years ago. Much has changed, as could be expected, but my reaction to the place was not as I expected.

The economy is depressed there, even by current standards elsewhere, but the people were as nice as any I have found in the many places I have been during this life. Half finished projects around the area display a place pended in time when there was still hope that was summarily dashed.

And yet, there was beauty. Much beauty. Unexpected beauty.

In a way, this was a working vacation: A delving into the past for someone dear to me, and me along for the ride. I was grateful that I was able to contribute to the effort. In doing so, I learned new things about someone I've loved for decades. I dug bricks from the damp soil, and walked paths I have never walked, while my lady told me stories of years gone by.

What a memory she has! I always knew this, but I didn't know how deep it went.

I ate sandwiches and potato chips on a piece of driftwood, then skipped stones into Lake Erie as hard as I could, as if I could make the flat, round rocks I found on the beach make the trip to the Canada side.

Sunday, we left the motel very early, took the long drive home, anxious to see our family again. Ready to cross the chasm from the distant past to the immediate present again.

It was a great joy to cook again, after a week of restaurant food and sandwiches made in the room. A simple meal of linguine and clam sauce.

I feel like there should be some aim to this post. I always like to close my blogs on a point, but maybe the fact that I don't have one yet is all part of the experience and where I am now.

All I know, is there are hundreds of pictures to sift through. I have a week of work waiting for me at the office. I left my damned wallet in the rental car, so I have to dash over there this morning and retrieve it. A fluorescent light in the basement emits a smoky smell when the A/C is running, so I'll have to replace the light.

In short, back from vacation and life awaits. I'll find comfort in what I need to do and getting back into the routine.

In the meanwhile, last week will play over and over in my head, and I'll have much to explore in it.

So I better get to it...

Disconnect

2011-05-15T04:29:00.004-04:00

Last week was a very full week, personally speaking, and also a rather odd week, Internet-wise.

Early on, I discovered that I had no Internet connectivity whatsoever. It turned out my local service provider was doing some sort of work in our area, and we were shut down for a little over a day. Several times, during that period, I found myself convulsively going to my computer as if the connection would be there.

Less than two days later, Blogger went into “read only” mode while they are doing some sort of maintenance or fix, and again, I tried to get into my account, could see my blog, but could not sign on, or if signed on, could not get in. Comments disappeared, entire posts disappeared.

It’s funny how dependent we can become on our connectivity, but there was a bit of poetry to the disconnect.

This coming week, my sweetie and I are taking a vacation. It is the first vacation we have taken together, without kids in tow since, well, since Reagan was president.

And we chose, not a luxurious hotel in some exotic destination, but a simple motel on Lake Erie. No internet connectivity, no room service. Just a stay in a simple, homey place, some nearby restaurants. Some visits to some specific destinations with some very special meanings. Time for us.

Time for her.

I do relish my virtual connectivity. But this week, my connectivity will become exclusive. No line into the office, no line into the internet, not even access to my writings on my computer.

Yes, my connectivity will be with just one, and very organic in nature.

So, for now, I am Lights Out. I'll see you in a week or so.

Craig

The Erotic Prude

2011-05-11T04:59:00.003-04:00

Yesterday a co-worker, who had been out of town for a few days, stopped by with two t-shirts in hand. Both were black, with bold white lettering, messages of a salacious nature. One of them was emblazoned with the words, "the last woman who blew me won the lottery."

Not sure that was the exact wording, but that was the essence of it. The first shirt had something about getting blow jobs as well, the message a bit ruder.

He asked me which of the shirts I would like.

Maybe it's my sense of the erotic, maybe it's my sense of humor, maybe both, but I answered "neither." I hate to be ungracious in the face of a kind offering. And I suspect, from the rather surprised look on his face, that he might have thought me a prude.

Ahem.

I imagine this fact surprised him too, as I probably don't come across as prudish.

But the truth was, I wasn't really amused by the slogans on the shirts. Didn't find them funny. In a way, I found them offensive; I wouldn't wear either of them.

The strange thing was, I think he was a bit put out, even offended by my refusal. I ended up wondering if I should have just accepted one of the shirts, and left it in the bottom of a drawer.

I'm glad I didn't, but it just seems one of those events, slightly ironic, slightly strange, that pass in our lives.

File under: For What it's Worth

Few Words

2011-05-03T04:55:00.003-04:00

By nature, I'm a man of few words. Spoken words, that is.

As my life has gone on, I've found I'm a man of many written words.

I've tried to be a man of many spoken words along the way. Seemingly, this was something I would need to "get to the next level" in business.

I started in the business world in the yuppie '80's. I had my power ties and my three piece suits and I set to climbing the ladder.

And climb I did. I began to learn the things a person needs to know to work up the ladder. The practical things, the technical things, and did my best to adapt to them. But as one reaches toward the top of any ladder, one must take a moment to see if they like the view.

I discovered that climbing ladders wasn't what I wanted, whether this comes with few words or many.

I've become more content, as life has gone on, to be myself and let the chips fall where they may. And part of that has been fully accepting that I am indeed...

A man of few spoken words.

A man of many written words.

In the corporate world, I have sat on the same wrung of the ladder for years. Sometimes I lament this, thinking I should have done more, fulfilled my potential that started with my first official management position at the age of twenty-seven.

It's a strange thing, because I was only able to finally make sense of these tendencies recently, and that this sense came from playing music. My musical voice, like my spoken voice, has been elusive. I've tried so many things musically, different instruments, different forms, different musical ideas. I've never been satisfied with what I have done, musically.

Searching, always searching.

What I realized recently is, that in a world where more notes is the standard, I am a man of few notes.

And in life, I am a man of few spoken words.

Excuse me while I get back to the words I have many of.

Sleep. Blessed sleep.

2011-04-26T06:02:00.003-04:00

I'd meant to blog today, and did some preliminary work on a few ideas yesterday.

This morning, I woke up before 1:00 AM, which would usually mean I would have had plenty of time to work one of those ideas through.

But, for once, I made a fight of it. I got up, did some bills, balanced the checkbook, and laid back down around 2:30. I laid there staring at the the dark lamp by the bed and listened to Anthony Bourdain in the background. I laid still, tried to count back from a thousand. I tried time and time again to "clear my head."

Then, somewhere in there, a wonderful thing happened.

Sleep. Blessed sleep.

I woke up at 5:30, the latest I've woken up in years. My son was up and getting ready to work, and he'd made coffee.

Someone had made coffee before I got up? You know, it tastes extra special to wake up to fresh made coffee by someone else.

I can't call it a great night's sleep, since I was up for a couple of hours in the middle, but it was a very good night sleep.

The downside? You're stuck with this rambling post about my sleep habits (or lack there of.)

Sorry.

I better get to work on some fiction before the day gets away from me.

I hope things are good in your corner of the world.

Presbyopia

2011-04-22T05:23:00.004-04:00

I haven't found much time to write poetry recently, but my poetry writing is like that. Sudden flurries of activity, followed by long gaps of inaction.

Unfortunately, while many of my online friends have been working dutifully at exercising poetry muscles this month, I've been conspicuously inactive.

But this little poem popped into my head at work. Written in probably three minutes, edited for another five, I won't claim it's fully formed. In a sense, I feel good about presenting it this way, because that is the spirit some other poets around the web have been working from. Anyway, here it is:

Presbyopia

© Craig Sorensen

She looks at me
     over
          her reading glasses

Then through

Seems it is always
     like that

Over then through
     me locked
          between both planes

Of vision

She always reading me
     reading me
          reading me

Like a sign
     or a book

Rarely both

Brightside Crossing

2011-04-19T05:02:00.005-04:00

As I write this, The Messenger project is mapping the surface of Mercury from the planet’s orbit and producing delicious detail shots like this:

(Image courtesy NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)

Before The Mercury Space Program began in 1959, a science fiction author wrote a story set on the first rock from the sun. In the time he wrote it, up until the mid sixties, Mercury was believed to by tidally locked to the sun, and that one face was permanently trained on it. This would potentially leave a narrow strip where consistent, habitable temperatures could be found. On one side, unbearable heat, on the other, bitter icy cold. In my middle school years, not too long after the tidally locked Mercury theory had been disproven, I read that story, called Brightside Crossing, by author Alan Nourse.

I don’t recall if I knew that Mercury turned more than one rotation during it trek around the sun then, I'm pretty sure I did, but it really didn’t matter. The notion it was predicated on, that something so close to the sun might create a habitable place, and the adventure this afforded as Nourse imagined it, has stuck with me all these years.

That is what a good story is all about.

One of the things I worry we lose as we become more and more bound to our knowledge, and how very easily we can access it, is what sort of toll this might take on our imagination. On the one hand, beautiful and fascinating images such as we are getting now from Mercury’s orbit are a direct result of all our technological growth, and we become wiser. On the other hand, we risk becoming muscle bound of the brain. We risk becoming so pumped up on the knowledge, that we lose the agility to imagine new possibilities.

I was able to locate a copy of the story Brightside Crossing recently. It sits, ready to be read. And I hesitate.

I wonder if the magic will still be there, more than forty years since I last read it. I wonder if the knowledge of the facts about Mercury will somehow temper my imagination in a way they did not back then. I wonder how the critical thinking that comes with age will impact my perspective on the story.

I don’t know, and I’m thinking that sometime soon, I’ll just have to find out.

But for now, I savor the yesterdays where I read science fiction stories, just as man was beginning to venture past the Earth's safe atmosphere. I was never that kid who wanted to be an astronaut, but I was always fascinated by space, and the limitless possibilities of it. I remember, as a child, looking out into the night sky and pondering infinity. My human mind said, “the universe must have an end,” my imagination and spiritual mind said, “okay, so what’s on the other side of that?”

I want to always remember how to imagine. Sometimes I’m just too earthbound, too worried about structure and rules and plausibility and safety.

Yes, I’m thinking of heading to Mercury and maybe risk a Brightside Crossing.

And yet, I hesitate.

Mercury Rising

2011-04-12T05:08:00.007-04:00

Today, I woke up and planned to finish my blog post, part 1 of my exploration of thoughts on Mercury by writing of the space program that bore its name.

It put a smile on my face when I opened a window on my PC to find the following Google landing page:

Anyway, one day, a day before 16 May, 1963, my big brother hauled me downstairs in the wee morning hours and plopped me on the couch next to him. He turned on the TV, and told my mother that what was being shown on the old black & white was historic, and that I should see it.

Being as I was less than three, I don't remember, but I sat with my brother on the couch as they counted down, and one of the many Mercury Space Program flights lifted off. My brother was fascinated by the heavens, and I’m willing to wager I was more than happy just to share this with him. Maybe I was gnawing on a teething biscuit at the time, but I bet I was happy to observe.

Some years later, my big brother brought a telescope back from college. He bestowed it upon me as he didn’t need it anymore. It was long and cool and shiny, and it had light filters for viewing the sun and moon, the light of which would burn the eye if not filtered. They turned the images from the lens a green color, and I got my first view of sunspots with it.

My first viewing of the stars at night with my brother, he pointed the telescope at a rather dark section of night sky, one with relatively few stars visible. He aimed with the fine tuning knob then pointed at a particular star for me to look without the lens. “What do you see near that star?”

“Nothing.”

“Now, look in the telescope.” He verbally guided me to a dimmer star that sat very close to the larger one.

“Now, look at the star again without the telescope.”

Better than any magic trick, my brother had shown me what it was to discover a star. I could not see the star with my naked eye until I knew it was there.

I’m not sure which Apollo mission it was, but for one of the walks, the moon was in plain view to the naked eye in the night sky. I set up an old Admiral black and white TV out on the patio in the back of our Idaho home. I turned on the TV and adjusted the antenna to get maximum reception (a relative term back then.) As men’s feet touched powdery surface of the moon on the TV, I looked up into space, as if I could see them touch ground with my naked eye.

And in a way, I did. A moment I’ll always remember.

We are all born with varying degrees of imagination. We spend a lifetime attempting to reconcile this imagination with reality. I am fortunate that, in those early days of the Mercury Space Program, I touched the plane of space with my big brother, even if I didn’t understand it then. I’m fortunate to have learned from him how to discover a star.

Time has given me the opportunity to come to know that understanding is not always the end result of exploration. Rather, it is the seeking to understand, and the imagination to try to fathom that which is less comprehensible.

And it all started with Mercury.

Know Your Stones

2011-04-08T04:19:00.011-04:00

I wrote a poem earlier this week. I eyed a prompt from a talented writer whose work I admire, let it ruminate as I took my shower, dressed, drove to work and set about my usual toils. I let it turn like a stone in a polisher, then let it fall back into my palm.

Many talented authors are participating in Not Without Poetry as part of National Poetry Month. Cool, talented friends like Bill and Gina and Nikki and Robin and Shanna. A few days into the venture, I started reading the prompts and some of the poems as part of my minimum RDA of blog-reading-regimen.

These folks are churning out some nicely polished stones.

Each day I read then each day I turn to the longer works I've been focused on. Each day, Monday through Friday, I run off to my nine-to-five.

One of those work days, I wrote that poem. A poem about winter contrasting to spring, color versus black and white. A poem about a sickle moon and a purple hope and a field of fresh-baked-chlorophyll. I wrote it quickly on a bright sheet of yellow lined paper, folded it up and shoved it in the pocket neatly pressed to the battery side of my pay-by-the-drink cell phone

From time to time, pulled the paper out and revised here and there. I thought it was quite clever. Never a good sign.

I got home, unfurled the yellow paper, and realized that the poem rang false. It had some good ideas, it had some images I liked. It had some of kilter rhyming that pleased my ear, but it didn’t hang together.

I realized that sometimes you place a stone in the polisher, thinking that out will come a smooth, semiprecious gem. But, other than smoothing the surface, a polisher brings nothing else to the table. The rock that goes in is the rock that comes out, but with a sheen, and that’s the way it should be.

The poem I wrote was the poem of a man whose mind is elsewhere.

I’ve been asked a few times if I’m participating in Not Without Poetry. To one I said, I might.

As it turns out, for now, I won’t. The stones I’m polishing are not of the poetry sort, but I stand by in the bleachers, cheering my friends on in this endeavor, and I look forward to that day when the inspiration to write poetry returns.

To when I have the a raw piece of turquoise to pop into the polisher.

Until then, here is to recognizing what sort of stone one has in one’s hand.

Mercury

2011-04-05T04:05:00.004-04:00

Recently NASA has been sharing the first images of the planet Mercury taken from its orbit:

I’ve watched with interest, fascinated to see more of this small planet at its position so very close to our sun. It harkens back to when I was a kid and watched the United Stated space program advance through the first decade of my life and beyond.

I sat down to write a post for this week on theme of Mercury. I considered the meanings of the word of the up-and-coming post: Mercury.

Such a rich word in our language. So many meanings:

Mercury can be:

A Roman god
The first planet from the Sun
A liquid metal
A brand of car
The first major project of the space program
And more

And I started trying to incorporate various meanings into a singular post. It promised to get unwieldy, and I try to keep the length of my posts down, so I tried to trim it. The result was not pleasing.

There I sat with a handful of ideas on a theme, not quite strong enough to stand up on its own.

So I abandoned that idea.

But I liked the theme. The richness of the word Mercury, and how many things it represents to me in my life. I came to a conclusion.

If you can’t do it in one post, break it down!

So, for the coming weeks, I will be exploring many kinds of Mercury.

Until then, I’ll try to keep my puzzle pieces from being too puzzling...

Kinky Email

2011-04-01T04:06:00.007-04:00

I drafted up an email, recently, and prepared to send it.

Recent performance issues (of the internet connection, that is) have made surfing the web and related activities, well, sporadic.

So, I clicked send, and the little bar that charts progressed. It paused. It paused for a long, long time:

Ahem.

It seems that my email client and the recipient's needed some private time, so I turned away, but not before I could capture of the moment.

Well, what can I say, I try to be discreet, but I do write erotica after all.

Kinky Email clients doing nasty things.

For the record, we had our DSL upgraded this week, so it is unlikely that I'll be capturing many more moments like this, at least in my email, for the foreseeable future.

Hope you're having a happy Friday.

Snacking on Memory Lane

2011-03-29T04:24:00.006-04:00

No. I am not literally eating Memory Lane (mmm, tasty.)

But, it seems that makers of snack food products are trying to drive me to said lane with their retro products.

I mentioned back in June of 2010 how one of my favorite snack foods at the time was Taco Flavored Doritos. This was a favorite that went back to my childhood. As soon as they were introduced, I loved them. Another favorite from my childhood: Dr. Pepper. I believe I blogged on that in the past too, but I'm too lazy to look.

Anyway, recently Dr. Pepper has introduced "Heritage Dr. Pepper" which is made with sugar rather than corn syrup, and yes, there is a difference in the flavors. To drink one of these sends me back to when I used to build model cars on a battered old Samsonite table in my eternally messy bedroom.

Then, in a recent trip to the grocery store, I turned into aisle where snack foods are, and a bag caught my eye, amidst all the "modern" Doritos bags. I had to buy it.

The verdict? The "new old school Taco Doritos" are indeed very similar to how I remember the old ones. It may be that my memory has changed the flavor of these treats, which I used to consume in ridiculous quantity in my younger days. But the bottom line is, these snacks take me back, just like the Heritage Dr. Pepper.

Bring the two together, and I'm thinking of going out and buying a model of a 1957 Chevy, setting it up on a Samsonite table with a tube of glue and some little bottles of paints and getting to work.

But, given the low erotica content of today's post, you might want to stay in the here and now, and check out this review of Erica Lust's Good Porn, A Woman's Guide at Erobintica.

(Many thanks to Paul for the photo of my retro-treats.)

Appreciating Appreciation

2011-03-22T04:35:00.008-04:00

A good friend pointed out a simple truth to me recently: when a person takes time to review a story, they have taken time not only to read the work, but to share their enthusiasm for it. Certainly, when we write (or whatever it is we do) we want to touch people.

I wrote for myself for years. Know what I found out?

I’m not a very good audience.

So I'm undertaking to post, from time to time, about reviews of stories I have in publication.

Yesterday, I saw a very nice four star review of Kristina’ Wright’s upcoming anthology, Dream Lover which includes my paranormal tale Shattered Belle. This story was a labor of love. It was a challenge to give the impression of the bewilderment of a touch with the spiritual plane. A chance to tackle blend erotica with religion, and keep it hot. Kristina’s warm acceptance of the story was a reward unto itself. This mention in the review from Whipped Cream Erotic Romance Reviews was the perfect icing on the cake:

Shattered Belle by Craig J. Sorensen had me a bit confused at the beginning, however, it all comes together with quite a bang at the end. Belle is bound and determined to ensure the sanctity of her precious church while the stranger is set on only completing his task. By the end, you’ll find yourself nodding and saying, “Ahh, yes, I thought so!” and squealing with glee. A wonderfully woven story that will have you sighing with pleasure and constantly second-guessing yourself.

Another story I poured myself into was Lingua Acutus from Lucy Felthouse’s Uniform Behaviour. This story was a challenge in that I wanted to play with the notion of a drill sergeant and a recruit, but maintain a level of military respect. And, of course, keep it hot. So when the whirling dervish of erotica, Sommer Marsden, took the time to say:

But hands down, the stand-out star of this collection in my humble opinion was Craig Sorensen’s Lingua Acutus. The tone, the characters, the premise—that story stayed with me way beyond finishing the book.

If you know Sommer, you know how busy her beautiful mind is! To have this story stay with her beyond finishing the book? Enough said.

And finally, a short-short story in Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Gotta Have It titled “Going Bald” is an homage to women with honest curves. It tackles women’s self criticism, which is encouraged by our Madison Avenue obsessed society. The way we ascribe beauty to certain limited ranges of feminine attributes is simply wrong. Beauty comes in so many packages, and I wanted to explore a man who appreciates this, and how he touches the woman he loves. Thank you to Jello World for this review:

Going Bald, by Craig J. Sorenson [sic] – Women can be their own toughest critics when it comes to their bodies, so I loved this story giving a male perspective on the beauty of the female form.

So here’s to the union of writer and reader, celebrating the connections, and understanding the disconnects.

Here’s to more writing. Excuse me while I get back to it.

Stacked

2011-03-15T04:00:00.004-04:00

This was my way: buy a book I find cool, and start reading. For every six I start, I finish one. Bad fucking habit. Stacks all over the house.

Worse still were the piles of notebooks and .doc files that seemed to loom. Poems “completed” but hopelessly inadequate. A hundred hand-written pages that reached a point that I could not rein the idea in, because I’d built no foundation for the story. No outline, whether written or thought out. Short stories, file under “it was a good idea, but.” Sadly, I had a lot of “buts”.

A few years ago, I took one of my book ideas, one of my oldest story ideas, one that had percolated since before my voice changed, grabbed it by the balls and finished it. At least in a rough sense. What a wonderful feeling! I started a second book in a growing the series. I finished it. I started the third, then I started thinking about publishing it. I looked at the market.

Not a terribly marketable book, at least for a complete and utter unknown. Truth be known, my writing wasn’t exactly at up to par yet either, but that’s for another post.

I followed new passions, new stories, revived old unfinished ones from those notebooks with the yellowing pages and faded ink. Found myself knee deep in erotica, and elbow deep in happy.

Books stacked about the house, half read. Still, the unread books piled up. Non-fiction, short story collections, poetry collections, novels. Half read or less, on the nightstand, on the end table, in the basement next to the drums.

Bad fucking habit. I’d resolved the more important issue, let the genie out of the bottle and gotten to writing lubricated, but still, books stacked about the house.

I made no New Year’s resolutions this year. None that I had consciously divined, at least. But a funny thing has transpired recently. I’m picking up these half finished books and finishing them methodically. Amidst them, I’m starting new books and finishing them. Finding order in the chaos.

And to boot, it seems to have spilled over onto my writing. Not that doing the writing has been a problem. I write every day, but I have been a little slow in getting to the next level, and starting to market my longer works. But I did get off my butt recently and sent out a Novella to a potential publisher. I hope to have news on that soon, one way or the other.

Maybe its all part of a big karma thing. I don’t know, but I know I like it. I’m enjoying the reading, continuing to enjoy the writing.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I have some writing, and reading, to do.

Tear Down the Wall

2011-03-08T05:45:00.003-05:00

One of the most memorable moments of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” concert of February 1981 involved a man who has steadily become one of my favorite guitarists: David Gilmour. He’s not flashy, and he’s not incredibly fast, but he has a touch like no other.

Being “dog-faced GI’s” we had only paid for the 35 Mark at the show seats which meant we watched from the highest tier of Westphalenhalle. Our vantage was not a bad one, though, being positioned down one side overlooking it.

This position became advantageous when the song “Comfortably Numb” was played. For the guitar solo, David Gilmour played from a position which appeared to be directly on top of the great wall that had been constructed. I was essentially at eye level with him.

The remainder of the show was memorable too, right down to when the many bricks which had been placed in the wall tumbled down. "Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall!"

But I’ll always remember the solo, David Gilmour at eye level with me, seemingly at a precarious perch.

Even the trip back was memorable. This was nothing like the Schnellzug that brought us to Dortmund, the return train was a whistle stop affair. I sneaked into an empty first class cabin and fell asleep, then got kicked out. But I got a nice cat nap in. We started our journey Saturday night, and the sun was up on Sunday morning when we arrived at the barracks.

As of February 15, 1981, I had been in Germany a total of six months. Basically, I’d spent and autumn and most of a winter there and so much had happened.

Sometimes it seemed I was on a precarious perch. Sometimes it seemed I was tearing down walls.

As we arrived at the barracks I had a great story to tell, and what was best of all, I had a woman who had been in my mind the entire time to tell it to. I had a size small Pink Floyd concert t-shirt to give to her. It looked great on her.

I’d had the finest night of my young life before I went off to see one of the most memorable concerts I would ever see. Now I was back, and certainly wondering if the wonderful night before the concert was a shape of things to come. Exhausted, happily so, I took my lady to breakfast.

Yes, so much had happened, but that was only the beginning.

I was anything but numb.

Build The Wall

2011-03-02T05:13:00.010-05:00

Unless you have a phenomenal memory, most days fade off into a few choice fragments. An event here, and event there, memorable events find root, and so do some oddly forgettable ones.

In the span of a normal lifetime there will be a handful of days where pretty much the whole day is memorable. A wedding day, a day of particular tragedy, and some which are, like those forgettable moments, just a day but one that felt good or smelled good or tasted good or all of the above.

February 14, 1981 was one of these memorable days, where pretty much the whole day was an event, and it started months before with the joyous opening of an envelope. Inside the envelope, three tickets to the Pink Floyd concert, The Wall in Dortmund Germany. The event these tickets allow my friends and I to see made the promise of a memorable event.

The young woman who I spent the night before stretched it to a memorable day. Suffice it to say that waking up with the nude body of my lover parceled with me into a small Army bed set the tone.

By fast train (Schnellzug) Dortmund is about four hours from Augsburg. It was not a sunny day, but might as well have been. We talked music, we watched the countryside and we anxiously awaited. Dinner in a Gasthaus near the venue, me wishing I had a few more Marks in my pocket for a second beer but sufficed with the one. I’d saved enough Marks that, after our walk to the venue, I was able to purchase two unlicensed Pink Floyd, The Wall t-shirts (there were no licensed shirts) at a row of vans off to one side of the large parking lot. One t-shirt in size small, one in size medium.

35 Marks was the lowest ticket price one could pay to see The Wall. It bought nosebleed seats at the top of the hall. We mounted the stairs upward, upward and took our place overlooking the stage. It was a quite a distance, but as it turned out, the view was just fine. In a way, I found it special later in the show.

Pink Floyd’s concert, The Wall, was performance art. The show started with the sides of the wall forming an open, wide V and an inverted horseshoe of lights suspended in the area behind this open V. Each song was a vignette, and as the show progressed, the wall began to fill in. A huge white wall, somewhat like the album cover. Props: a huge puppet teacher with glowing eyes, a huge flying pig from the Animals tour, a large model airplane that tripped down a wire an crashed into the stage along with the sound of a crashing plane that was part of the music.

When the wall was constructed, just the austerity of white broke up by small seams in front of us, they played animated segments up on the wall.

Very memorable was the quiet of the crowd through some of these. It occurred to me, and I could have been wrong, but that it was especially quiet as crossed hammers goose-stepped across the wall. The hammers echoed an armband that Roger Waters wore on his great coat. There were parallels of it to a Swastika.

It seemed sort of odd, sort of uncomfortable, to be watching this performance in Germany.

Even then, watching shows on the wall, knowing where my life was at this moment, a lovely young lady waiting for me back in Augsburg, I felt that I was living something that would be with me the rest of my days. Not just a moment, but a day.

Thirty years later, the proof in the pudding, as they say, is in the eating.

The show as not nearly done. My friends and I shared knowing smiles. We spoke briefly, but mostly, we watched on.

To be continued…

Got Milk

2011-02-27T04:56:00.004-05:00

An ice-cream parlor, The Icecreamists, is asking that question of the lactating-ladies-of-London (I feel a fetish story coming on.) Paid fifteen pounds for a ten ounce yield, these women are answering the call and firing up the pump.

Apparently, the fruits of their labor sold out as soon as it hit the menu.

DeDe found this article, and read it to me while I was eating my breakfast yesterday:

Here is another write-up from The Guardian, if the above article is difficult to read.

I nearly choked on my omelet as DeDe read, "...the product is 'organic, free-range and totally natural.'"

I thought, "free-range?" What if one of the contributors is a shut-in, just mustering enough courage to go out so she can sell her wares?

Anyway, I was disappointed that neither article presented any reviews of this new taste sensation. So, if you happened to be one of the those who sampled "Baby Gaga" I'd love to get your take on it.

Seeking The Wall

2011-02-22T04:20:00.005-05:00

When I joined the Army in February, 1980, I surrendered every civilian possession I had come with except for a few photos, an address book, a nice leather wallet, toiletries and a keychain, made from the zipper pull of an Army field jacket that my brother had worn eight years earlier. This wasn't a conscious effort, I'd needed something for a key chain, my brother had it laying around.

Anyway, I started a new life with a brand new duffel bag.

Music was always important to me, so it stood to reason my first Army Post Exchange (Px) purchase other than magazines, food and cigarettes was a boom box. It was a decent, not too fancy, but serviceable beast. And I bought one tape.

Pink Floyd, The Wall.

Always a fan of Floyd, to be honest, I was luke warm about the first song that was released as a single, “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” (the song included with this post.) Maybe it was that the song got played over and over again on a Jukebox at St. Louis Airport while we waited for our bus to Fort Leonard Wood.

But the album was a sensation, the band was great, the tape was handy at the counter not far from my new boom box.

I made the purchase.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, a taste of being free from the military discipline that had been my life for the past few weeks (back then, six weeks was, "like, forever man.")

The concert that went with the album was a bit of a legend at the time. One night in the barracks we were talking favorite bands and concerts and such, and The Wall concert inevitably entered the conversation.

Barracks are rife with tellers of tales, who had such interesting experiences in their lives. One heavy set fellow piped up, “I saw The Wall.”

“Oh yeah, where.” Another OD green clad recruit said.

“Uh, I don’t know, I was pretty wasted at the time. Heh heh.”

“You have two choices, butt lick, LA or New York, and you don’t remember?”

“Uh, LA?” It was a good choice. When the New York show debuted on February 24, 1980, every one of us was sitting in a wooden World War 2 era barracks waiting to get our haircuts and uniforms.

Anyway, enough about big tales and getting called on them. Pink Floyd, The Wall was not just a concert, it was an event. Not many saw it, not many had the opportunity unless they made a trip of it.

As luck would have it, one evening around November of 1980, sitting with friends in the barracks in Augsburg and listening to Armed Forces radio, they announced Pink Floyd would be performing from February 13 – 20 of 1981 just a few hundred miles from where we were sitting. There was only one way to get tickets, and that was to mail our money to a ticket outlet. I, and two of my friends, placed 35 Marks (about $17, seemingly a princely sum at the time) apiece into an envelope, and sent it out.

There were no guarantees, but our fast action, sending the money out the next day gave us hope. And hope we did. There was no Ticketron, not even a phone-in number. Write check, mail order, and wait.

So we waited.

To be continued…

Yesterdays, Todays

2011-02-15T05:07:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, the steady cold of this winter relented. Blustery, but the wind was warm, and I drove home with the window rolled down at lunch.

Yesterday my Valentine texted me in the early morning. It was crazy at work, and her warm wishes were the perfect gift. I texted her back, a dash of romance, then humor. I guess that's just how I am.

I kissed my Valentine at lunch then made a bowl of ramen. A simple, domestic scene like we've played out for years.

Yesterday evening, I brought my Valentine flowers. Roses, her favorite kind, and she served me up a wonderful fettucini for dinner. We spent the evening together. Talked, joked, read some. Talked some more.

Yesterday was the thirtieth anniversary of our first Valentine's day together, and got me thinking. She in a babydoll nightie, me set to the pleasure of unwrapping my gift.

Together in a small Army bed, it was more than enough room.

We spent just the wee hours of Valentine's day together. I had a train ticket and some plans that had set in motion before I met my Valentine, so after we made love, the kind of love you make when you're just discovering your lover, I slept an hour or two, her warm tight curves to my back, then set out for the Augsburg Bahnhof with two friends Saturday morning.

The train ride was lovely, West German landscape zipped by. A cold, gray day. It could have been a blizzard, could have been a gale, could have been locusts raining down, and it would have been the perfect day for this train ride. My friends and I talked music, always a popular topic with us, and very much to the point on this day.

But my mind drifted back to what I had starting Valentine's eve and extending into the morning hours: exploring, learning, feeling. You know the word "afterglow?"

Yeah, that.

I had a warmth around me that eclipsed my anticipation of what was to come when we finally reached the destination. There would be enough time for that event when it came. Not one to live in the moment back then, perhaps this was when I was beginning to learn.

To be continued...

Busy Week

2011-02-11T04:16:00.008-05:00

Yes, it has been.

Aside from the usual work mayhem, I got an MP3 player (I have no explanation as to why it took so long) loaded it up with five or six albums and a handful of songs, used it to practice some tunes on the drums. Took it in to work so I could listen to music without bothering my neighbors with my choices in music…

After a half day of use at work it broke. Sigh.

I finally join the new millennium, music-listening-wise, and the thing breaks. It’s on its way back to Amazon, and will pass its replacement somewhere between here and there.

Back to good old CDs for a while.

There were two new episodes of BBC 2’s Top Gear which just reached BBC America Monday. This is one of the few shows on TV that I actually seek out. I enjoyed both episodes thoroughly, and for nostalgia’s sake, we pulled out the old video game “Grand Turismo 4.”

The gear head in me won’t die, even at fifty. Cruising around the track in a BMW M5 or an Aston Martin DB9 is a great way to relax. I recall how, before I was writing regularly, I often spent some of my early morning insomniac hours running around the courses in various exotic cars, posting better lap times, mastering new techniques.

That and playing guitar.

Sometimes I get nostalgic about those days, improving my guitar technique on my swamp ash Telecaster or buzzing around the Nürburgring in a Ford Mustang Shelby, taking a vintage Corvette on the inside at a sharp curve. It doesn’t seem so long ago, but it was over six years.

I sometimes say I’ll go back to those good old days for a week or two as a means to relax. Music, Gran Turismo, maybe just sit and watch one of the movies I like to collect on the DVR. I get up, start a movie, tune up, and play guitar for a few minutes, but it always ends up with me at the computer. The sound of the keyboard going ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. (Bonus points for anyone who knows this reference…)

I had the first cavity I’ve had in a long time filled on Wednesday. I’m used to more drastic dental procedures: a dental bridge, three caps, four root canals, five extractions (better stop before this starts sounding line a reverse order “Twelve Days of Christmas.”)

The filling was almost quaint. “Was that it?” I said to my dentist, one of many I had along the way, moving around the country. He is by far my favorite.

“That was it, young man.”

It’s always good to be called “young man” when you're fifty.

Daughter is loving her new job, sons pursuing their fortunes, though it occurs to me they might be taking the scenic route.

Still motha-fucking cold outside. Winter won’t let loose her grip. That’s okay, gives me an excuse to appreciate my efficient new furnace.

And through all these things, somehow it ends up with me writing every morning. As Jean Shepherd said in A Christmas Story, “and all was right with the world.”

How are things in your world?

Still Got the Blues

2011-02-08T04:21:00.006-05:00

It has happened only a couple of times in my life. Each one is vivid. Each moment looms. An eight year old kid with a baby shit brown transistor radio hears a song. “What the heck was that?” Had to have it so I could play it over and over. I wore the poor record out.

A sixteen year old kid driving his gun metal blue Dodge Dart hears a song on the radio as he drives away from high school. Funky, rocking, can’t keep my feet from moving. The hope that the radio station will play it again soon isn’t enough. I bought the album. Another stretch of textured of black vinyl summarily worn smooth.

A twenty-nine year old man, driving to get lunch at Carl’s Jr. in Point Loma, California. An instrumental song starts on the radio with a sweet, but mind blowing guitar intro. Eric Johnson, Cliffs of Dover. The powerful tone and excellent composition made me go out and buy the CD Ah Via Musicom straight away. Fuck the burger.

A few years later, driving home from shopping at Albertson’s in Idaho, this riff opened up:

I got a chill up my spine.

The song was still playing as I pulled into my driveway. I sat in the car until the last note of the song trailed off. I turned around and drove to ShopKo, where they only had the cassette, and though I was firmly entrenched in the CD world, I couldn’t leave without this album.

Sunday, I got an email from a friend, a musician who is as moved by this artist as I am. I was stunned at the news my friend shared. Gary Moore was dead.

Gary was only fifty-eight, and being a rocker, there was the immediate swell of supposition that he died a rocker's death. Booze, drugs, the lifestyle.

But I'm not concerned with how he died, I care how he lived.

Gary had been in Thin Lizzy, and had done some rocking solo work, but it was when Gary started exploring the blues, the roots of rock and roll, that his music really reached out to me. I was an instant fan. I still am.

I never saw Gary perform live, but I have seen recordings of live performances, and what always struck me about him was that he didn’t play the music, he was the music. He was a channel. He shared the stage with some of the greatest blues musicians of all times, and though he was playing the blues and they accorded him respect, he did it his way. Sometimes he got a chiding glance from one of his heroes for the way he he blitzed through some hard edged phrases, but Gary played on, always Gary.

He didn’t really look like a rocker, at least in the classic sense, but watch him play, and now you know what he is.

Incredible tone and phrasing, instantly identifiable style, and damn he could sing too. Gary was, in music, all that is best in life: Aware of and respectful of the past and what came before him, full of passion and in the here and now, always growing and changing and reaching toward the future.

I searched for words as I thought about the news of Gary’s untimely passing, and I came up with the above. Inadequate, really.

A more fitting tribute might come musically, if only I could express it so.

Sunday night, I checked my emails, and my friend Shane, who had shared the news of Gary's passing with me, had sat down with his trusty old Strat and laid down his own tribute. He said what I can’t, and he said it well. He let the feelings run through his body, out the fingers. It shows, I felt it on the first listen. I don’t know how to embed this, so please follow this link or cut and paste the below URL:

http://www.box.net/shared/z8391ev1x7

You can’t think about playing music like this, it just has to be. A merging of the past, the present and the future. I think Gary would appreciate Shane’s tribute.

I know I did.

Gary, you will be missed.

Here Comes the Sun

2011-02-01T05:26:00.005-05:00

Please press play and read on:

When I was a kid, another disk that I wore out on my cheesy second hand cheap-o-matic record player was Abbey Road. I love the whole album but this is one of my favorites of all time. Maybe it was my love of sunrises that brought this about, or maybe this made me love sunrises.

Whatever the reason, or reasons, I’ve always loved this song. Beautifully composed and performed, it has a transcendence that has remained with me through the forty years that have passed since its release.

Saturday morning, I dropped my daughter off at the parking lot of a place that they are refurbishing, where she will work when they finish the task in a couple of weeks.

My daughter is twenty-five. She’s had a few different jobs along the way and continued to try to find herself (I know this situation well.) At the end of 2010, she decided what would be the next step in her life. As fate would have it, there was an ad in the paper for a new place opening where another had shut down, and it was right up her alley. She went in and talked to the manager, and it was immediately evident that this opportunity was so perfect. She got hired, and her starting pay was significantly more than she was asking.

Seems she had made an impression. Seems that maybe she’s on to something.

I dropped her off at the parking lot of her new job Saturday to catch a ride to where they are training. Yes, she could have driven, instead I drove her there and picked her up. Just like when she was first working and didn’t have a license, and I was happy to be a cab service.

Driving home, due east on Saturday morning, there was a blanket of clouds that widened at the end of the earth. What emerged was as bright orange a sun as I have ever seen.

I love me a sunrise; I often miss them, though I probably haven’t slept through one in over a decade. See, nowadays, I’m usually too busy writing.

(Photo: Ustick Rd Peeking Sun, ©1994 Craig J. Sorensen)

Morning is my time to write. I’m glad I wasn’t writing Saturday. To be out and about, to have just dropped my daughter off for the new job that she seems to enjoy more and more each day, well, all my worldly worries emptied away. And in my imagination, this song played in my head.

We all struggle from time to time. Clear paths suddenly tangled with brambles. Sometimes we raise our head to the coming sunrise and trudge through, sometimes paths open when it looks like we are hopelessly stuck.

What this magnificent Saturday sunrise leads to, I don’t know, but I was glad to be in it. I know this is one of those moments that will stick with me through the rest of my life. I look forward to seeing where it all goes from here for my daughter.

I hope that there is an inspiring sunrise coming where you are.

Three-hundred

2011-01-28T04:52:00.007-05:00

Three-hundred well-trained Spartans stalled a massive Persian advance at Thermopylae, and the unified Greek army went on to fight another day and ultimately sent Xerxes (gotta love a name with that many x's) packing.

It was an historic day.

But this post has nothing to do with that, nor has it to do anything with the movie "300" which is based on the historical event.

No, this three-hundred has to do with how many blog posts I have done.

Certainly, far less historically significant than the Spartan stand at Thermopylae, but to it's credit, more factual than the 2006 movie.

Yes, I have posted three-hundred times (including this one) since September 16, 2007. A slow, deliberate pace.

I looked back at my posts from those halcyon days. They were all over the place. The first post was about going with my kids to a comics convention in Baltimore, another about my day in a time when my computer was dying a slow death, yet another announced my first inclusion in a print anthology, Maxim Jakubowski's Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra.

A seemingly random assortment of posts. Taken as a whole, not really directed or pointing toward any particular objective.

Then I looked at some recent posts, including this one.

A seemingly random assortment of...

Er, at least I'm consistent.

Pardon My French

2011-01-25T05:10:00.010-05:00

A story I recently completed and had published, “Lingua Acutus,” in Lucy Felthouse’s Uniform Behaviour, took on many lives as I wrote. As usual, I created back story that never reached the final edit. Most of what I write that lands on the cutting room floor just gets carted off to the proverbial dustbin.

However, this bit, taken from an early draft, “soldiered on.” I happened upon it yesterday, and given my earlier post that mentioned first kisses, it seemed timely. I gave it a couple of tweaks and a standalone name.

So, without further ado, "Pardon My French."

Pardon My French
© Craig J. Sorensen

I never had a G.I. Joe. Never asked, never wanted anything of the sort.

When my dad bought me a bag of plastic army soldiers anyway, he told me how his best friend and he used to set up formations down the long hall of his childhood home and roll marbles to knock down each other’s soldiers until a winner emerged; the one with the last plastic soldier standing. Ah, such fun. I put the unopened bag in a dresser drawer under vintage copies of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking (volumes one and two) that I got for a song at a flea market.

So, it followed that when the neighborhood kids gathered to play Army, I’d volunteer to be the cook. Nestor “The Colonel” Munson, our host and fervent Patton enthusiast, said, “we don’t need a fucking cook, Marcus.”

“Soldiering’s hungry work, ‘The Colonel.’”

“Get the fuck outta here, fag.” Nestor had mastered the art of “pardon my French” early on. He was better off sending me away. My sharp tongue resulted in frequent trips to the principle’s office. His old Army didn’t need the likes of me, and they didn’t deserve my cooking besides, I reasoned.

So while the war games raged on behind Nestor’s house, the sounds of machine gun tongues and hand-grenade mouths all around the yard, the inside of his house lovely and quiet.

I turned my attention to Noella. Nestor’s twin sister, and fortunately looked nothing like him.

Noella had a horde of Barbies and all the associated accoutrement. Her breath smelled of Starburst fruit chews, her hair of banana shampoo, and her neck of cocoanut essence.

Her skin was vanilla-ice-cream white. Her lips full and strawberry red, and her eyes the radiant color of, well, the blue band aids chefs use. She played on, unmoved by the battle that raged on outside the window.

Barbie, I discovered, wanted a Ken who could whip up a mean soufflé.

Noella, I discovered, wanted a guy who was truly secure in his boyhood, and who wasn’t grossed out by the Art of French Kissing (volumes one and two.)

Of course, I obliged.

The Girl Next Door

2011-01-21T05:47:00.005-05:00

Please press play and read on:

She had platinum blonde hair, tousled and wild. Her eyes were bluer than the South Dakota sky in spring. Her skin pure and white as a freshly fallen storm across the great plains.

I saw her most every day. I was bonkers about her. Made up a song that I sang while rocking on the couch. I sang and rocked on the couch a lot back then.

I recall riding in her mother’s car, a Volkswagon Beetle, we pushing our shoulders together in the back seat. We played stupid games, and we laughed a lot. She gave me my first kiss.

I was never the kid who said, “ewww! Girls!” I liked them from the start. Hence, my first girlfriend, Amy. I don’t know her last name; it’s lost to the ages. She lived in the upper unit of a brick duplex next door. Somewhere in a shoebox back in Idaho there is a picture of Amy and I playing in the sandbox behind her house.

It’s funny, or maybe telling, that I remember so much about Amy. I remember her house, her pretty mother, who was quite young compared to my mother, me being the youngest of three, born when my mother was thirty. I remember running home suddenly when a train passed by at her birthday party. Though I was only one house closer to the tracks and had lived all my life listening to passing trains, the sound seemed so intense.

Funny how much I came to love trains. Funny how little I like parties.

Maybe it was mathematics that made Amy fond of me. We were the same age. My brothers were so much older than I that I wasn’t really part of their world. Amy was an only child. At least she was back then.

Whatever the reason, Amy was an important part of my life then.

When I write a story, I have to resist the urge to use the name Amy.

Or Amie, or Aimee. Hell, I don’t even know how that girl-next-door’s name was spelled! I didn’t do much spelling back then.

I’ve written a number of stories about neighbors who fate has brought into close proximity. My current novella, Hair Mettle, which I’m putting final edits on now, is one of these. A tale of a girl next door who challenges him, someone different but sharing common grounds. A wild girl, mysterious and troubled, beguiling and artistic, funny but serious. Close but distant. Someone that challenges his long-held notions relentlessly.

I never really had a “girl next door” experience as I came of age. I knew neighbor girls, even had a few lovely kissing expeditions, but these relationships never transcended convenient happenstance.

We left Sioux Falls in late spring of ’65, just a couple weeks before I turned five. So many memories have faded. But I still remember that first girlfriend, and I still smile when think about her.

Amy. The girl next door.

Taking Flight

2011-01-18T05:27:00.006-05:00

Please press play and read on:

Sunday Morning I started working on my first blog for this week, and I'd chosen the subject of parenting, not my usual fare. It was inspired by blogs I had read by Kristina Wright and Susie Bright, both great posts, about a certain book that is being released. I had drafted my first notes of what I was going to write and did some further research.

When DeDe got up, we got to talking about all things creative. We talked about a dream I’d had a week before with some specific images. I had originally interpreted as being about where I was as a writer and where I was going. When I’d first discussed the dream with her, she had asked a pointed question, “so, what do you think the series of rooms meant?”

The rooms had been prominent in my dream, adjoining with open archways, long floor to ceiling windows along one side, and I was very excited that these rooms were to be my rooms. A dream of growth, and change, kind of specific, but in its way, vague.

When she’d initially asked on the day of the dream, I’d given a good, sensible answer, that made perfect sense. She left it at that.

On Sunday, as I talked about a finished novella I’m trying to decide where to shop out, and other unfinished longer works, she asked again. “What did the rooms mean?”

I hemmed and hawed and fumbled about with the stock answer I’d already given. Now she directed me more, gave some specific ideas, and the clouds cleared.

I’ve been in a sort of state of inertia recently, at least in a certain sense. I've been focused on longer works for most of last year, but the vast majority of what I’ve been doing during the holiday season had been short stories. Not that this isn’t something I love to work on and need to do, but I had put a plan out in front of myself and I was failing to address where I was regarding this objective.

Amidst my dream of the rooms, bathed in light, was another room, the room where I currently lived, small, dark and to the back of the same large building, and when I had awoken, I was considering how to make the transition from one to the other. A simple move, take stuff from place one, put it in place two. But what should have been a simple task seemed complicated in that dream.

DeDe didn’t know the specific reasons that I could not see clearly, but she knew it was unclear, and she had good ideas on it. She knew it was best to let the idea stew in my brain, then she brought it back up when I was more receptive, when I would see it on my own. A guided epiphany.

Today, I was going to write a blog about a sensationalist “parenting” book by a woman who bragged about force-feeding her daughter to learn a difficult new piece of music, as if this poor means of learning music might have some benefit.

It doesn’t. It’s the patently wrong way to learn musical skills, especially those that involve muscle memory, which this did. It is very inefficient and in some cases, can cause damage. Her method is more about the teacher than the student. But there is nothing I can, or will try to do, to change such a woman’s mind.

Why bother trying?

What I can do is tell a tale that illustrates:

We are all students with much to learn. A fifty year old man continues to learn, if he is open to it.

Teachers, true teachers (and this certainly includes parents, who are the ultimate teachers) who feed the mind gracefully, know the mind they are feeding. They do not need to force feed by will, as the mind is naturally hungry. They know when it is ready to absorb, and when it needs time rest on an idea, to make space to absorb.

I’m a lucky man to have such a teacher and friend sleeping next to me in the bed.

I'm grateful that my direction became so much clearer this Sunday, so if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do...

A Case for Hair (Really)

2011-01-11T04:13:00.008-05:00

I kind of got sidetracked in my prior “Case for Hair” post. In truth, my “Case for Hair” has little or nothing to do with the hair on the head. Short, long, curly, wavy, straight, thick or thin, I love the hair upon the head, but that doesn’t really need to have a case presented.

And, indeed, I can appreciate bald. Even a bald woman:

Bald?

If you watch late night “adult” movies on Cinemax and Showtime, gems like The Hills Have Thighs (I’m not condoning watching these movies unless you have a high tolerance for bad acting that is surpassed only by worse script writing) you might have an inkling of what I’m getting at. Watch these movies, (and, not to belabor the point, but I’m not encouraging this) you will notice that the old question, “does the carpet match the drapes” has become moot in recent times.

Carpet has gone out of fashion.

Body hair has become almost taboo. Often, when a woman’s pubic hair is admitted in these films, it takes the form of a small font exclamation point.

!

I grew of age in the seventies. Back then, one of the sexiest things was a glimpse of pubic hair. A promise. A haiku:

In my youth, I had a collection of Playboys which my brother had amassed, and I, ahem, rescued from the trash when my mother attempted to dispatch them. Dating from the late sixties to the mid seventies, they charted a time when centerfolds went from the artful obscuring of all thing pubic, to the gentle revelation of hair.A glimpse diffused by an out of focus image in the foreground. Obscured in a dim room by the shadow of a book. A brunette girl next door in a bubble bath, just the slightest glimpse of darkness beneath.

Years went by and pubic hair was allowed to emerge. To wander these years, compressed down into a few hours of time, serially thumbing through men’s magazines is a journey I’ll never forget.

Hair. Warm. Chestnut brown, jet black, vibrant gold, sandy blonde, bright red.

Sigh.

Platinum was a startling revelation.

A young man’s fingers descend beneath the buttoned and belted tight-fitting jeans of his lady love for the first time. Comfort: A patch of curly hair. Soft or coarse, it doesn’t matter. Pausing on the sensation, combing and lingering. A moan then the curl of her hips toward his hesitant fingertips. He feels the pants open under her hand. Breathe deep. Heart pumping too fast. Too urgent. Calm down…

He doesn’t really know what to expect when his fingers descend.

Lingers in the curls.

Yes, a shaven body shows all the contours, skin slick and smooth like fine silk. The skin under freshly removed hair is extra sensitive. I know that from recent experience.

But be it pewter hair on tanned skin, or jet black hair on bone white skin, it begs for contrast.

Bald can be sexy, but, like anything, in moderation.

I, for one, miss the carpet. I’m not even put out by legs or armpits left unshaven. A story I just finished features a woman who does not shave her powerful body.

Sexy, strong. Woman.

I know that my lady love likes hair upon a man’s body, and that is a very good thing. I have it aplenty.

It’s time that carpet, in all its colorful and varied forms, came back into vogue, whether it matches the drapes or not.

I rest my case for hair.

Helpful Banana Tips

2011-01-07T06:24:00.007-05:00

First, you may have noticed I finally broke down and put up the Blogger adult content warning thingy (that’s a technical term) to my blog. So, you’ll have to peel past that layer when you come a-calling on my blog in the future. Hopefully, you won’t mind the extra effort, and you’ll find the fruit inside to be particularly sweet.

Speaking of peels and fruit, here are a few helpful banana hints to keep in mind on this glorious, snowy (at least it is here) Friday:

Never toss a spent banana peel on the sidewalk.

Never point a banana whether you think it’s loaded or not.

Never paint an erection yellow and parade in front of a gorilla cage.

Never, ever, ever, underestimate a sexy stewardess in a banana yellow uniform.

My kinky traveling salesman tale, “Top Banana”, from Rachel Kramer Bussel’s collection The Mile High Club, got the oral treatment by the talented, sex-positive folks at Audio Smut Radio as part of their program, The Travel Show.

“Top Banana” was a particularly fun story to write, and I thoroughly enjoyed how Audio Smut Radio interpreted it, with titillation and humor. The voice and style of the woman who read as the stewardess was a treat unto itself.

Delicious.

Please stop by Audio Smut and check it out!

And remember, always bend at the knees when lifting a particularly heavy banana...

A Case for Hair

2011-01-04T05:25:00.008-05:00

Please press play and read on.

Okay, before I go too far down this line, I’ll cop to a certain level of irony that goes with choosing this subject at this particular juncture.

Here I am declaring that I will make a case for hair (and no, I’m not talking about a sort of valise that hair might be carted around in – not that kind of case) when in truth, I’m just a poseur.

Let me explain. Those of you who have met me face to face in the last couple of years, will probably know that I have sported a rather long hair cut. Matter of fact, I’ve been wearing it in a pony tail.

Those who have known me longer might be aware that hair is subject to change from week to week, day to day. When I was a little kid, I hated to get my hair cut. Used to detest it. This was before the hippie era. I recall going to the gas station where my parents went when I was young, and the owner, who knew us well, quipping about the “little girl” in the car. I had no sisters.

Didn’t bother me either way. I liked my long hair, and that was that. I was the only boy in the photo of my fourth grade class over his ears. What a wild man.

From time to time, my dad would get fed up with my mop, and make me get it chopped off. Tear rolls down cheek.

So, through my school years, it grew long, got it cut and styled (in seventies approved feathering at least once) and grew it back. Of course, in the Army, it was kept pretty short, then I grew it back out the first year after my military adventure ended.

Since then, I’ve grown it out, cut it back, and settled into this odd cycle.

This is true with my facial hair too. Trimmed neatly, goatee, full beard, fu Manchu, sideburns (I've managed to avoid Elvis approved mutton chops, "thank you very much,") handlebars, clean as a whistle. Hell, once I even shaved my hairy legs.

All this rambling was coming to a point, or at least so I thought...

Oh, yes, I recall:

So, here I am talking about a case for hair, a pro-hair-case, as it were, and the truth is, the twelve inch pony tail I’ve carried is now hermetically sealed in a mason jar in the basement. Okay, no mason jar, but neither is it attached to my skull. The pony tail is free of its bonds, free to pursue its own wild, hairy dreams, while the remainder of my hair is down to about 1/8 of an inch.

Like wise, the beard is very neatly trimmed.

But this doesn’t mean I can’t make a case for hair, does it? Milquetoast lawyers defend hardened criminals all the time, don't they?

Shit, after all this rambling, I’m just too tired to make that case now.

So I’ll leave it at the fact that my hair has been recently buzzed off, and my head feels nicely free.

Apologies to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young for seeing it through. Apologies to my five-year-old self, no tears shed as my locks fell in waves to the floor.

I promise to return with my case for hair later this week, but for now, I'm savoring the feel of the cool air on my scalp when I venture out each morning.

Ghost of New Years Past

2010-12-31T04:59:00.008-05:00

Last year, I made no New Year’s Resolutions after several years of consistently doing them. I didn’t feel committed to anything that needed set to resolution. It was all about doing.

I suppose that’s true this year. I’m writing more than ever, and I feel good about where I am in my writing. Sure, I’d like to get some longer works published, but I have specific ideas of how I want to approach this. The wheels are turning, no sense in resolutions. I just need to do.

I don’t think I made any resolutions thirty years ago, as 1980 turned to 1981. The day might have been as unremarkable as many days have been along.

The entirety of 1980 was quite eventful. I’d been stationed in Missouri and Indiana, flown cross country a few times, gone to Germany and taken up residence there. I’d started the year pumping gas, and ended it programming computers.

A full year, methinks. 364 days that the New Year had to compete with.

But I remember a lot of that day. Remembering a day often hinges on a trigger. Some sort of remarkable event that makes that brings the day into focus. Such was December 31, 1980.

It was a work day, and it ended at a party at the barracks in a large third floor room we aptly called “The Party Room.” The event, unto itself, was not so satisfying. Music played, I danced (badly, as always) and hung around with different groups. I hadn’t managed a date that night. One of my better friends at the time was back in the states.

At one point, around an hour before the year would turn over, I was sitting at a table near one of the windows, and the floating guests at the table had, among it, a young woman I’d seen from time to time, exchanged niceties with. I liked her, but she was dating someone I knew. She was there for a few minutes. She went on.

I was bummed that night, not from anything specific. Quite bummed. My plan for 1980 had been to chart a course for my life, to move forward and be something more that a gas station attendant. Without a doubt, I had been successful, probably beyond my expectations.

And yet, I was depressed. I searched for the reason I was down, and maybe a kick that would pull me from the funk. The clock ticked down to the start of 1981. I looked around The Party Room, and suddenly I just didn’t want to be there. Maybe I wanted to touch the past, because I hopped into the car of that friend who was back in “The World.” Never mind my driving was illegal as a seven dollar bill, not having my international license.

Never mind I was fairly lit up

I resolved I’d go to the Bahnhof, and call back to Idaho. It would be early in the evening there, and I knew my brother would be having a hell of a party. Maybe a keg on the back porch, if the 1979 – 1980 New Year celebration, which I had been to, was any indication. Perhaps you’ll recall my mention of how hard it was to call back to the states. Army phones wouldn’t reach there. We needed operator assistance to connect through the efficient German system, but I figured I had a couple five mark coins and some small change, I could go to a phone booth and sort it out.

Well, I was wrong. I tried to connect. No success. Maybe if I’d known fucking country codes, I could have done it, but tell that to a drunk, depressed and lonely twenty year old trying to make his way in his first New Year out of country, away from all that was familiar. The clock ticked down to 1981. I stood on the front steps of the Bahnhof and watched the fire works go off in the distance in the old town of Augsburg. There was not another soul there.

I drove back to the barracks and hung out in the party room. Some stragglers where there, and we quaffed a few warm beers.

The drive to the Bahnhof might have made the night memorable, or at least that part of it. But it was something a few months later fixed New Year’s Eve, 1980, in my mind.

Early February, 1981, I had started dating a woman, and we had become close. We were quite an item. Basically inseparable. We were planning our marriage a couple of months after we started dating.

A friend, Mary, whom I had gotten to know, came up to us one day, and handed us a picture. “You know, I saw you two talking at the New Year’s Eve party, and it seemed special, somehow.”

I didn’t remember the photo being taken, or at least it was not a remarkable thing to me. But my lady and I thanked Mary for not only snapping the picture, but thinking to give us a copy of it.

It’s battered and worn now. There is a crease across my head where it must have gotten folded over. We don’t have the negative, but it’s the first picture taken of my soon to be wife and I, shot before we were more than casual acquaintances. For me, it’s one of those strange little treasures, that deserves the oft abused descriptor, priceless.

I don’t know what we were talking about in the picture. It was not too consequential. Two people passing at a party, small talk with the others at the table. Probably some sort of humor. It’s one of the many things this lady and I have in common.

Another is the thirty one New Years we have spent time together. That first one was only a few minutes, but recorded for all time by a friend who saw more than the scene seemed to be.

I hope that your New Year’s resolutions are realized, and your wishes come true.

Happy New Year, 2011.

Running That Gravy Train

2010-12-27T05:29:00.005-05:00

I had a great Christmas. Great gifts given and gotten. Good food, good times, swirls of snow in the cold winter wind.

Among my gifts, one labeled thus from my twenty-five-year-old daughter who lives in the attic:

Yes, it seems that Gravy Train keeps a rolling. Presents, with a side of humor. The gift beneath the label was great.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and are looking forward to a fine New Year, with or without passengers on your Gravy Train.

Please Come Home for Christmas

2010-12-24T04:22:00.008-05:00

Please press play and read on:

When this song was released, late 1978, I was a line cook in decent restaurant. We played a small radio in the break area just beyond where the huge, industrial dishwasher belched massive amounts of steam in cleaning huge loads of soiled dishes.

The Eagles were a key part of the soundtrack of my youth. Largely because of the covers of their albums, I always associated them with my western upbringing. They always seemed to fit the semi arid reality of the Treasure Valley of southern Idaho.

This song, playing as frequently as it did over the radio that year, will always be that restaurant, will always be home and deserts and cooking. Back then, I thought I might become a cook.

By Christmas, 1979, I was no longer cooking. I was pumping gas. I made much more money in this low skill job, but in a way it seemed I was moving backwards.

Christmas 1980, I spent with a handful of friends in a nice townhouse in Augsburg, Germany, that one of them was watching for a government civilian that was on vacation back in "the world" as we called the USA back then. I'd been programming a few months.

Seems I had a knack for it.

I heard this song a couple of times that Christmas season, and though I was just twenty, it made me nostalgic. I thought of being home for Christmas, back with the people I'd spent every Christmas before.

I played with an Atari system that the owner of the townhouse had. I drank a lot of cold, German beers. I was glad for the friendship and camaraderie of these people, who would figure in my life for just the next couple years.

I was glad for German beers, roast turkey, music and video games, a fairly new thing back then.

I didn't know where I was headed on that day any more than I had the two Christmases before, but a reasonably clear road stretched out before me.

Sometimes we set out on a voyage, and it's just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. Destination not clear, but we are moving.

Now, I am settled. I am glad to be settled. I am glad for writing and that I can sometimes watch, sometimes join my kids playing video games. I am glad for good food and good friends.

I am glad for holidays and family, and I'm glad my kids are with me this year. They are all in their twenties, and their paths are no clearer than mine was in Christmas 1980.

I'm okay with that, because they are home for Christmas.

Soon the house will wake up, and Christmas Eve will begin. We will eat small courses all day, starting with bruschetta at noon, and enjoy each other's company.

A fine Christmas holiday begins.

And I wish the same to all of you.

Winter Time

2010-12-20T04:46:00.004-05:00

Please press play and read on.

Last Thursday, we had a luncheon for everyone employed by the company I work for in the town where I live. Five tables, ten to a table.

Not long ago, just the department I am in had a Christmas party with a larger turn out. Rows of long tables, I don't know how many at each, but every chair taken.

The years between, obviously, were not kind. I work in a building that once bustled with employees. An old warehouse carved and converted over time into a corporate office. Now vast empty spaces mark where people once were. Once brightly lit areas sit dim because only one in four of the fluorescent lights are illuminated to save money. Long lines of vacated cubicles stand like tombstones, dress right dress.

In the winter time.

At the luncheon, we were told of a rocky start of 2010. Worries about some of the divisions, whether they would stand on their own through year end. We were then told of a resurgence late in the year.

Sales beyond expectations.

At the table where I sat was a mix of long time employees like myself, and relatively new ones. Us "old timers" remember back to the days when the business was at its zenith, even before the long table Christmas party I mentioned. Some of the newer employees were surprised at the volumes we reached. We reached 'em, folks. We were a busy crew.

But all of us were glad to hear that sales were up for our comparatively small company now. The last few years have been discouraging, attrition and layoffs resulting in the decline to current levels.

This small group of survivors have held on, sometimes by our fingernails.

Still, I'm too far down the road to not view trends with a bit of pragmatism.

In the winter time, at the trough where the winter time begins, the days are at their shortest. And we who have trod this earth enough years know that the days will get longer; it is the law of nature.

Businesses don't always adhere to these laws.

But there is a measure of optimism as the solstice approaches.

Seems appropriate for the holiday season.

Three Day Work Week

2010-12-16T03:28:00.004-05:00

I count myself fortunate that I work in a job where a hearty helping of vacation days is on the menu. Believe me, there are down sides to my job now, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to go into them, except to observe that every job, like every person, every animal, every tree, every thing, has a good and a bad side. We can only measure what is appropriate for ourselves.

Okay, I’m getting way too philosophical here.

I’m here to talk about my year end.

At the end of every year I have a fair number of “use or lose” vacation days.

This year there were enough that I have basically working three day works week from Thanksgiving through this week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Yes, I could string them all together and get a longer break, but I’ve come to appreciate these short weeks, and of course, the long weekends that come to them.

These are especially fine at this time of year. There are members of my family who are truly in their essence during the holiday seasons. People who truly define the notion of “it is better to give than to receive.” To go shopping with people like this is a Christmas unto itself. The joy of watching them shop, the grin on their faces when the find “that perfect gift.” The fun of joining forces with them to wrap packages.

My three day work weeks come to an end this weekend. But today, I begin a four day weekend by editing some stories I've been polishing. To get lost in worlds of imagination then partake of the real.

A Christmas luncheon today by the company I work for. I'm usually on vacation during these (as I am today) but I'm going to go in this time anyway. I am thankful for the job, and am grateful that there are people in it who I enjoy being around. I've worked with some of them for years.

I wonder what the next year will bring for all of us, but today, I celebrate.

I have many things to be joyous about.

First Snow

2010-12-13T05:11:00.004-05:00

Friday, while out doing some shopping, I was confronted with the first accumulating snow of the year. The temperature was right around freezing. The borough was caught off guard, not a single truck was deployed to lay down cinders at the intersections. It was a perfect cocktail.

As usual, there was the litany of people who either never faced the stuff or conveniently forgot how to drive in a sudden snow during the "off season."

It never ceases to amaze me how many people seem to forget the basic principles. Drive slow, brake gently, be aware of every car anywhere near you and prepare.

I had a lot of errands to run, some that needed to be done that day, and I followed the principles I outlined above, so I was late in getting home.

I came home to my sweetheart, preparing cookies and the basic building blocks of a turkey tetrazzini.

And worrying.

I stoked a nice fire in fireplace, and soothed her. I savored the delicious cookies fresh from the oven, but I made dinner, so she could relax. She finished the tetrazzini the next day.

See, the drivers out there had forgotten some basic principles.

Slipping, sliding, fender benders.

But so did I. I know how my lady worries, and I had a cell phone.

I could have called to update her that I was okay.

So to you other drivers out there, think of the other drivers and exercise caution in the coming months.

But also, think of those who think of you.

Happy Holidays.

Watching the Mail Box

2010-12-06T05:07:00.004-05:00

A tiny little story I found last night in one of my computer file folders is a paean to the art of letter writing.

I was going to post it today.

Letters.

Please press play and read on:

When I was stationed in West Germany, letters were a life line back home. A phone call was a very difficult thing to pull off. I never figured out how to do one from one of the phone booths, and the military phone system did not reach into AT&T. We had to go to a phone exchange office by the Bahnhof and fill out a form. They connected the call and told you which booth to take the call in. "Hey, mom, it sounds like you're in the next room!"

I can count the number of times I called back to the states in two years on one hand.

So the occasional letter could be eagerly anticipated. Visits to the military post office where one pulled out a letter with the familiar script of someone back home could evoke lost images of days and nights gone by. There was a Christmas anticipation holding the envelope before opening.

The pretty script of a familiar young woman, absolutely certain I can smell the perfume on her wrist. A recent photograph. The rough hewn script of an older brother, his wicked sense of humor so evident that I can visualize the cold beer by his side and hear Harry Nilsson playing on the stereo.

As we navigated our way through this new place, these touches from so far away gave us an anchor in our lives (for those of us who wanted one.)

It is progress that we have email and can access each other at the drop of a hat. I can, and do, communicate regularly with friends and acquaintances thousands of miles away. I send an email out, and often within hours I hear back from England or Germany or Hawaii.

Despite the large time difference, I sent an email to a fellow writer in Australia one evening, and had an email back from her in a couple minutes. Hell, now we can get into real-time chats.

Yes, it's a wondrous world we live in, with the benefits of our rampant technology. I post this blog today and people from all over can read it before I get ready to go to work.

Wondrous.

But sometimes, I miss the magic of letters. The long pause after writing to someone before we hear back. The military postal system was slow in the early 1980's. I would send a letter to someone in the states, and it would be weeks or months before I heard back.

Yes, I've been thinking a lot about the lost art of letters. Okay, it is not totally lost, but it is definitely not what it once was. Someday soon I'll post that little story I found in my computer file folders, written in the form of a letter to a lover. But it's not yet ready for me to lick the stamp, place it on the envelope, and seal it with a kiss.

I do promise to write soon, my friend.

Get 'em while they're hot!

2010-12-03T05:19:00.018-05:00

Okay, they're always hot. So maybe I should say, "get 'em when the prices couldn't be better!"

One of the most active print publishers of erotica is Cleis Press. If you know Rachel Kramer Bussel’s books, you know Cleis. How about Sacchi Green and Rakelle Valencia’s award winning collections?

Cleis.

Alison Tyler’s celebrated alphabet collection is from Cleis.

Rising star editor Kristina Wright is doing fine new collections for Cleis.

This publisher’s titles are so varied, but they have one thing in common. They celebrate sexuality.

And for all that variety, there is so much more.

If you’ve been wanting to delve into Cleis’ catalog, there’s no time like the present to do so. Cleis is running a special from now until Dec 31, 2010; all books 20% off! This includes titles from Viva Editions.

Please stop by Cleis’ website and poke around. Chances are you’ll find something you’ll like!

Here are the covers of some Cleis collections that include my works.

More Musician Logic

2010-11-29T05:08:00.004-05:00

“To me, rock and roll is Willie Nelson and Miles Davis and Beethoven and Stravinsky. It’s not just Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Elvis Pressley”

-Carlos Santana, Guitar Player interview, Holiday 2010 issue

That it is.

Carlos is a fan of music, and a fan of inclusion. He’s a fan of expression and imagination and letting go of convention. He once told a story how he was watching a guy dig into his guitar, and he was so deep into his playing that a little drool descended from his lip.

That, my friend, is passion.

What I love about writing erotica is that it is utterly malleable. Erotica, like rock and roll, has its root in physical response, but it can be fused with any other literary form. Sometimes to the benefit of both, some times to their determent.

Rock and roll started as rebel music, dance music. Erotica is about dancing too…

Serious, deep dancing.

And in a sense, it is rebellion too.

Erotica is not just sex and titillation. It is life and beauty and supposition and spirit and drama and humor and mystery and romance and frustration and growth and reversion and…

Pardon me, I'm drooling.

And so I now return you to your usual programming.

I’ve got me some writing to do.

Thangsivings past and present

2010-11-25T04:13:00.004-05:00

Friendships form in funny ways when a hundred or so Americans from disparate walks of life gather in a barracks thousands of miles from everything they knew growing up: Love for common music or literature, being in the same MOS (job, for you non-military sorts,) simple proximity of being roommates.

Proximity is all a matter of perspective when one is across a vast ocean: The history is longer, the people speak a different language, they don’t see life the same.

So we often cling to friendships a little more greedily.

I made a friend in my early days in Augsburg. She was pretty, short curly hair, closed set blue eyes, full lips and a warm smile. She was tall and kind of statuesque. Our common bond? She was from Utah, me from Idaho. Those of you familiar with USA geography know that this could be quite a difference. Both are western US states, each quite a bit larger than the whole of England. But in the expanse of the west, these two meagerly populated states, which share a border, sport much in common. This friend and I related on those terms.

She was in a long-distance relationship and so our friendship never got beyond the platonic. We spent time together talking, listening to music.

As Thanksgiving 1980 approached, she invited me to a party that was going on in the third floor of the barracks. Were it not for her, I would not have gone; she and I ran in different circles. I accepted the invitation and joined her, and we sat at the table nearest the door. A few others sat at our table, and I found myself sitting directly across the table from a pretty redhead. She was small, spry short hair, bright brown eyes, bone white skin. I don’t remember if we talked much. I know we talked, but she was preoccupied. She was with someone else, and it probably appeared that so was I.

It was not the last time the three of us would be together. Friendships and relationships turned around each other like snakes at an orgy in the barracks. But the three of us would have an image to record our brief affiliation, not so far down the line. Two of us would share a much longer relationship.

More on that later.

I didn’t linger long at the party. I left my Utah friend and the redhead and the other revelers to join some friends downstairs and drink German brews. It was the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving and us day-beggars (the title given to those of us who didn’t work shifts at our work site; we were a minority) would have a glorious four day weekend.

The people with families off post or in the family military housing often invited single soldiers to their homes for dinner so we wouldn’t have to eat in the mess hall or take in a schnitzel in some Gasthaus. I spent my Thanksgiving at the home of a fellow who was not the most popular guy in the department where I worked. He came to me directly and asked me to come; he didn't have takers from a more general call.

Some of these Thanksgiving events hosted dozens of unattached soldiers. Where I went, there was another couple and me, the only single person there.

I accepted. I was a bit of drinker back then, but I barely partook. I simply wasn’t at ease. No fault of my hosts who fed me well and treated me great. We were just very different people.

And yet this Thanksgiving, the first I spent away from family, looms in my memory. I arrived back at the barracks earlier than others who went to such parties, and I cut loose with some cold beers, with those who either weren’t invited to such festivities, or chose not to go.

Somehow, I was more at ease there. The barracks, such as it was, was my home on Thanksgiving, 1980.

Today I think of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. I hope that they will find comfort in each other. Some are away from home for the first time, and many are rightfully scared, which is something I never really had to face in my Cold War service. They will not have the benefit of families who can take them in and show them hospitality. They will only have each other. They will have their quarters and their mess hall with Army issue turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and giblet gravy, “1 each,” as the military would say.

They may feel awkward; they are in a new place with new people making the most of a very difficult situation. I hope they will find friends. I hope they will find each other. Some relationships will be awkward, some will be warm and transitory, and some will be for the rest of their lives.

This was true for me, Thanksgiving 1980.

May these soldiers enjoy today, and may they come home soon. I hope they have much to be thankful for on this holiday.

I am thankful for them.

Tethered Freedom

2010-11-22T04:58:00.005-05:00

Please press play and read on.

It’s been almost a year since I bought my electronic drum kit. My objective was to be able to play without worrying that I was drowning out my own family’s enjoyment of their TV programs and music, and of course my neighbors'. In doing so, I hoped that I would be playing drums a lot more.

And I am. I play three or four nights a week, whereas I used to play once in a blue moon. I am a much more capable drummer now than a year ago.

Am I where I want to be? Hell, what does that even mean?

I’m finding that I still fight the voice in me which says, “you do not have musical talent.”

I fight that voice that kept me from taking band in sixth grade. Outwardly, I told myself that the music they were playing “wasn’t cool.” Inwardly, I was afraid to discover that the voice in my head, which whispered negative sweet nothings in my ear, was spot on.

My entire life I’ve driven friends and lovers and acquaintance crazy with my tapping. Drums were what came most naturally to me, so I bought my big ol’ drum kit in the mid 1990’s and I played it some, all the while worrying that I was bothering the neighbors.

That’s what I said.

Excuses gone. I have my electronic drum kit in the basement, and the sound of it pretty much stays in the basement save a little rhythmic clacking.

In the last year, I’ve studied different concepts: shuffle beats, hi hat technique, working with a metronome and etc. This was satisfying for a time. Just playing, getting the feel of playing infused into my muscles. But comes a time when I had to bring some context.

About a week ago, I was talking about how I wished I had the right size patch cable to connect a CD player to my electronic drum kit.

My daughter left, and returned with just such a cable. Such a small, simple gift.

And yet so large.

So for the past week, I’ve been beating on my electronic drums, able to hear my playing along with songs I’ve loved since back in the day when I dare not actually try to play an instrument for fear that I would fall flat on my face.

Know what I’m finding? I do fall flat on my face sometimes when I take on these songs. Blissfully, some of the songs have come pretty easy.

Sometimes I hear only the mistakes I make, but others, the music flows, and I feel great in the act of playing. Sometimes I actually enjoy what I’m hearing.

We’re born, we roll in our crib, we crawl, we stand, we fall, we walk, we fall, we run, we fall.

For so many years, I have kept my musical aspirations carefully wedged away or at least dialed down. For those years, I’ve struggled against that voice in my head, “you don’t have any musical talent.” The sad fact was, I was so worried that I would fall that I couldn’t get past the “standing” phase, that I didn’t try.

Better stated, I tried, but I put on so much self-effacing, so many provisos about my potential, that I’d “control” those falls.

Control can be a good thing, but not this kind of control.

I’d talked about getting that little patch cable, that little tether since not long after I got the electronic kit. A ten minute trip to radio shack was all it would have taken to resolve it. But there I was, standing with my hands carefully glued to the coffee table, pretending to walk while I toed along the edge.

Am I a better drummer than I was a year ago? Yes.

Am I where I want to be musically? No.

But I’m feeling ever more willing to let go of the goddamned coffee table and try to get there.

I’m willing to leg go, and risk falling as many times as it takes.

Ironic, but it is, in a sense, a sort of tether that is helping to free me. Many thanks to Cyn for that.

Upcoming Publications

2010-11-18T04:16:00.009-05:00

I'm pleased to announce that in addition to Lucy Felthouse's inaugural anthology, Uniform Behaviour which will be released soon, I have two more stories accepted for upcoming collections from Cleis Press.

Gotta Have It: 69 Stories of Sudden Sex is a collection of short-shorts. My contribution, "Going Bald" is a paean to the beauty of a woman coming to terms that she is beautiful, though she is not the ideal in society's eyes.

Edited by the amazing Rachel Kramer Bussel, the collection features an impressive list of authors, but as far as I know, the table of contents has not been announced yet.

Stay tuned.

Kristina Wright's second collection Dream Lover will include my story, "Shattered Belle," about a woman who is struggling to find peace, only to be challenged by an interloper in her routine existence.

I tend to be grounded in the erotic stories I write, and Dream Lover was an opportunity to go beyond these usual bounds into the ethereal. In the end, the story became one of my favorites.

I am so pleased that this story was selected.

The table of contents for this collection is also pending, but Nikki has a few names of contributors on her blog. Check it out.

A cool list of authors, methinks.

Happy Thursday.