20140809 Walking Home from R'dale via CVS

20140809 Walking Home from R'dale via CVS

            NOTE:  get free 8 x 8 book offered by Choice privileges before coupon expires.  Find an record expiration date.

            Saturday, August 9, 2014, 6:54 PM I am walking home from Rolandale, later than I meant to be because I had various issues.  Problems.  For one thing, and this was the last of a series of problems, I went to open a new file for my walk home and the card on the Psion was full.  I had already shut everything down after other annoying problems, and had to turn it all back on again to download the files from the card so I could use the Psion.  I won't even wastte my energy describing the other problems I had and dang it, I forgot to start my watch and forgot, worryiung about the time, to go home the long way.I still haven't started my watch and I am almost to Balduck Park.  It may take me about 5 minutes to get here, ut I almos totlaly missed the 15-minute leg up to Chester and Moon. 

            I need to calm down and get centered.  After a string of hassles makes m late, I tend to get somewhat frazzled.

            The cicadas are buzzing very loudly and the icecream truck is cranking out it's little ditty that startedDisappearing.   It's not particularly hot, either (I mean from the sound of the cicadas, you'd think it was nintey degrees.)  It's actually fairly cool. 

            The sun is low in the sky as the the season turns toward winter, and I am in the shade of the trees at Baalduck, and there's a breeze. 

            There are a lot of big shiny fancy cars parked along Balduck (nd a woman in an evening gown).  There is some event over on the othe3r side of the trees, but I cannot see what it is.

            I turn off the stright route hoe to walk to CVS and look for barrettes.  I should have gone there first, rather than Jo-Anne.  I'd like to arrange my walk so that it comes out to 45 minutes, but that will be difficult, since I already messed up twice..

            I walk under a catalpa tree, following two boys with a basketball.  I suddenly feel southern. 

            The reason I would like 45 minutes but not more than that to complete myw alk before I get without keeping Keith waiting for his dinner any longer than necessary.

            I walk through a huge cloud of strong, skunk pot snoke, drifting out of one of houses behind VCS.  CVS!

            A thin black man in a car-racing cap says good evening to me, and I return the good wishes.  It's a pleasant evening, I say, and he says, it sure is, ma'am, aand I say have a good day, he he says, you do the same.  I feel bad that he called me ma'am (I didnt' call him sir.)

            I have arrived at CVS.

            I look at the Goody hairclips and barretes but find none I likel  There's a second display, equally feeble.  I leave empty hnded and disappointed.

            Now I amw alking through the bank parking .ot with the goal of extending my walk bu crossing Mack and walking down one of the side streets and then around.  BUt if the wrong side street, it might shorter rather than longer.  I've only walked 23 minutes, according to my watch.  Of course, I forgot to turn it on, probably for 5 minutes, but that's still only 28.

            There are some bushes in flower here that are related to hibiscus, but I forget their name.  I hate forgetting things. 

            I am at the corner of Webster and Tourraine. 

            Not streets I know well.

            I think I am coming out by the Christian Science Church, which will take me maybe ten minutes to get home (once I get there.)  That may be good enough.  Or close to it.

            I've passed a number of gardens filled with achiacea and sweet pears and roses and black-eyed susans.  Hostas, too.

            No, I'm not at the Christina Science Church, but at Richard.  I mean Brownell.  Which is not as good, closer too home.  Well I'll head home and see how I do. 

            What I really wanted to do is spend my walking time working on my novel, or some other way doing something useful, but I'm stymied agin. 

            I hate talking about how long it will take me to get home and other meaningless things when I could be doing something useful, but now I am at the 67 and a half minute mark, approximately.  I've walked 32 minutes, so that would be about 39 1/2 minutes when I et home and if I add 5 for the time the watch was off, I'll be 30 seconds short of my 45 minutes.  Of course, I don't know if it was excatly 5 minutes that I missed.  Oh well, I can't believe it matters that much, I walked up and down the stair at both houses and out to the garden and so on, probably good enough.  I'd walk further, so I knew for sure, if I wasn't worried about getting dinner started.

            I see two people walking by, a mna and a woman, and I think about the novel i thought I might work on in November.  I am thinking of cannabalism, of what would happen in peacable neighborhood if there was some catastrophe and people were starving.  They might kill each other to steal their food or even to eat each other, if they were desperate enough.  Our being old and somewhat enfeebled (compared to young people) is a disadvantage.  I do not know if aresenal would be of of any use protecting ourselves. 

            Maybe I am walking slowly, but I have now walked almost 400 minutes.

            Nowember is creeping up fats and I've done almost no work on my outline for my novel.

            Sunday, August 10, 2014, 5:58 PM i am walking home from Rolandale again.  I just did  avery dumb thing.  I asked keith to drive me to R'dale and was going to a little cleaning and a little work around the house and maybe a little writing. 

            He waited for me to go up the driveway, close the gate and disappear before he frove away, and I reached for y keys and they weren't there.  I ran after him yelling, wait, stop, but I guess he couldn't hear me.  He had the radio on.  I didn't have my keys because I didn't load my powets, duh.  So now I am walking home.  If I decide to go back to R'dale, I will load my pockets and drive my own car.  Not because is his fault or anything, it clearly isn'tl it's my fault.  But I couldn't drive my car without my keys.

            So hear I am, at least remembering to go home the long way.  I'm walking home again and have 40 minutes at my disposal to work on my novel.  Or on any useful project.  I'd prefer to work on my novel  But I ned to figure what's going to happen. 

            Oddly, the one thing DO have in my pocket is my cell phone.  That's because I'd intended to pyt it on the charger, but forgot.

            We stayed in bed late, had a late breakfast, a very late lunch, and I guess we'll be having a late dinner.  I worked on removing the gutter form one of the paintings I did for the book I am making for Frankie, Frankiue and Noh have a party. I was hoping to finish the book and have it in hand when Frankie comes to visit, perhaps on the 23, but it seems unlikely that I will be able to manage it.  The problem is, it's in less than two weeks, and they probably need a week at least to get it ready and mail it, which gives me less than a week to completely finish it, which, with everything I have to do, seems unlikely. 

            There are two sets of things I have to do, no more than two, really.  I have to get all tha art ready, I have to get all the text (poems) ready, and I have to do the layout.  I have to evaluate how many pintining remain to be done, and make a decision whether to even try.  I have to remove the gutter from the picture sthat were donen over two pages.  This is slow tedious work.  And some of the poems need to be written or revisedm  A further problem, wich I cannot deal with now, is that Frankie is wearing smething differnt in every picture.  If or when I send it to a publisher agent, or put it on one of the book things where you can sell your own books, I probbaly have to have Frankie wearing the same thing i every picture except maybe thhe last one (PJs)  But that I do not have to worry about now. 

            That's quite an undertaking.  It would be quite an undertaking even if I had nothing else to do.  But I do.  One of the reasons I wanted to go to Rolandle was to clean for compnay.  So, I have that to do, at two houses, both of which are bad. 

            And ML wants me to drive up to get her and take her to her house to "poke around."  That will essentially be a whole day gone.  She wants to do it this week, which will take time from my prep for getting the book ready.  But if we waited and did it next week, that is, the week S and E may be arriving, I'll be in a frenzy trying to get ready for them. 

            After they leave, we have to get ready for Sarah and Steve arriving on September 10.

            None of that would be that big a deal if we were more natirally tidy.

            We're not..

            I hope when I get home, Keith hasn't gone out for a bike ride and locked the house!

            I suppose I could try to call him.

            SO, the first thing I need to when I get home is evaluate what remains to be done on the book.  That is, Frankie and Noah have a party.  Then talk to ML about when she wants me to take her to to her house.  The ideal time for me would be on the cusp between finishing the and orderiing the book, if that's feasible, and the frenzy of prep.  THere may be some overlap there.

            To further complicate things, I'd like to take Athina to Cranbrook before she leaves for college, if she is leaving for college. 

            I am walking along Balduck park and there are parties, picnics and ballgames going on and cars with hurtfully loud music bass thundering so loud it thrums in my chest and it's icky.

            I will be glad to get away

            SO OK, step one, look at the stroyboard for Frankie nd  Noah have a aprty and determine if I am going to attempt that or not, step 2, call ML. 

            Sara and Frankie and Erin may not even be coming.  But I hope they are coming. 

            Also I want to write Marie Rivet and tell her to stay two nights so we'd have at least a day to show her around Detroit.

            'm feeling reluctant to call Keith warn him I'm on my way home and please don't lock the doors.  The reason I am reluctant is because we give Graham such shit bout forgetting his keys and I would prefer not to put myself in the position if being as careless and forgetful as Graham seems tto be.  On the other hand, if I get hhome and I'm locked out, that could be a serious problem if no one comes home for a while.

            I am out of Detroit and into GPFs.  I am relieved to be away from the loud music and the kids riding and running in the raod and cars zooming close to them.  Here it is quieter and that's OK with me.  The kids walk on the sidewalk and the drivers are generally more caustious and considerate.  Generally.  There are nice people in Detroit proper and idiots in GPFs. 

            Other differences: almost no trash here and the houses and yards are kept up better and there are no boarded houses, at last on the streets I normally wak on.  The area is more affluent. less povery.  The black people who move in here mostly behave more quietly. 

            I hate to say this, but I have to use the bathroom, and I sure hope Keith is home and the door is unlocked.

            If Keith is not home--duh--I was thinking I'd drive back to Rolandale, but I can neither drive nor get in the house without my keys, duh!  His car is here, but he may have gone out on his bike.

            Monday, August 11, 2014,8:19 PM  I am out walking.  It rained hard all day and has just stopped, but the trees re dripping and the sidewalks are flooded.  I do not know if it's a lull or if it will say stopped long enough to walk.  The light is funny, kind of greenish, and air is full of fluttering bugs, some kind of ephermera petera, maybe.  It's getting greener and greener.  aand yellower. 

            I am wearing a raincoat and my widest brimmed lat, a felt hat  acott gavce me.  I was walking on the sidewalks, but they are so flooded I have moved to the streets.  Someone is coming down the street twoard me, so I step int the grass and water squelches into my choes.

            I read an article in the Times that running as little as 5 minutes a day could extend your life 3 year (plus hopefully improve the qulaity of it.) so I have a new goal of running 5 minutes a day as part of my 45 minutes.  My funning isn't very fast, but if I keep at it it may get faaster.

            It's drizzling anbd getting dark. 

            Tuesday, August 12, 2014, 8:21 PM, I am walking home from R'dale the long way.  Like I did yesterday, or, I guess that was the dsay before, but who's counting.  It's been rining again.  Thunder, lightning, downpour.  The tech center was closed, Keith was late to work becase of flooding and stalled cars blocking the road and then had to work late and the tech center may be closed also tomorrow when the shit hits the fan, and he may have to work late again and I have to take ML to her eye doctor and to her house and then I have my writing group/class at Ewald. 

            I am feeling agitated and probably will not be able to sleep.  I mean, I haven't been sleeping for the last couple nights, anyway, and I wasn't even agitated.  I'm upset with myself because I have too much to do and not enough time.  It would help if I slept at night, bit a lot of the fault is my own.  Like wanting to get Frankie's book done to have it for him when he coes.  That's probably a stupid goal and not really doable. 

            I need to order birthday gifts for the other grandkids and water the plants at R'dale and clean both houses for company and  and and and.

            Last night, when I couldn't sleep, I was up pinting the lastest picture for Frankie and Noah ahbe a party.  Tonight, at dinner, I apinted just a little bit more of it.  But then I went up and started walking on Disocvery at Little Hog Island which I want to bring to class tomorrow night.  Chapter 2.

            What I'd like to do right now is work on TUB, Taming Uncle Beast, but I have't figured out what's happening next yet.

            I walk through a cloud of marijuana smoke at the corner of Rolandale and Canyon.

            Rhe crickets are singing.

            I rememnered that I wanted to run 5 minutes a day so I ran.  I had to eep pushing myself, because otheresie, I slow down to a walking apce even though I'm supoosedly fogging.  It was a little easuer than uesterdau I have the wrong shoes on. 

            I saw a firefly.  I walk past the dead birds of dead bird alley.  It's getting dark in Detrout ,, and after dark, it doesn't seem as safe as it does during the day.

            Wednesday, August 13, 2014, 1:38 PM I am at the eye doctor with ML.  They are testing her periferal vision.  She is supposed to stare at an ornage light and click a button when she sees the white lights in her periferal vision.  They turned the lights off as I was writing this and it got pitch dark in here.  Now they are doing the left eye.  She has to wear a patch on the other eye.

            Then she had an EFG vision test and then two eye pressure test.  She says, "Oh, my poor neck, it doesn't like to be shoved around.  They were forcing her neck forward. 

            2:20 PM Dr. Valise says her eyes are about the same..

            Basically what Dr. Vaise thiinks is that there has been never damage which can never be repaired or recovered.

            Thursday, August 14, 2014, 1:09 PM I am sitting in Brian Power's waiting room.  I ran out of the house thinking I was late, and didn't remember to bring him a zucchini, which we have a plethora of.  I didn't have time to shoer or do my hair or wash the breakfast dishes.  I was working on  chapter of Disappearing.  It was the one where Terry relizes she's "disappearing" while still alive and working and married to and living with Claude.  I think it needs more work still, but it is better than it was.  I think it is central to the book.  Thus the title.  Terry chooses a different way to disappear.

            What I really did, the real me, is to disappear into myself, and into my life and spend more and more time away from Pater, legitamately.

            So meanwhile bck a the ranch, it's a hurry up and wait game.  I am still waiting for bP.  He came through from outside into his offoce with cell phone in hand and lit up.

            2:20 PM, I am at Pier Park where I plan to walk for 30 minutes, then walk 15 more at home to VM, but first, if I can remember, get some sauerkraut.  I'm not sure if K is working late, he called, ut I forget what he said, or I think he called, maybe that was yesterday. 

            I should walk extra today.  I didn't walk at all yesterday, or do any exercises.

            I got an email on my cell phone while I was talking to BP.  Probably just junk, soemthing from gmail.

            I wanted to talk about Claude, Peter, Bruce, Chuck, my father, Keith, me.  But BP got off on trying to sll me on something called UMBOUND which was written up a couple days ago in the NY Ties.  I already said I'd check into it, but he kept on blabbing about, wasting my limited time.  I worked so hard on chapter 5 of Disappearing this morning, which is what I wanted to talk bot with BP.  I did read it to him and we did talk, briefly about4, before going of on a diatribee about unbound.  I think he thinks it might help me.

            I need to help myself.

            I am not saying there is no chnace that unbound will help me.  But if prople are donating money to read the work of authors, those authors better be more confident than I am about being able to produce.  A COMPLETED novel, that is.  I can produce writing, but so fat, I have failed to produce a fully completed novel.  I have some first draft novels.  I even have a tenth draft novel, Froh Haven.  But ebven that, my most nearly completed novel, needs more work. 

            I would like to keep Sissy at age 11.  I dont' really want to get into sex and romance at her age.

            So last night, I fell asleep wondering who, if anyone, killed Billy Owens in Discovery Little Hog Island, and this morning I got up and spent the enture morning working on Disappearing.  Both of those novels are somewhere around 2/3 finished in first draft.  Each of them has a sticking point.  (or more than one.)  They may actaully be half or less than half done, depending on how much has to be deleted or left out or changed.  And then there is Death Angel, which is also more than 3,4 done int he firdst draft version.  I wrote all the way to the end, but left out some of the middle.  I left out the red herrings.  I may want to restructure it anyway, but it is probably closer to being dne that the other two.  And then there is TUB, Taming Uncle Beast, which I wish I were working on right now instead of thinking ABOUT the novels.

            I think I should finish Frankie and Noah have a party, in first draft form, and get it printed in time for his birthday.

            I am sitting at the end of the long curved breakwater pier, the wind bloing my hair.  I do not want to sit long, as I have too much to do.

            It is a cool, crisp, clear fall-like day, windy and bright with scattered clouds.

            I wish I could relax.  I always feel so pressured, to go get suarekraut, to go to the store get food for dinner, to order gifts for the grandkids, sneakers for Rachel, to find adequte beds and bedding for Sara, Erin and Frankie, to clean bother houses, to get enough exercise, to get not only today's walking in, but yesterday's, to get my various projects done, eg Frankie and Noah have a Party, to investigate unbound, to finish my novels, to write a poem occasionally and send some out, ((three kids, about 9, 10 years old, motor by in an inflatable raft.  One says, pointing at an empty space near me, that's our parking place.)), I want to honor my art, my writing, prose, poetry, children's books, my husnad and our relationship, my children and grnchildren, my friend and myself.  I think I have enough love to go around, but there no longer seems to be eough time and energy.  The timelessness of youth is gone.  I feel the pressure of mortality leaning on me.  That adds another burden, the burden to lose weight and be as healthy as possible in order to have more time to accomplish some of my goals.  Being overly anxious abbout it seems counterproductive in my case, because I respond to anxiety by eating. 

            As I walk, I write a new section of Disappearing.  I sit on the observation deck and finish it.  I am happy to have written something for one of my novels, even if it isn't the one I am currently working on.

            The horizon is a black line which I'd say wwas ruler straight, but which curves of course.  It looks straight though, if stare at it in any one place.  Level. Water, at any oen place is "level," but for how far on either side is it "level?"  CB with photo?

            It's after 3.  I strain my brain to try to rmember if Keith is coming home at 3:00 or not.

            But I can’t remember.

            I wish I knew.  (Much later—he was home and we walked tot eh store together.)

            There was a sign saying the beach was closed, but there are still kids in the water.  I was going to wlak along it, thining no one would be there, theyd all be in the ool..  It'sa  coolish day.  But kids are kids and no one seems to be stopping them. 

            I feel sad to walk along the beach with shoes on  I'd like to feel the wet sand under my bare feet.   But I need to leave, sjop for food, see if Keith water the plan5ts at R'dale, work on my painting, clean.  I wish I knew if he were home or not.

            Why can't I remember what if anything was said about that.

            One of the people on me beach is a tanned attractive older teenage boy, like 18 or 19 years old, sitting right at the edge of the water, splshing and mumbling to himself.  He might be absolutley normal and just in a silly mood, or he maight be retarded.  He's very good looking but not acting like kids his age are supposed to act.  And he's alone.

            There are adults on benches and I wonder if one is his guardian or parent, or whether he's a normal kid just having a moment, for whatever reason.

            He has black curly hair, a nice smile, (but he doesn't look at me).  Autistic?  Why do I want to label him?  Because he's not acting normal, whatever that means.  I am curious.  (Nosy?)

            Back at the car, I've walked 35:44.

            Plan to walk to VM later.  When I get home.

            I alsow onder about the men in the admissios booth at PP--they all seem to be retirement age men--are they volunteering?  Getting paid?  Why do they do it?

            When I get to better helath, the road is full of parked cars.  Phew there is one spot left where I don't have to feed a meter!

            *            *            *            * EJ End Journal

            To put in chapter 5 of Disappearing, (the chapter may need to be moved though)

            **            *            *            * Disappearing

            "You should have let me go first," Claude said to Terry on the way home, so that they wouldn't compare my work to yours."

            "They always have an opening act before the main event," Terry said, reassuriny.  You know, like how Foxy loxy opens for the Grateful Dead."

            "But everyone seemed to think that you were the main event and I was an afterthought," Claude said.

            "No, no, I heard a number of people saying how visionary your work was, how it was both grounded and untethered, how it combined the best of the psychelic and shamanistic cultures."

            "I heard people saying it was mysogynistic, abusive, and cruel," Claude said.  "That's what you really think, isn't it?"

            "I really think it is both grounded and untethered, and combines the best of the psychelic and shamanistic cultures. It's deep and dreamlike . . ."

            " . . .  and macho and mysogynistic."           

            "Claude, I didnt' say that."

            "No, but you were thinking it."

            "Even you can't read minds," Terry said, very quietly.

            "What did you say?"

            "Nothing.  I said absolutely nothing.  My lips were sealed."

            Terry jerked the car to the side, almost ran into a parked car, and then jerked it back.  Terry was flung against the Claude and then against the passenger side door.  She clutched the "oh-shit handle," clamped her lips shut, and held on.  But Claude drove like a little old lady the rest of the way home.

            *            *            *            * ED end disappearing

            *            *            *            * TUB Taming Uncle Beast

            what happened last?  What's going to happen next?  Collect all bits and paste into master Ms!

            *            *            *            *

20140807 Thursday night, Weeds with TUB--taming Uncle Beast

20140807 Thursday night, Weeds 

            Thursday, August 7, 2014, 5:55 PM Keith is out at R'dale cutting weeds.  I just downloaded my Psion.

            Friday, August 8, 2014, 5:53 PM I am out on my second walk of the day.  The first walkw as with K to Village and now I am heading to Jo-Anne Fabrics in search of barrettes because I lost one of the only regular pair I had left.  I ordered some from Amazon and they came today and were both too small and too crappy and flimsy. 

            The walk will delay our dinner.  I spent the day, almost all of it, writing that story about the woman swimmer I saw yesterday.  And, then, finally, I posted it with the one picture I took on Cowbird.  I may post it, also, to my blog. 

            The Jo-Anne fabrics store is probably more than 15 minutes away.  And I already walked more than 15 minutes.  I really like the idea of accomplishing three things at once, my walk, getting barrettes, hopefully, and doing my journaling and maybe working on my novel.  (Four things?)  The downside is that I will delay dinner and Keith is probably very hungry (he's having a beer).  And I had no lunch, so I too am quite hungry, but I prefer the option of being able to relax after dinner, rather than having to dread going out and walking. 

            I hear myself using the dread.  Walking is (*or used to be) one of my favorite things to do, but when I am tired, and I am tired, it's not so much fun.  And I have fibro pains.  At this point, they are fairly mild, but the ligaments are tight.

            I slept a little better last night.  Not great, but somewhat better than the previous nights, although the itching was as bad or worse and I took two doses of Benadryl, which didn't really help much.  I didn't get enough sleep, because we had sex and then talked and were up past midnight.

            I did NOT want to get up this morning, but I also don't want to get in the habit of sleeping later and later.

           

            *            *            *            *  EJ end journal *

            *            *            *            *  TUB Taming Uncle Beast.

            Dear Mrs. Dietrich,

            A funny thing happened on the way to the forum.  I got your latest and greatest group of words when we passed Elbow.  Must be cell towers or wi-fi there, even though it’s a one-horse town. The “elbow” (or bend) in the river that it’s named for was pretty cool, and has the biggest rapids we’ve been through on Jake’s raft, but the raft held up well. The tiller got a bit beat up on the rocks, but we pulled over and Harmon, Trey and Jake jerry-rigged it and plan to fix it better next time we stop.

            So I read the words on your new list, guessed at their meanings, and looked them up.  As usual, most of them were words I've run across somewhere in literature, but don't hear "normal" people using, especially not kids my age. 

            Like peccadillo.  I'm thinking to myself, who says peccadillo?  Duh.

            So meanwhile, Suze (Betty Sue) (I know you said not to change characters names midstream in a narrative, but she keeps changing her own name.  I can't help that.  Yeah, if for some reason these words are ever published, I suppose I could delete or alter the truth.)

            Anyway, . . .

            Suze fawns all over Harmon, shameful really, embarrassing to watch.  Harmon discreetly tries to fend her off.  He's half-hearted about it, which doesn't convince her he means it. 

            She strokes his arm.  His arm, which I look for the first time, I mean really look at, is monstrous.  It’s four or five times as big around as Jake's arm, and solid.  It's brown from the sun and has curling black hairs. 

            I look at Trey's arm.  It, too, is brown from the sun, a deep rich deep tan.  But Harmon's arm almost looks like the arm of an African American person.  It is so dark.  Trey's arm is lean and strong and very much like Jake's.  Only smoother and less bunged up.  Jake has scars.  Big scars.  Shrapnel. Each man has a slightly different color tan.  I look at my own arm—it look faintly greenish, olive, I guess they call it. 

            I look at Harmon's legs.  He's wear cargo shorts.  His legs are huge, and hairy and dark,, like his arms.  But they aren't fat.  He's big, but he's not fat. 

            I look at Trey's legs.  Like his arms, they are lean and golden born, deep golden brown.  Similar to Jake's, but less scarred. 

            I never think much about Jake's scars.  They horrified me when he first got home, but I've totally gotten used to them.   If Trey looked like that, it wouldn't stop me from wanting to kiss him.  I worried that no one would want to love Jake with his scars, and now I hardly notice that they're there. that gives me hope, for Jake.  For me.  For everyone. 

            We drift past the end of a dock where a boy stands, blowing bubbles.  The bubbles float over the raft, and we all look up and smile.  The boy has long curls.  The wind lifts the tendrils of hair and the boy lifts his arm and smiles and blows another long stream of bubbles. We wave back.

            The bubbles follow us downriver.

            Suze kind of pets Harmon’s hair.  She runs her fingers through it.  His hair is long, curly and black.  His face looks contented, like a cat being petted.  I almost think I can hear him purring.  Then catches himself, and brushes her hand away, very gently.

            “Suze,” he says, "Suze, listen, you don't want me.  I am full of pecaadillos."

            I start laughing. 

            "Huh? Pecadillos?  Does that have anything to do . . ." she blushes a deep crimson, "with peckers?"

            Everybody guffaws, more at her discomfort than at her joke, although it was kind of cute.

            Suze is no dummy.  As I mentioned before, she was in some of my honors classes.  But apparently, she didn't get the same word list I did, or she's distracted by her desire for Harmon.  

            I'm about define peccadillo, since unbelievably, I've just Googled it, when Trey says, "Peccadilloes are half-breeds between those horny marsupials that are smashed along the Texas roads and dark-haired, bristly wild pigs." It takes me a second to process what he's just alluded to, armadillos and peccaries, and I am beat later than Harmon and Jake with my laughter.  Suze is half a beat behind me.  Then we all groan simultaneously, and laugh again.

            Trey says, "They really are small faults, silly inconsequential faults."

            I am totally grinning.  Trey rocks!  (Wait, did I just say that because he used a word I said no one ever used?  You are having a bad influence on me, Mrs. Dietrich!)

            Trey has a sometimes great and sometimes overly subtle sense of humor, and he loves to hear me laugh, because, as you know, I have a very loud and hearty laugh.  So do Jake and Harmon.  Sometimes, we tell jokes and laugh until tears run down our faces.  Unfortunately, I'm better at laughing than I am at telling jokes.  Their jobs are to entertain me, mine is to provide the laugh track.

            Jake, who is sitting at the tiller, looks up and makes a face.  "Harmon," he says, "what you have are not peccadilloes, they are elephantillos. You have humungous seismic faults, the kind that produce earthquakes and tidal waves." Again, everyone laughs.

            Then Harmon looks serious.  "He's right, Suze," he says, soberly.  “I am not a good candidate for a . . . a hook-up."  Then he looks embarrassed.

            Suze holds up her two hands, palms flat, and raises them alternately up and down like a scale.  "Hmm,” she says, “man who chases me down the aisle of a church brandishing a knife," she sinks one hand, "verses minister." She raises the first hand and sinks the other and then leans over and gives Harmon a kiss on the cheek.  Jake rolls his eyes.

            "What," Harmon says, "if I told you, like you told Shannon, that I didn't want you?" I laugh, because he looks a little worried.

            "I wouldn't believe you," Suze said, laughing.  She sounds totally confident, so I look closely at her for a shred of doubt, and see none.  Then I look at Harmon.  He has a half frown partly broken by a sort of shit-eating grin.  He's smitten.

            I don't believe in love at first sight and it annoys me that neither of them knows much about the other, but they seem to be careening in a collision course toward each other.              I have a sudden premonition that they will find some way to have sex with each other in the next twenty-four hours.  The vision that fills my mind unbidden is a little bit gross (okay, disgusting) and at the same time titillating because the next image is one of Trey and me, and that one is much more interesting and definitely less disgusting.

            Kissing is sort of gross, I mean, sharing spit, and sex must be even grosser, sharing semen and other bodily fluids.  But for some reason, when I look sideways at Trey who is sitting cross-legged with his knee just touching mine, I don't feel grossed out, I feel . . . excited.

            And hey, if Harmon and Suze can get laid, why not Trey and me?  I reach out and stroke my finger along Trey's inner thigh toward the edge of his shorts and then slightly under the edge.  Then, suddenly mortified, I pull my hand away and look down at my own legs. I am shivering, and it isn't with cold.

            *            *            *            *

20140722 Dentist eye doctor with After Uncle Beast and some Disappearing

20140722 Dentist eye doctor  Took ML and Paul to the denist today, eye doctor tomorrow.

            to-do,

•        order shoes for Rachel.  Have them sent directly to her.  Have them gift wrapped.

•        Work on story to share with Janet

•        clean for Sam and Joan

•        cook for Sam and Joan and Janet

•        find Pandora!

•        buy more barrettes!! X2 or 3

•        look for missing barrete

            Tuesday, July 22, 2014, 8:31 PM I am out walking 15 minutes.  I walked 30 earlier, while ML and Paul were getting their teeth cleaned. 

            After I took Ml back to her apartment on 19-mile road, I drove back down Garfield to Utica to Masonic to Grosbeck and down Grosbeck looking for Target because I wanted to buy a pair of shorts.  I only have one pair that fits and it needs to be washed.  But Grosbeck Highway was a real schmazz of traffic, like 9 lanes wide and building crammed on top of buildings I couldn't find Target, and then got a little lost trying to get back to I94.  And it was rush hour.  Not my kind of fun.

            I went to the health food store.  I had a ten dollar coupon.  But I got a lot of stuff, including more sauerkraut.  And sprouted grain flour.  And some Lundberg chips which were dusted with sugar.  I bought sesame seaweed without reading the ingredients.  I hadn't had any lunch and was starving.  I ate the whole bag (six servings).  ;-{  It says 1 g of sugar per serving, so that was six grams of sugar.  I also got two sm popcorn chips, one for me and one for Graham, we'll see if he eats them first, before I do.

            I won't eat his, but he might eat mine.

            It's very hot today, temps in the mid nineties and still extremely hot in the evening, and maybe a little more humid, or maybe I am making my own humidity.  Cicadas humming.

            There is a guy on bike almost in the middle of the road who is apparently texting or looking at his phone's GPS or maps or something.  He's propped on the bike and all the cars are going around him. Stupid, why doesn't he just move over a little?

            So, did I mention that ML sprung my taking her to the eye doctor tomorrow, and didn't mention it until we were on the way home from the dentist?  I am not very happy about it

            Wednesday, July 23, 2014, 5:35 PM, I am out walking.  Today, I took ML to the eye doctor.  I brought Serenity (Serena), the new Surface pro, but forgot the Psion, so then, I did not want to stop and walk because I didn't have my Psion.  Although I haven't been waiting anything important. (like poems or working on my novel). 

            It was a lng row to hoe, but it worked out OK.  I only had less than an hour to get ready this morning, and had some thing I needed to do unrealted to getting ready, eg, email Harry Teichert re: Keith's coming home at 3 instead of 5 etc.  (Several other things, too, all of which took time, so that I did not get a showers or get washed up or do my hair or make myself a lunch.  (I did grab a bag of popcorn chips, which is what I had for munch.)

            In spite of several delays (construction on Mack blocing the road) and other problems, I managed to get up there by noon.  (I also had some lucky breaks, too, catching a series of lights that allowed me to make up some lost time).  ML was waiting in the lobby and we went back down to Little Mack, sounth of ten mile road,   They informed us we'd be there several hours. 

            When we got there, I briaded my hair and then we went in for eye drops (ML) and then went back out and I ate my chips, shared a few with her, and then they said we had to wait 30-45 minutes for the eye drops, so I was going to take a 15-minute walk, but just as I got out to the car, a lady who'd been sitting near us ran out to get me because they'd called her in  I wanted to go in with her because she doesnt' hear well and doesn't always understand, so I wanted to hear what was said in case there was something we needed to know.

            This is what the doctor said, Dr. Valice.  He said that her macular degenration is not as bbad as he'd suspected, because of her vision loss, but instead, he thinks there is a damaged nerve, damanged by an "ocular stroke" and he wants to do some additonal testing.  So we have to go back Wednesday, August 13.  At 1:30??  I forget the time.  I need to find my paper calendar. 

            I just wrote Heidi a longsh email on my cell phone while walking.  It was extremly tedious becuse of the tiny keyboard.  Straining to do it made my back hurt.

            I jog a little.  Just a little.  I'm kind of stuff.  But when I unloaded my pockets earlier today, when I got back from shopping at Target, did I mention that?  When I left ML's apaprtment,  I had to go up to carry her stuff up for her, I programmed Gloaria Garmin to go to the Target on Gratiot.  She pronounces Gratiot "Gey-shit."  Anywa, I went there, bought myself two pairs of shorts, a shirt, 3 washcloths, and got a shirt for Keith and some eye vitamins for ML.  When I got home, K said he'd wash the shorts etc so I took off the ones I was wearing and piled them with the new ones and his new undies and our new shirts.  And when I unloaded the pockets of the one pair of shorts I had that fit, out came my pain pill bottle with aceametaphin, ibuporphe, and meloxicam.  My hips hurt right now.  They are uncomfortable and tight, but not yet bad enough for meds.  I haven't used ANY of the pain pills I carry around for emergencies in weeks.  I should check the condition of them before I reload my pockets. 

            Anyway, that's one small improvement, on thing to be grateful for.  I have not been sleeping veryw ell, but still have less pain.  a little less itching.

            On the other hand, every day that goes by without my working on the novel is one day less of my life avaialble to work on the novels.

            Thursday, July 24, 2014, 1:09 PM   I am at Brian Power's, in his waiting room.  I raced around doing stuff and forgot to get clean shorts from the dryer, so I am wearing some that keep trying to fall off.  I did not have time to do my ahir, and I am missing one of mt vbarrettes.  It may be lost in the house or may be permaently lost.  I probably should buy some more

            I wonder if I can write my worry list and my gratitude list for the evening earlier in the day.  It seems as if my worry list is primarily a to-do list, thing that need to be done that I lay awake thinking of at night.  It also includes negative feels--I feel sad about, I feel guilty about.

            It is a lovely day at Pier Park, cooler and less humid than it was earlier in the week

            I start a file of worries and my most immediate worry is being attacked by an agressive red-winged blackbird.

            It's quite low humidity today and the horizon is a sharp almonst black line gaisnt a paule blue. 

            The litle 4H sailboats are out.  Others as well.  A speedboat zooms by the 4H sailboats.  Then the same speed turns and zooms past again.  Some of the children's boats nearly topple.

            I am sitting at the end of the long jetty.  Only for a minute or two.  I wish I were walking on my novel.  ;-{

            There are four sailboats with striped balloon-like sails.

            I didn't have time to braid my hair today and it is getting all wind-blown and probbly snarled.

            2:57 PM Now I am up on the observation tower.  There are teenage girls sunning up here, and eating French fries.  "I miss Maddie" on of the says. 

            Someone nearby is washing the inside of their boat with a hose.  Spraying under the cover.

            "What time is it?" the same girl asks. 

            "Three o'clock"

            "Moan, I have to go,"  She stands up, all numbile and pretty.  "When we get closer to our bikes," she says, "I'll put more on.  Did you not put your bathing suit on?"

            "No the other girl says.  Let me finish my french fries."

            I get up and leave, so I don't hear any more of their conversation.  They are both pretty and have nice bodies.

            I listen to a conversation of youngert teens, boys whose voices haven't changed yet.  I dodge a teenage boy who is trying hard not to walk too close to his parents and so is babout run me down. 

            This is primarily a palce of priviledge.  Kids wander around unsupervised because it is a gated park.Only the youngest kids are shepherded around by their parents.

            I'm only taking a half-hour walk because I have to walk to the store when I get home.  W!hen I get to the beach, there is only one kid in the water.  He is a black kid, the only black kid on the beach.  But shortly, other kids jpoin him.  There are two preteens.  One is very shapely, with wide hips.  Her legs are tanned up to nearly ger crotch and she is wearing a two-piece bathing suit so that the untanned white-pink flesh around her tiny white suit bottom draws attention to her sexual area.  She looks too yound to be that --that sexual looking.  I mean, I worry about her innocence and safety.

            4:19 PM, I am headed toward Chalfonte to walk around the block to go to VM to shop for dinner etc.  Keith is on ten so he may not want to cook spaghetti tonight, not that I'd blame him.  So we may have hamburgers instead. 

            I am feeling sad to not be working on my novel.  I'm getting separated from it again, not good.

            One worry is temporarily postponed.  I got a note from Janet Braunstein and she's sick and wants to postpone tomorrow's meeting.  This is not good for her, and I'm sorry she's sick, but5 it lets me concentrate on fewer things at once,  like Sam and Joan visiting Saturday (I need to clean and cook). 

            All my prjects seem to be on hold becuase of life.  Tha5t is, ML, Samd Joan, Janet etc.  I would like to see each of them, it's only when things pile up that I get a little panicky and agiated. 

            A woman runs by me.  She is wearing a white jogging skirt with shorts under it, very short, and with every step, the skirt flies up, exposing the shorts, sort of like cheerleader style, and it seems as if that could be provovative to men.  (I am noticving, not complaining.  She can wear whatever she wants.  My own blouse is very low.  I can't help it, it came that way and if I'm not careful, it exposes my bra.  I'd prefer it to be a little higher.  I keep thinking of taking a tuck or two in the neckline.

            These days, many women are very "in-you+face" about their bodies and sexuality.  I have ambivalent feelings about that.  Seems like they are advertising their wares.  (me too, wit my low blouse).  I dont' think that gives anyone a right to touch or bother me or any other woman without permission.  And I am totally not in favor of Burkas or repressive dressing.  I guess I feel araid  Nervous and fearful for women and for myself.  Afraid men will be titilated to the point of being dangerously abusive.

            Friday, July 25, 2014, 5:31 PM I am out walking.  I am walking to VM to get food for Sam and Joan for tomorrow.  I guess we're going to have Jamabalay at our house.  I was hoping and praying for a reprieve and Sam offered to have us there.  I was going to bring the food.  Why Keith would WANT someone to come to our house is totally beyond me.  That means cleaning and I will probbaly get very upset and anbgry while cleaning and later when I can't find anything.  I will angry and sad and exhausted and unhappy.  I hate cleaning almost more than anything except pain.

            The problem is, there is too much stuff and nowhere to put it so we shuffle it around.  Carry it to the basement or to our bedroom and then for the next several years, we can't find it and buy more.  Or go without.  The piles get bigger and there is nowhere left to pout stuff when someone's coming.  I'm about to say goodye forever to my art supplies, paints, burshes papers, books, all kinds of things.  The things I use most are on the table and will have to be moved and will become lost. 

            I guess I could give up painting, but I'd prefer NOT to do that until I've finished various projects.

            I walk by a house that's been thoroughly tped--draped with toilet paper.  Around here that means something.  I forget what.  Somneone winning an award or soemthing, a team winning a game, I don't know.  But its mid to late July, so what could it mean?

            6:01 PM, headed home again.  "I don't want a pickle.  I just wanna ride on my motorcylce, and I don't wan a tickle, I just want to ride on my motorcickle and I don't wanna die, I just wanna ride on my motorcy  --  cle" Someis giving away pickle samples and trying to sell pickles.  He looks sort of hippiish and younish and cute, curly hair.  I sing to him and ask ask if he's sick of hearing that.  Probably is.  I sing it to the young cashier and she asks, is that a real song?  And she means it, too. 

            I wander out singing.  I"I don't want a pickle . . ." 

            She asks if I want to sing on the intercom.  I ask if she wants all her customers to leave.

            The cicadas are humming and buzzing, rising and falling.  They stop when I get too close.  I'd like to watch. 

            So, I got salad fixings, some, anyway. 

            There is a black squirrel with an ornage tail.  I've been seeing more and more of those.

            6:58 PM Hal phillips called and we had a long conversatuon, the gist of which was that he wanted me to come to the reunion next week.  In DeWitt/Syracuse.  And, he told me, after prying on my part (mainly because he was hang up after hassling me about th reunion without saying anything about himself (or asking anything about me).  So I asked how he was an what was going on and he said he was going to married again, maybe in October.  Kathy still thinks he might be getting back together with her.

            Well, I don't know what do do.  I'd like to stay out of the middle of that relatiosnip, but Kathy has been talking to me fiarly constantly about Hal, Hal's problems, her problems with him, etc.  He's going to marry a woman named Debra who yelled a greeting to me while he was talking.  I've seen a picture of her, but Kathy sent me one.  She looked fine to me, but Kathy seems to think she's a witch, of course.

            I would not want to marry Hal,w ho unfaithful to his wife with Annie (I liked Annie) (I did NOT like his wife).  (But I think she was jelaous of me, maybe, but not with good reason, as I never had sex with Hal.  So she was not nice to me, but isntead, rather snippy, mean, impatient etc.  Ann was always nice.  Ann died.  Of course, if Hal was making a habit of philandering, I can imagine what Helene though5t was going on when he used to come and visit me.  All along, I thought we were old friends.

            Someone pulled past me in a black mustang and then backed up, and for one brief moment, I had surge of anticipation thinking of young Bruce when we were courting many years ago.

            Anyway, the call from Hal was somewhat lenthy and interrupted the progress of the evening so that I finished my walking and we haven't had dinner or started much cleaning for Sam and Joan.

            did I mention I started working on a novel again?  But not the smae novel  Now I am working on Disappearing.  Last time I worked on it, I spend a lot of time interspersing the chapters.  But t is very confusing because each of the chpaters has a whole separate set of scharacters.  I think I may un-intersperse them.  I want to start with the present which I see as living in the abandoned houses, as I originally started it, and then have flashbacks.  But I have to do it differently.  It's too cofnusing. 

            I'm not even sure starting where I want to start is the best place.  I wanted to show the long-term impact of one thing that happned.  *The rape0.

            9:17 PM I am out on my third walk.  That phone from Hal my schedule messed up, that that I am sorry he called, but worse yet, it's beginning to rain.

            So, what was I talking about?  Oh yeah, structuting the novel about Terry Mercello.  The store timeline begins primarily when she is 166, almost 17 and a senior in high school.  She is raped by a firemn, Dave Terrance.  Hmm.  I had never noticved the similarity between her name and his. 

            *            *            *            * Timeline, Disappearing (actual)

•        The rape (walking home Bluebeard's  (do we need to go back even further and show her interacting with Dave terrence before hand?

•        Moving in with her penpal in the house of Wrath

•        the robbery, living on the streets.

•        needle park

•        The crash pad, meeting Claude (Eddie, Drek)

•        the drive-away car

•        SanFrancisco

•        Syracuse, being beaten in front friends, escaling cilence

•        Sanfrancisco again, running away, Big Syr

•        Detroit, GPF (inherited house?  Or?) 

•        Running away again *Central strating place of curent novel)

•        Meeting leo and Essie, being a squatter

•        Meeting Tyrone, going to live at Tyron's

•        Essie's art lessons

•         

            Saturday, July 26, 2014, 2 PM or so, I stayed up very late last night reading my novel, disappearing.  It ade me upset and sad.  So now I am tired and crabby because Sam and Joan for dinner and we have to clean the house, but there is nowhere to put anything.  Like all my art supplies in the livingroom.  Every square inch of the house is already full of shit.  It's all shit we want too, for the most part.  Adding to my upset is this, both my computer and my brand new Surface Pro 3, serneita (Serena) ,  would not start this morning.  The computer finally started but all my open tabs and work were gone, everything was gone.  My open documents were gone, etc.  Serena still won't turn on.  I even asked Keith to try, in case he'd see something I missed.  He couldn't get it turn on either.  :-( 

            I had a late breakfast because I did cleaning before I ate.  I wanted to see some actual progress.  Keith sat around reading the paper and drinking coffee for a long time, but then he cleaned the bathroom (apparently, I didn't check it, but he was in there banging around.  He also did a little cleaning in the kicthen and swept.  Now he is supposedly vaccuuming.  I hate the sound of the vacuum cleaner, so I left for my walk (since I have to walk anyway.). 

            What I would like to do with this time is work on one of my novels, Either Taming Uncle Beast, or Disappearing or even another one.  I would like to feel as if I am doing something useful, something toward my goal of publsihing novels or some other useful thing.

            Disappearing is a huge schmazz.  So much is going on, so many characters.  Parts of it are very good, many parts of it, but it doesn't go together at all.  It's hard to follow, full of patchwork stuff.  I think if I were better rested, healthier, thinner (and sarter?), I could figure it all out. 

            I think I would like to collapse the timeline a little.  By that, I mean make the time that everything happens shorter.  Leave out stuff, save it for another novel. 

            And the beginning,w hich I liked so much originally, is a little OTT (over the top, maybe). 

            There is a tiny baby bird lying on the sidewalk, maybe only an inch long, ad naked.  It's covered with flies.  The only way I could see what it was was to scare the flies away.  I hope it's not symbolic of my baby novel.  DOR--dead on the road.  Maybe they all are.  I need to start with an outline.  I can't even write a new synopsis until read what I have already end to end. 

            I don't like the word dandled.  It sounds like something ugly and sick.

            I found myself thinking that if I were married to someone other than Keith, I might have a dog and a cat.  What was I thinking?  Some emotional bullshit.  I was missing certain animals I used to have, but what about the others and the whole huge burden of them?

            I seem to want to write a book the way I read a book, that is, read or write along and see what happens.  but I have to control what happens to some extent or it won't take me where I need to go.

            For example, in Taming Uncle Beast, the story is left, at the moment, with Tiny and Trey asleep on the raft after their first kiss, their first real kiss, and Jake and Harmon pursuing Shannon who has kidnapped Bettty Sue.  It's night time, it's raining, and it's very dark and swampy.  Shannon is headed for his truck, a huge jacked up 4 x 4.  We (as readers) don't know what he intends to do.  But here's what I think, as the author.  Shannon actually loves Betty Sue and wants her back.  He can never have her back, though, because he has made her too afraid of him.  He knows this at some level, and it makes him crazy.  He isn't sure what to do.  If she tells him she won't stay with him when they are alone together, he might kill her.  Harmon knows this at some level.  Maybe they all do.  But Shannon doesn't want to kill Betty Sue.  1)He loves her, 2)he doesn't want to cross that line.  He has, in fatc, not killed anyone yet.  (His dogs have, but he has not). 3)Shannon has made some bad choices, but is not really a bad person at heart.

            I know there is some reason why I didn't want this kidnapping to be successful, but I forget what it was.

            *  I copied this and pasted it below in the TUB section.

            *            *            *            * I sat down on a bench at Richard.  I started walking after spending a fair emount of time on my feet.  My lower back was bothering me, but it will delay my return.  I am feeling tired and angry.

            i hope Keith remembers to turn the rice off.

            2:49 PM I am almost home, well, getting fiarly close.  Didn't write for a while because I tend to walk more slowlywhen I am writing.

            2:55 shoot.  I am home, but haven't walked 45 minutes.  I walk on by.  Dang.  I walked too fast coming home in my eagerness to get back to work.  I have to walk past the house.  And then back.

            Monday, July 28, 2014, 4:27 PM The days are rushing by and I am not getting stuff done I need to do, and that upsets me.  I am out on my first walk of the day.  i am headed around the block the long way to Village market to get milk.  I wasn't going to go to the store at all; I was going eat from the freezer.  BUT Keith is almost out of milk, so off I go.  I had been hoping to walk to Rolandale and water the plants today, but I'm just so slow at getting going.  Getting online is the part of the problem.  Also staying in bed late because we go to bed late.  The day is out of kilter and i dont like it. 

            I think I need to quit Cowbird and Daily Challenge.  Each of those sets up a false sense of community and rewards you for checking in daily.  But when I get up in the morning and feel as if I have to get online and then I sink into a vast black hole of time sink, I get nothing done.  I did do my exercises this morning. 

            I ahd to take Meloxicam and voltaren yesterday because of pain probably from eating Joan's very tasty but unhelathy (for me) beer bread.  When I eat that kind of fodd, an addictive response sets in and I can't stop eating it and then I get SICK!!  I ate ate more bad food today, though not quite as bad.  I need, yet again, to break the addictive cycle started by bad food.  I'm sure Joan thought she was doing a good thing--and it did taste good, but it makes me sick, not just for one day, for for days afaterwards.

            It makes me want to be a hermit, because no one understands at all.  NO ONE.

            It's easy for stupid assholes to say, "just don't take that first bite," but when someone comes bearing a laof of still warm beer bread as a gift, I feel obligated to eat soem, and that in turn sets up the addictive response, releases the black dragon.  It would be easier for me to just not have friends.

            Keith doesn't get it either, or he wouldn't lay out "sweetie bait" on his leg.  And he wouldn't put andouille sausage in his stir fries.  I do it too, because he has said over and over that he doesn't want me to make two dinners and he doesn't like chicken sausage, so he puts me in a bind.  Either please him and k8ill myself or make myself sick, or be helathy and make him angry.

            4:49 PM I am headed home with a full backpack and a bag on y arm, which makes it difficult to write because the bag is banging on my leg with every step.

            5:39 PM, I am out for my second walk, this one from Rolandale, for 30 minutes.  The rpevious walk, to VM, which took 30 minutes, caounting walking around the store, only counts as a 15-minutee walk.  UNLESS it starts raining, and I have to go back early.  If necessary, I could count all 30 of the earlier minutes, but since walking around the store pausing to acquire various items requires a different kind of energy, I don't usually count that part.  I say, unless it rains, because it's very cloudy and has sprinkling off and on.  I would prefer it to hold off until I have complated my official walking.

            I harvested a very large zucchini, a smaller zucchini, and an eggplant.  Also a few small springs of broccoli.  I love getting food from the gar4den.

            There is a sort of stillness in the air that feels like calm before the storm, so I really hope it holds off for a while.  I've been 5 minutes and am over by St. John's hospital.  It's very cool considering how hot it's been, and I prefer the cooler weather.  But I am wearing two shirts and am a little chilly.  W!hich is okay.

            I am walking through a pretty neighborhood, almost, but not quite, as pretty as our neighborhood.  More of these houses have sections of clapboard which doesn't weather as nicely as brick does.  I liek our house and our neighborhood, except for the fact that the house is small and the people a little too dressy and hoighty-toighty for me. 

            I like the all brick houses better.  But some of them are so plain.  Ours is nicer, for sure.  Too bad it's so small and so far from nature.  Keith never understood my need to be close to nature and doesn't seem to get what nature IS.  Yes, there is nature in the city, but in wildness is the preservation of the word and of the soul.  I feel a constant longing for more and at the same time, I've become spoiled by air-conditoning, which I never had in NY and by the general lack of mosquitoes and biting insects.  If I were to move, I would want to move somewhere where there were not a lot of biting isnects in nature and where it's not too hot.  Liek Corado or norther California.

            On the other hand, I seem to also, as Ia ge, be less tolerant of cold.

            I have reached the furthest out part of this loop, by radio shack and Mack Abe and have started the trek back toward Rolandale.  Then, I will dump the African violets and go home and maybe start dinner.

            I need to work on the story for Janet, Disappearing.  I ned to decide QUICLY if I am going to the JD reunion.  I need to talk to Deborah Benedict about her luncheon.  I get overwhelmed when I feel that there are too many pressures, especially external pressures, for me to do certain things,e specially when they conflict, like going to the reunion and Deb's luncheon.  I don't really want to go to either one of them.  I feel like getting in my car and driving to the Pinery or the UP and staying there for a long time.

            I need work on my novel(s).  I feel terrible.  I want to be working.  Am I in a fallow period?  I need to finsih and mail the moleskine.  I am not carrying any camera and now I wish I were.  I see a daylily I'd like photgraph.  Even if I had a cerama, it might not be the right one. 

            Wednesday, July 30, 2014, 3:58 PM I am out walkingg to VM arund the block.  We had a cloudburst a little while ago and now the sun is shining.  I've been working on one of my novels, Discovery at Little Hog Island.  I am feeling Depressed about it because I know I've worked on it before.  I no longer know if I am working on the latest version, so I feel as if I am wasting time reinventing the wheel over and over.  I wish I had a siple system that worked. 

            I never got together with Janet.  I was going to work on my Disappearing novel with her--if we were going to meet. 

            I took an ambien last night because after Keith read to me and tried to soothe me and I took Benadrul, I still couldn't sleep.   I don't want to make a habit of taking them, but I just can't be awake 24-7 o4r sleeping away the day and up at night.  If Ic ould meet with Janet once a week, or every other week, and bring her the next secion of Disappearing, and prepare parts of Little Hog Island for the writing grou, if I stay in it, and in-bewteen, work on Af4ter Uncle Beast and my other projects, I might some day eventually get some of them done.

            Maybe.

            If I could just work on any one of them until it was finished.  AK.

            So, The shopping is done and Keith took the groceries and I am walking again.  I was very very bad and ate three little pieces of apple pie, damn it.  I wish I wouldn't do that, I'm sure it contributes not only to my excess weight, but to PAIN, stuffness and insomnia.  And I was just getting over the last binge and starting to feel better.

            Dang!  WAHN.  Sometimes I hate myself.  Well, What's done is fone, unless I'm going to barf it up, which has never been my style. 

            I'm walking through the alley's behind the businesses on Mack, which is a luttle dangerous, and doesn't save much time.  These aren't manhatten alleus, narrow and tall.  They are well-lit, shallow sunny alleys--what's dangerous about them is the traffic, people drive fast through them, and do not expect to see pedestians.  They drive so fast they scare me going by.

            Thursday, July 31, 2014, 2:47 PM I am at Pier Park after seeing Brian Powers.  We talked about food addictions and about my writing group at Ewald.  I also wanted to talk about rape and my continuing reaction to it.  But we didn't get to that.

            I was working on Disappearing, reading it through again, and it was stirring up upsetting feelings.  And Vivienne/Kate commented on one of my stories about rape, and I cried, reading everyone's comments.

            (which reminds me, I need to go back and revisit those people's comments.  And I think I need to change email that those comments go to.)

            Yesterday (I think it was yesterday, but it may have been the day before), I finally started working on taming Uncle Beast again.  I really need an outine for it.  It's floundering.  I mean, it's interesting enough, but the exciting parts are with Shannon and Betty Sue, not Tiny, Trey and Jake.  What I mean to say is, Tiny needs to have some excitement in her life.

            *            *            *             EJ end Journal *            **            *

                        *            * WL Worry List ForThursday, July 24, 2014*

My worry list keeps growing.  It always does.  It is only when I look back several months that I see some of my worries hav been put to rest.  Or occasionally, the worries I had yesterday about today specifically go away.  Like Tuesday, I was worried about ML, the eye doctor, getting enough sleep, getting there on time, making a lunch.

            I am wearing a pair of shorts that is so big that it keeps threatening to fall off.  Earlier in the week, I was worried about getting more shorts, and I got some.  I was worried about getting and making more sauerkraut, and did both.  So, some worries come to and end.

            Why do I worry about my to-do list?  Because days go by when I don't get things doen that I need to get done and it often seems like I will "never" get them done.  And, some things never get done.

•        I am worried about getting the house presentable for Sam and Joan by Saturday

•        I am worried about my meeting with Janet tomorrow.  Is it happening?  Where are we meetin?  What are we eating?  What are we reading?  Am I cooking something. When am I going to do this?  If we're meeting at R~dale, will I have time clean there?

•        I am worried about the fact that I have Same and Joan coming over and preparations for a possible meemting with Janet which I do not want to Postpone.  Conflict of time.

•        Hal Phillips, calls from Hal Phillips, my calls to Hal Phillips.  Get the rights numbers on the cellujiu phone and in my address book.

•        attacks by angry red-winged blackbirds.  Right now.  I cover my head with the Psion.  I've had them peck me on the top of the head and it hurts.

yuhyytgtgttyggtgtgtgvygfytgfgyggttgttgthhtthhththghghghghghghggghgtgghghghggghhygyg

            ^ red winged blackbird attack!

            *            *            *            * Gratitude List            *            *            *            *

•        Cooler temps and less humidty, nice breeze, sunshine

•        waves reflections on the bottoms of boats

•        a sharp clear horizon

•        fresh-smelling air

•        less pain in gernreal lately

•        slept better last night

•        lots of good veggies in the garden

•        KEITH and his love and patience and hard work

•        my beautiful daughters and grandson

•        Graham's willingness to make tacos

•        Heidi

•        green grass, rees, flowers.  Echinacea, daisies. 

•        enough money for the time being

•        good books

•        art

•        Black-eyed susans

•        swallows, gulls, red-wings

•        children

*            *            *            * Begin Taming Uncle Beast TUB

            Then I was a little sad.  I thought maybe he didn't like me enough to touch me there.  But his kiss, or kisses, I wasn't sure if it was one or many strung together, sure felt like he liked me.  Sure felt good.  I gave up wanting more and burrowed into the kiss as if I lived there, as if it were home. 

            I was eating him and drinking him and somehow becoming him. 

            And somehow, in the midst of all that excitement, we fell asleep.  Don't ask me how.  I would have said it was impossible.  But it was very late and we were tired.  Sleep was like another country where we could just be together and happy for a while.

            f

            WL My worry list for Thursday, July 24:

            *            *            *            *  st a little. EJ  end journal

*            *            *            * Begin Taming Uncle Beast TUB

            Then I was a little sad.  I thought maybe he didn't like me enough to touch me there.  But his kiss, or kisses, I wasn't sure if it was one or many strung together, sure felt like he liked me.  Sure felt good.  I gave up wanting more and burrowed into the kiss as if I lived there, as if it were home. 

            I was eating him and drinking him and somehow becoming him. 

            And somehow, in the midst of all that excitement, we fell asleep.  Don't ask me how.  I would have said it was impossible.  But it was very late and we were tired.  Sleep was like another country where we could just be together and happy for a while.

            *            *            *            * brainstorming, TUB

            For example, in Taming Uncle Beast, the story is left, at the moment, with Tiny and Trey asleep on the raft after their first kiss, their first real kiss, and Jake and Harmon pursuing Shannon who has kidnapped Bettty Sue.  It's night time, it's raining, and it's very dark and swampy.  Shannon is headed for his truck, a huge jacked up 4 x 4.  We (as readers) don't know what he intends to do.  But here's what I think, as the author.  Shannon actually loves Betty Sue and wants her back.  He can never have her back, though, because he has made her too afraid of him.  He knows this at some level, and it makes him crazy.  He isn't sure what to do.  If she tells him she won't stay with him when they are alone together, he might kill her.  Harmon knows this at some level.  Maybe they all do.  But Shannon doesn't want to kill Betty Sue.  1)He loves her, 2)he doesn't want to cross that line.  He has, in fatc, not killed anyone yet.  (His dogs have, but he has not). 3)Shannon has made some bad choices, but is not really a bad person at heart.

            I know there is some reason why I didn't want this kidnapping to be successful, but I forget what it was.

            * copied from above

                        *            *            *            *

            Killer whines low in his throat, a tentative half angry, half worried quiet "woof" follows the whine.  It's getting light, and two huge hunched figues approach along the bank.  Killer backs up against my leg, the ruff on his neck rising, his lip curling in a snarl.  Then we hear the low whistle of a woodthrush, and Amogo's tail shoots stright out behind and wags tentatively.

            In a moment, I begin to make out the lumbering shapes.  Trey rubs his eyes.  "Is that Jake and Harmon?  What are they carryingg?"

            Trey hastily untied the skiff and the canoe.  He took the skiff and I took the canoe, and we paddled and rowed up to the berm under the trees.  Harmon and Jake laid their burdens down.  They stretched and groaned.  Harmon rolled something into the skiff.  It was Shannon, hog-tied. 

            Jake lifted Betty Sue into the canoe.  After some rowing, paddling and heafting and groaning, The two somewhat limp forms were laid out on the raft, the canoe lashed back on, and skiff tied up behind.  As all this was occurring, it was getting lighter and lighter and I began to worry about fisherman and bargemen seeing the two limp forms, especially Shannon all tied and gagged. 

            But Jake and Hrmon took him by the ankles and shoulder and heaved him into the tent, rolling him down to the end furthest from where I'd been sleeping.  Then Harmon Carefully laid Betty Sue in the tent, crawled in Beside her and moved gently down to the opposite side of the tent from Shannon.  He and Jake carwled in and fell asslep. 

            I figured they needed their sleep.  But we needed instructions.  Stay or leave?  So I woke Jake, and he said, "As long as you are able, the two of you, take us downriver.  Stay to the side.  Don't engage anyone if you can help it.  If you get too tired, find a sheltered spot to tie up."  And thenhe passed out again.

            So we did.  We weighed our anchor, and headed down river, staying fairly close to shore, going out only when we passed docks and marinas or fallen trees.  We too turns doing tiller and lookout duty.  After a while, we got hungry, and tied up long anough to get a balaoney sandwich each, and a carrot from Harmon's grocery-store stach.  We went onto shore to pee, and than weighed anchor and took off angain. 

            When the sun was almost directly overhead, Jake crawded out of the tent slick with sweat and called for a pit stop.  He kicked Harmon and they dragged Shannon out.  Shannon looked bleary and confused.  He was also sporting some big bruises. 

            Betty Sue craewled out, too.  She was a little the worse for wear, bruised and stupid-looking, slack-jawed, and bloody.  She smiled crookedly when she saw me and stagged over to lean on my shoulder.  I helped her into the skiff and took to pee. 

            When we got back, she crawled back into the tent and collapsed.  They tossed Shannon in beside her and then rolled them apart.  Jake opened the back of the tent while Harmon rolled up the front.  "Don't want them cook in there," Jake said, smiling strangely.

            "What's wrong with Betty Sue?" I asked, frantic with worry.

            "Nothing a little time won't cure," Harmon said.  "Besides the near drowning and the beating she took from Shannon, her only problem is the tranks I gave her to help her sleep," 

            "Tranks?" I asked, stupidly, before Trey elbowed me. 

            "Tranquilizers," he said, "probably they both have them.  But what happens when Shannon's wears off?"

            "I got it timed to wear off just about the time it gets dark tonight.  Then we'll have a family gathering.  A big Powow," Harmon said.

            "I'm no family of Shannon's," Betty Sue slurred, "He ain't my family." 

            "Later, Betty Sue," Harmon crooned, "don't worry about it now."

            Betty Sue groaned, put her head down and went back to sleep.

            "Y'all want to take a nap?" Jake asked, looking at me and Trey.

            "I could use a little shut-eye," Trey said.  I nodded and we crawled in between Shannon and Betty Sue, Trey beside Shannon and me next to Betty Sue.  Trey reached over and gave my hand a squeeze and the next thing I knew, it was nearly dark and Betty Sue was poking me.

            "I gotta pee," she whispered, sounding desperate.

            "Pit stop," I hollered.  I could see we were fairly close to shore. 

            Betty Sue was a little stiff, I could tell by the way she hobbled.  We took the skiff.  The mosquitoes were thick and vicious.  We did our business in record time and a cloud of bugs followed us back to the raft.  We took the usual evasive action of moving out toward the center of the river, where there was more breeze.

            Shannon began to moan just after we got out near the center.  Jake and Harmon got him up and let him pee over the side, something we normally tried to avoid.  They made him pee without untying him, holding on to him from both sides and leaning him over the water.  Harmon pulled his penis out of his pants.  I know this, because, I'm embarassed to admit, I watched.  It was getting so dark that I couldn't see as clearly as I might have liked to. 

            I did see Harmon give the penis a shake, stuff it back in Shannon's pants, and zip his fly.  Then, he washed his hands in the same river Shannon had just peed into.  It's the water we often drink, albeit after filtering and/or boiling.  Of course, the ducks, geese herons crap in it, and the motorboats spill oil and as into it.  And at the beaches along the river, the kids all pee in the water.  But it just seems that thoughtful, educated, sane adults should know better. 

            I thought about the mosquitoes and I thought about the pee in the water and I felt confused.

            Jake and Harmon lowered Shannon to the deck of the raft into a crosslegged position that looked pretty uncomfortable to me.  His hands and feet were still tied, but they took off the gag.  Shannon worked his mouth, opening and closing it like a fish and looked angry, but said nothing.

            Jake made up a bunch of baloney sandwiches and we all ate them.  Harmon held the sandwich for Shannon to bite and he must have been pretty hungry, because he just ate it.  I was afarid he'd bite Harmon's hand, but he didn't. 

            Jake was at the tiller.  Trey was at the bow.  We were out far enough that he didn't really have to watch for snags, but there was always the possibility of floating debris.  And of course, other boats, people fishing without lights, stuff like that.  I mean, once there was a goat swimming in the river and we had a heck of time avoiding hitting it.

            "Time for a powwow." Harmon said, flatly, his voice strangely devoid of expression.  Shannon spat.  He was pretty good at spitting, because he was nearly at the center of the raft and his spit sailed over the starboard side into the river, and sailed away in a twirling spiral in the dim light. I was interested, because I thought he might spit in Harmon's face or onto the raft.

            "Shannon," Harmon said, what are your intentions tword Betty Sue?"

            Betty Sue started to say something, and Harmon cut her off.  "It's not your turn yet, you'll have a turn soon.  Shannon?"

            "Who's Betty Sue?  You mean Prissy?" Shannon asked, looking genuinely confused.

            "Who's Prissy?" Harmon asked, looking at Betty Sue. 

            "I'm Prissy," Betty Sue said.  Needless to say, I was totally amazed, because I had used Prissy as Betty Sue's fictional name in the fictional story I wrote about Shannon and Betty Sue.  But the I remembered--the reason I used the name Prissy is because Betty Sue herself had told me she liked the name and wished she was Prissy rather than Betty Sue.  The weird thing is, I thought she looked more like a Prissy than a Betty Sue.  I will have to think about that.  I see a Betty Sue as being prim and proper and wearing classic shirt-waist dresses and having bobbed or flipped hair.  Kind of 1950s.  I see a Prissy as being shapely and wearing miniskirts or short shorts and having either very long hair or a pixie cut or little curls.  I guess a Betty Sue could have curly hair, too, but more of the 1950s style perm.  My Betty Sue never looked that much like a Betty Sue.

            "Okay," Harmon said, "Let's start over.  Shannon, what are your intentions toward Prissy?"

            "She's my girlfriend.  I probably want to marry her, someday, not right away."

            "Prissy, or Betty Sue, what are your intentions toward Shannon?"

            Betty Sue burst out crying.  "I thought I loved him.  I thought I wanted to marry him.  I wanted to have his babies.  But now I don't want to.  I'm afraid of him.  He tried to kill me." She wailed.

            The wail rose like a siren and then subsided to sobs.

            When the sobs quieted, Shannon said, "I did not try to kill you.  If I had wanted to kill you, I had plenty of opportunity.  I could have drowned you or stabbed you in the woods.  I was not trying to kill you."

            "What were you doing, chasing me with that knife into the ladies' room and into the church?  You were holding the knife over my head in the tent."

            "But I could have plunged it in, and I didn't.  I did not intend to kill you.  I never did.  It would have been easy to, if that's what I wanted.  Why would I kill the woman I love?"  His voice was pleading.

            "You scared me.  You terrified me.  I thought I was going to die." Betty wailed again.  It was a raw sound, almost as if she were actually being stabbed. 

            Jake looked nervously around.  I could tell he was tempted to try to shush her so that no one would come, thinking that someone was hurting her.  But he said nothing.  We were in the current and moving quickly downriver, and there were no houses or boats nearby.  Not that we could easily see.

            "I love you," Shannon said softly, staring intently at Betty Sue or Prissy in the dark.  "Please believe me."

            "I can't believe you," Betty Sue said.  "I can't believe a person who truly loves another person would threaten them, her, me the way you threatened me."

            "I wasn't threatening you."

            "What were you doing, then?"

            Shannon said nothing.  He frowned.  "I don't know," he finally said.  "I don't know what I was doing, but I didn’t intend to kill you.  There was a demon.  A demon inside you.  I needed to kill the demon." 

            "If you thought I had a demon in me, and you stabbed me, trying to kill the demon, you would have killed me," Betty Sue said, her voice low. 

            "No!" Shannon almost shouted.  "No!  I did not want to kill you.  I never wanted or intended to kill you."

            "Shannon," Harmon said, "have you ever killed anyone?"

            "No," Shannon said, "Never."  He turned and looked Harmon in the face, his eyes imploring.  even in the dark, I could see that.  "I never killed anyone." he repeated stubbornly. 

            "Did you witness a killing?" Harmon asked. 

            "Why are you asking me this?"  Shannon asked, looking suspiciously first at Betty Sue and then as me. 

            "Shannon, have you ever witnessed a killing.  Just answer the question."

            "Who are you?  What right have you got to as me that? Are you a cop?"

            "No.  I am not.  I am a dishonorably discharged ex-soldier and army chaplain, and a defrocked essentially unemployed minister.  However, possession is nine-tenths of the law, and at the moment, I posses you.  In case you haven't noticed, you are my captive.  So, let's try this again.  Have you ever witnessed a killing?"

            "Of what?

            "Of a human being."

            "No."

            "Have you ever disposed of a body?"

            "What is this, the inquisition?"

            "If it was, I think you would be experiencing more fear and pain.  Have you ever disposed of a body?"

            "If I say yes, then what?"

            "It depends on what else you say.  Did you ever dispose of a body." 

            "Maybe."  Shannon trailed off, leaving the question in the air.

            "How did the person die?"

            At this point, Shannon twisted and looked behind him.  Amigo was sitting close behind him, his ruff slightly raised and his lip slightly pulled back so that even in the darkness, his teeth were clearly visible.  Shannon shivered. 

            "It was the dogs," he said.  "I wasn't even home."

            *            *            *            *

            "The dogs? They killed someone?"

            There was a long pause.  Everyone stared at Shannon in the darkness.  He cleared hius throat, made a strangled sound like a sob cut off midstream, cleared his throat again.

            "Two someones, Chal and Big. ((?)).  Best I can figure is that Chal wanted the dogs and Big was drafted to help him.  I was out on a . . . .  out on a deal, and I'd put my two best bitches, Fiery and Fang on with my two best studs, Armageddon and ((Ghs))((See earlier reference.  Just before I left, I decided to leave Armageddon and Fang loose in the outer pen, because I was afraid something was coming down with Chal.  He'd been acting mighty strange.  I thought if he saw the dogs loose in the pen, he’d stay out.  I had a huge padlock on the gate.

            "What I neglected to do was to double latch ((Ghs's)) and Fiery's pen.  I know I put the one latch down, I remember doing it, but I must not have dropped the deadbolt."  Again, the strangled half-cry.  “They must have come over the fence and into the empty pen where Armageddon and Fang would have been, had I not left them loose.  The dogs must have bettered down the door, or something—I couldn’t make out what had happened exactly.  It was a very dark night, dark of the moon and clouds.  And all those trees and bushes around there.”

            "When I got back, I found a huge mess.  Blood everywhere.  Body parts.  I recognized Chal's boots and Big's huge orange sneakers.  Chal and Big were more than half eaten.  I always starve the dogs a little before a big fight--it makes them meaner.  And we had a fight scheduled later that night at another dude's place.  A guy we call 'Friendship.'" Here, Shannon laughed, a sad little iroic laugh.  "He's about as unfriendly as a dude could be."

            "I didn't know what to do.  I collected all the leftover pieces, put them in a garbage bag and buried them behind the garage."

            Tiny gasped. 

            Shannon fixed her with an evil eye.  "I knew you were spying on me," he said.

            "That wasn't me, that was Lily," Tiny said, stupidly.

            "I left because I was afraid you'd turn me in.  I hosed down the whole yard that night, after dark.  I thought I could see you watching me from your bedroom window."

            "I thought I was fantasizing the whole thing out of boredom," Tiny admitted.  “I couldn't see well enough in the dark to see what you were doing.  I really had no idea, or else I did, but didn't realize it.  Not until I dreamed about it later and then wrote about it."

            "You wrote about it?" Shannon sounded nervous.  "What did you do with what you wrote?"

            "She didn't do anything with it yet," Jake said, interrupting.  Tiny looked up at him in surprise.  It wasn't true.  She had done something with it.  She'd emailed it as a fiction piece to Mrs. Dietrich.  It was a fiction piece, conjured from her wildest imaginings.  She hadn't known, not consciously, anyway, that it was true.  But she didn’t' contradict Jake.  She'd read him the story, she remembered, one of those lazy afternoons floating down the river, before anything had started happening.  She'd forgotten all about that. 

            Shannon looked back and forth between Jake and Tiny. 

            "What did she tell you?" he asked, in a low, growly voice. 

            "She told me she'd dreamed about your burying some guy behind your house.  It was a nightmare.  She didn't think it was true, and neither did I. 

            "Then why were you guys hassling me to tell you about Chal and ((?))?  Seemed like you already knew something.  How would you know anything if Tiny hadn't seen and told?  And, what are you going to do with me now?  Arrest me?  Turn me over to the cops?"

            "What we're hoping to do with you is talk to you and get everything out on the table in plain sight so we can behave appropriately,” Harmon said.

            "And what does a dishonorably discharged defrocked minister know about appropriate behavior?" asked Shannon, with a slight sneer in his voice.

            "I am probably not going to decide anything, not on my own.  See how low we're riding in the water?  We probably should pick up some Styrofoam blocks to shore up the raft.  Let's see, you and Betty Sue or Prissy or whatever her name is makes Two.  Tiny and Trey make four.  Jake and I make six.  There are six people riding on this raft that was designed for a one-person trip.  Six people who have minds and hearts, or maybe I should say hearts and minds.  Six voices to be heard and considered.  Have you got any more to say?"

            "Maybe."

            "Well, say it, then."

            "I want to hear what he has to say," Shannon said, pointing at Trey. 

            Trey had been silent, listening, but not speaking. 

            "You're not guilty of murder, I don't think," Trey said, “if what you told us is true.  But I'm not a judge and jury.  What I'd like to know are three things.  First, who were Chal and Big and why were there trying to steal your dogs? Second, why didn't you tell the authorities immediately, if you hadn't done anything wrong, and third, what does Betty Sue or Prissy have to say about your threatening her with a knife?  Does she corroborate your story?"

            "Corroborate? What are you, some friggin' little lawyer kid?  What kid talks like that?"

            "Well?" Trey asked.  "You asked, and I spoke.  What is your response?"

            "Prissy will have to speak herself."

            "Prissy will have her turn" Jake said, “after you finish.  Tell us about Chal and Big and why you didn't call the cops, although I can hypothesize a somewhat logical answer to that question."

            *            *            *            *

            “Chal was a small-time crack dealer, dog fighter, and general asshole.  His real name was Challenge Jones.  He was a black guy, tall, thin, rangy and mean.  He dealt crack, coke, crystal meth, heroine, pot, acid, ecstasy, but mostly crack.  He had some pretty mean dogs, but they weren't as good as mine.  He lived over on Jug Handle Road, where it curves around Goodman Hill, between the cliffs and swamps, over in the Rum-Runner district. 

            “Saying Chal was mean probably doesn't imply much to you.  Lots of people are mean, so let me illustrate my point with a couple of anecdotes."

            "Anecdotes!" Trey say, “what kind of crack-head dogfighter uses the word ‘anecdote?’"

            "One who had Mrs. Dietrich for English," Shannon said ruefully.  "Not just in high-school.  I was taking some evening classes at KCC, as part of the 'everybody's gifted program' she runs."  He said this very quietly in a low voice, almost a whisper.

            "Really!" Tiny screeched.  "Really?  Me too.  I love Mrs. Dietrich.  She totally rocks."

            "I kind of like her, too," Shannon admitted, looking considerably cheered.

            "I didn’t want to grow up to be a crack-head dogfighter.  Anyway, back to Chal and Big.