Short Story - Frye Forgets

Thought I'd do something different today. I have a bunch of really short stories I've played with through the years, as a way to get my writing self jogged back into a project. Sometimes I just need to play with different characters or a genre I'm not comfortable with, to get the brain working again. Sometimes an idea pops into my head that's not novel length-worthy, but it won't leave me alone. I'm not a natural short story writer, far from it. The genre is one of the toughest around. Every word has to count tenfold.

 This is one of those stories. Just remember, it's copyrighted 2011.  Tracy

                                                                           Frye  Forgets

Frye locked the car door and leaning his head against the blast of icy wind, scrunching his eyes shut.  He couldn’t stand to look at the Ford, much less drive it, but it was all he had, and he had to get to work.  With no public transportation to the lab, he was stuck.  Jamming the key in his jacket pocket, he hoisted his briefcase chest high, using it to protect his midsection from the battering of the storm.  No precipitation, not yet.  Just enough wind to bowl over trailers and scoop the roofs off Walmarts. A high, sustained, deadly wind that shut down schools and businesses all over town.  Even with the weather, he preferred going to work.  Staying in his apartment alone wasn’t an option.

Waving to the guard who recognized him, Frye hurried to the elevators.  He never shared small talk with anyone in the building.  He was there to work, and work he must - keep his brain busy deciphering the code of the universe and time.  If he let his mind take its own course, he remembered every detail of that day so clearly he ended up in the men’s room, vomiting anything in his stomach.

“Dr. Carson, you’re here!”  The lab assistant who was assigned last night’s duty rubbed his eyes like a two year old, his smile just as innocent and happy.  Frye’s heart stuttered. 

“No traffic, that’s for sure.”  Don’t think about children, he warned himself.   His lab coat from the back of his chair was already across his shoulders as Bailey shifted last night’s data from the computer under his nose. 

“I was just about to call you.  See this?”  Bailey pointed to a line of dark squiggles.  “Found it about two minutes ago when I was doing another review.”  He thrust the papers into Frye’s hands.

Frye remained standing, the reams of computer paper clutched close to his face.  “Are you sure this wasn’t a printer malfunction?” His eyes shone.

Bailey shook his head. “Flip back to page forty-one.  Exactly an hour earlier.  And on every page on the hour, just like clockwork.”  His eyes danced and he could hardly keep his hands still. 

Frye’s utter stillness nonplussed him. “Aren’t you excited?  I mean, this is what we’ve been looking for, right?  The cosmic burp?”

“Or the cosmic fart.  It could be nothing.” Frye glanced at the phone on his desk.   Where is the rest of the staff?  He should call everyone and let them know what Bailey had found.  Deep inside the research lab, the wind outside was forgotten.  “Let’s go through the video tapes.”

He should wait for Herb Mason, his boss.  Herb would provide the backup he’d need when presenting the data for verification.  Bailey was just a kid, his degree too lowly to count. 

“Set tape one up already.  Figured you’d want to see it.”  Bailey grinned.  “We got it this time, Dr. Carson.  They can’t say we didn’t!”

“They’ll say we’re a bunch of crackpots if we aren’t dead on.”  Trying to squelch Bailey’s excitement was like kicking kittens.  Didn’t help him one bit, made him angrier at himself.  Did he dare hope?  Was this the day he’d be able to make it right?

The video showed the complete utter blackness of the room.  A short burst of light, and the apple on the floor was illuminated as it must have been in the garden when Eve’s eyes first lit on it.  Red and luscious.  The darkness swallowed the fruit almost instantly.  Again, the procedure repeated.  Apple. Black.  Red.  Dark.  The pulse of light throbbed faster and faster.

Bailey and Frye both rubbed their eyes.  No one could watch the entire shift, that was why they’d arranged for video monitors.

“Here, here’s when it hit the first time!”   Bailey slowed down the replay.

This time the burst of light showed nothing on the floor, nothing at all.  The apple was gone.  With shaking fingers, Frye hit fast forward on the machine, and watched the counter until just before the end of one hour.  Light struck the apple like a shot through space and time onto the floor.

Bailey cheered, hooting like a kid with a new toy. “See that, doc, see it?  We did it, I mean, you did it!”  He pumped Frye’s hand up and down.

“We’ll see. It could have been a malfunction in the tape.”

“What about the sensor?  It confirmed the disappearance.”  Bailey stabbed a finger at the video control.  “See that?  It happened again. Look, Dr. Carson.  Take a look, for heaven’s sake!”

Eyes shut, Frye refused to acknowledge what Bailey was telling him.  If he did, he would have the chance he’d been praying he’d have for the past five years.    His wife hadn’t said any of those words, she’d just walked out the door of their house and never come back.

He’d said them, and worse.  Murderer.  That’s what he really was.

“Call the team.”  Now was the time to test the project with a live subject.   A rat first, then a monkey.  His scientific mind raced down the list of possible test subjects.  Bailey was on the phone, breaking the news in an excited, little boy voice that almost squealed excitement.

Frye’s hands shook.  When the team assembled, they’d begin testing the possibilities with endless patience, scientific precision.   He’d never get another chance to see if he could change the past.  He kept his face averted as Bailey waved the phone at him, trying to get his attention.

“Dr. Carson, Dr. Witmeyer wants to talk to you.”

“Tell him I’ll call him back in a few minutes.  Got to check something first.”  Frye pressed his palm to the security lock.  The door hissed open.  Cold air, colder than that around Frye’s heart, drove into his exposed skin.  Punching the release combination, Frye waited impatiently for the key pad to rise from its protected vault.  Thinking of his wife’s face when he’d told her what he’d done, he programmed the sequence just as he had last night before he left the lab.  He locked the door behind him as he stepped into the empty room.  Took a step towards the center.  Pivoted, turned back, jammed his pen into the lock to ruin it.  No one would open that door for hours.

This time he sat in the middle of the dark room, his arms wrapped around his legs, his head on his knees, eyes shut.  The light began to play over him in short, brilliant flashes.  Protecting his eyes from its intensity was futile.  Accepting the pain, he thought of that day when he’d destroyed everything he held most dear.  Annie had been in such a hurry that morning, hopping around on one high heel while she zipped her skirt and hunted for her briefcase.

“Now don’t forget, you’re picking Brad up as well as taking him.  The day care closes at six, so don’t work late no matter how important it seems.  Do you hear me?”  Tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, she’d bounced up to peck him on the cheek.  “I’ll call you when the banquet’s over after the conference, let you know I’m on my way home.  Dinner for you and Brad’s in the fridge.”

“Have fun,” Frye chirped as he kissed the air where she’d been a second before. “We guys’ll have a hot time tonight.  Expecting the Dallas cheerleaders over for drinks later.”

Laughter followed her out the door.  Brad gurgled happily when Frye strapped his car seat in the Ford.  His blond hair stood in spikes, making him look like a two year old punk rocker.  Frye smiled at his son, locked the back door to keep him safely in the car, and pulled out of his driveway.

He’d been working hard on a new project.  Thinking about the next step in procedures, he drove by rote to the lab.  Switching off the engine, he listened to it tick as it cooled off.  The day was already getting to be a scorcher, so he cracked his window a hair.  He was forgetting something, but it’d come to him as soon as he got into the office. 

 Hours later when ambulance lights and police sirens filled the parking lot, he’d glanced out the window and wondered what was up.  When Witmeyer ran into his office, his face paler than usual, his eyes wide with horror, he still didn’t have a clue.

Annie with her hollow eyes and tear-rough cheeks watched the body of their son lowered into the ground in his little white casket.  Wearing the black dress she’d donned for the funeral, she’d stared at him without seeing the man she’d married.  Frye knew she saw only a monster who would forget a baby in a car seat and let him die in the oven of the Ford.  Whatever she thought of him, he thought worse.

The shards of light pierced through him like lion’s claws.  Losing consciousness, he didn’t mind the pain so much as the fear that he wouldn’t make it back to the right time, the right place.

Annie’s face peered at him from the second floor balcony.  “Where’re your car keys?  It’ll be easier to park the Ford downtown than the van.”   She wasn’t angry.  Or sad.  She seemed . . . normal.  It was as if she still loved him.

Frye fumbled in his pocket and remembered the keys were in his jacket at work.

          “I lost them,” he lied.  “You’ll have to take Brad to daycare.  I’ll get a ride to work with one of the guys.”
        “Okay,” Annie groaned. “But from now on, I’m pinning them to your jockeys.  How many sets of keys have you lost this month?”
         “I have no idea,” he answered with heartfelt honesty.  “Let me get Brad into the car seat for you.”
            His son beamed up at him as he lifted him from his high chair, Cheerios stuck to his chin.  Nestling the baby head under his chin, Frye breathed in the sweet scent of soap and innocence.  Oh yes, thank you, thank you, he thought as Brad reached up and tugged at Frye’s pocket, trying to steal a pen.  “Dada go now,” Brad ordered.
          “You’re going with mom, pal,” Frye sang. “Your mom would never forget you.”

The high winds knocked out the power station.  Electric lines snapped and hissed when they lit into the ground.  Backups failed.  Frye’s world blasted into flying cracks of black and white as the experiment exploded behind the jammed lock of the lab.

Novel Lovers

I have a Lucite paperweight with bright orange letters that say "Readers make Novel Lovers."  It makes me smile every time I read it. No, not what you're thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter!

Reading has been such a constant in my life, I can't imagine where I'd be without it. Books took me places I never could have imagined going. Mary Renault's Theseus books carried me into the land of myth, Kristen Lavansdatter to ancient Scandinavia, The French Lieutenant's Woman to Victorian England.  Who hasn't been transported to the War of Northern Aggression's South by Gone with the Wind and into the Great Depression in Alabama, and the heart of racism, by To Kill a Mockingbird?

I have much to be grateful for, and reading is high on the list. Support literacy. Tutor if you can. Help someone learn to love books as we love them. It's a wonderful gift.

Apologies

I deleted the last post upon realizing that it not only sounded smug, but also cruel in light of poor Amy Winehouse's passing. Major mea culpa.

Shirts

I must confess, until I was very pregnant with our first child, I never considered men's clothes as being anything other than for ... men. Duh. But while I was trying to hide the fact that I was as big as a barn (I was so delusional), I wore my beloved's sweat pants around the house, with a big sweatshirt on top. This was during the weeks before Christmas, when it was cold enough to layer and pretend I was still a size 8. During the summer before, I wore tent dresses and a maternity bathing suit that hid nothing. And I was nowhere as big in those early months, so now you understand why I was delusional in thinking those sweat pants were a great camouflage.

Fast forward a few years (okay, so she's now in grad school), and I have rediscovered men's clothing. One of my beloved's polo shirts found its way into my closet and I grabbed it out of desperation. I'd sweat through all of my cotton knit shirts, and wanted a clean shirt pronto. What a serendipitous moment. Why hadn't anyone told me men's polo shirts are way cool? Neat little band around the sleeve, heavier knit, nice collar, great fabric, and colors I like.  I put it on and promptly told my beloved he wasn't getting it back, period.

How often, as writers, do we stick with the tried-and-true?  What does it take to force us into another style? Sometimes we do it by accident, sometimes by design. The point is, if you don't stretch your writing muscles and tread into foreign territory, you're probably going to wonder for the rest of your life what you mighta, coulda, maybe shoulda done as a writer. So dig into those controversial subjects. Play with language. Come up with characters totally unlike anyone you've ever met.

Take a chance. I love my beloved's polo shirts. And he ain't gettin' this one back!

Hot Stuff

No, not my cutie pie of a Beloved. Hot, as in where the heck did this blast furnace come from? Wherever it was, it can go back now. The garden is gasping, and even the squirrels are too whacked out from the stupendous temperatures to chase what's left of the vegetable garden. (Note to self: next year, it's a cutting garden. Flowers only.)  Me, I walk out the front door and instantly, I look like I just pulled myself from the swimming pool. And not in a pleasant way. But I'm warning myself to lay off the complaining. It's much worse elsewhere.

I can't imagine how hot it must be in the Horn of Africa.  As I read about the plight of the Somalians who've endured more than two years of searing drought, I feel like such a wimp. Our American society can't conceive of that kind of devastation, the land stripped bare of anything green, water disappearing into constantly blue skies, crops and children dying in front of our eyes. Where is the American generosity of spirit that answered the need after the earthquake in Haiti, the tsunami in Japan? Does a long, spread out disaster not register on our radar?

We must help these people. Go online and check out the charitable organizations with stellar reputations who are trying to aid the Somali refugees, and give generously to help these desperate people. Please.

Learning

I never want to stop learning. Years ago, I bought a copy of The Iliad in ancient Greek, and I fully intend on reading it someday. I may be a hundred and ten, but I'll get there. Growing up all over the world gave me educational advantages most kids don't have. While I attended traditional schools, some of my best education came from outside the classroom. I think that's why I'm not wedded for life to traditional learning models.

When the architect daughter was in lower school, she wasn't showing her math work step by step.Teachers frown on this. I realized, after having a very rational discussion with her, that her mind didn't need those steps to solve math problems. She was bored by the tedious, lengthy process, since she knew the answers (and they were correct). The librarian daughter was a hands-on learner. If she could hold it, make it, see it, she had that for life. Step-by-step worked well for her.

Just as there is no one correct way to learn, since we are all uniquely individual, there's no one way to write a book, a short story, or a poem. We each need to find our own process, the one that fits our creative process. I've found some "how to write" books wonderfully helpful (i.e. Vogler's THE WRITER'S JOURNEY), and others are simply torture. I did a one-day seminar with a well known agent who has written a couple of "how-to" books, and they have simply and effectively crippled my writing process. I came out of the session feeling like a failure and paralyzed by not being able to create the way he said we writers should.

Horse feathers. Learning to put words down in tangible form is intrinsically tied to how we learn any other skill. It's your process, so you need to figure out what works for you. Are you a plotter, with detailed chapter outlines? Good for you! Or is half the fun figuring it out as you go along? Stick with it if it's giving you joy. Don't let anyone mess with your head.

It's the only way you'll get where you want to go.

Farewell, Coach Taylor and Tami, Tim and Tyra, Matt and Julie...

"Friday Night Lights" has now gone, officially, to the great DVD boxed set in the sky.  Five years of great characters, super storytelling, and a real Texas locale left memories about people who aren't real, but who felt real.  I'm going to miss it horribly. Aside from "Upstairs, Downstairs" (the original) and "Poldark," (both on PBS), I can't remember being so engrossed and enamoured of fictional characters on the screen. FNL did what a great story does: it focused on a few characters, their flaws, their fears, their failures, and let us feel how they felt as they struggled to succeed. 

At its heart, it was about a marriage and family.  The Taylor family was no less important than the football team family or the Saracen family.  They all got equal air time.  When it became clear that Matt's grandmother was losing it, we understood his anguish and inability to know the right thing to do.  Tami Taylor's fights with her daughter Julie are echoed every day in real houses.  Yet the characters and their lives were all strung together with love, and we, the viewers, knew it. No matter how bad things got (and they got pretty ugly sometimes), we were sure of the love, even if the characters seemed to have forgotten about it.

Love always triumphed. How can a series based on that fundamental go wrong? FNL did everything right, and the last episode was the best of all.  Farewell, Dillon, Texas. I wouldn't want to live there, but I loved being with you for one Friday night every week.

Following your gut

Sometimes people try to do the right thing. A lot depends on what it is. Friends and family get the first priority, but then it gets dicey. And sometimes, they just don't know what to do, so they do nothing.

I was listening to the Jaycee Dugard interview, and what struck me was how the two campus security ladies followed their instincts when they saw Phillip Garrito, with two young girls, on campus. He wasn't breaking any laws, but they just felt something was off kilter. So they did some background on him, and as a result, they started the ball rolling that lead to the rescue of Jaycee.

They did something when their instincts warned the situation wasn't right. How many of us would do the same? Once, several years ago, I was leaving the mall when I saw a young teenaged couple arguing quite loudly. The guy was much larger than the girl, and he kept grabbing her and jerking her back when she tried to leave. I watched from my rearview mirror, then turned around and drove up beside them. I told myself that I would want someone to intervene if one of my daughters were in trouble in public, so I rolled down my window and asked if she was okay.

I got a typical snippy teenager response, which didn't bother me one bit. I hung around them a few more minutes, and the situation seemed defused, so I finally took off. At least they weren't yelling, and he wasn't grabbing her by then.

I have made a pact with myself. I don't care if I'm called a busybody. If I see something my gut tells me is dicey, I'm going to do something about it. If it’s nothing, great, I’m happy. If not, well, I won’t have to worry that I could have helped someone and didn’t.

I couldn’t live with that.

Peas and Pages

The garden, sigh. Big sigh. I doubt I'll see a tomato or an ear of corn. This time it's not squirrels or bugs. (Actually, ants destroyed the zucchini.) I think it's just a long stretch of horrific heat and no rain. Watering just didn't cut it. Then the torrential downpours beat everything to pulp. Today I harvested all of four string beans. All that work for four string beans, another big sigh.

It's like a nonproductive writing day. Hours at the keyboard. Working through the rough parts, you hope. Trying to keep the momentum going, praying you'll salvage something after all those pages. Then you read it back the next morning and realize there is exactly one four sentence paragraph worth keeping.

On the up side, that's one good paragraph. On the down side, it's just a single paragraph after all that work.

I think I'm going to call the squirrels to finish off what's left of the garden, then I'm getting back to work on the WIP.

Cake Pans

Yes, that is correct. The topic is cake pans. I am the new owner of a pair of bright red Kitchen Aid silicon(e?)cake pans. They wiggle like Jello, but boy howdy, do they look cool.
I couldn't wait to try them out, so, because they're red, I made a red velvet cake. I couldn't wait to get them out of the oven and shake the cooked layers, effortlessly, onto the cake plate.

You see, I've been using a set of cake pans I received as a shower gift lo these many years ago. Many, many, many years ago. I know all their quirks, how much longer they need to stay in the oven with certain types of batter, and how hard it is to remove the cake in perfect shape. (The nonstick surface bit the dust eons ago.)

Flicking my red velvet cake loose from the sides of my new red, space-aged caked pans, I made a fatal mistake. I flipped without checking. And lost a hunk of cake stuck to the bottom of the pan. Yikes.

I gazed with fond nostalgia at my battered old pans. It's like using Word Perfect. I knew all the keyboard shortcuts without having to think of them. But now WP is anathema, and I have had to brave the new-to-me world of Word. I have navigated the basics. But my heart belongs to Word Perfect.

The next cake is going in the old pans, just because I can. Take that, Word!

Juries

Many years ago (and no, I'm not saying how many), I took a two week course for trial lawyers who had been in practice a minimum of five years. We were videotaped in the courtroom, trying cases in front of mock juries. Intense, effective, and an eye-opener in how we were perceived as trial attorneys by jurors, the course provided one huge eye-opener for me. A microphone was placed in the jury room, and we lawyers were able to hear the jurors discuss the cases we presented.

Thus was born my belief in the jury system. In jurors, to be specific. The jurors I heard showed such commonsense, I was in awe. They cut through the razzzle-dazzle, the bull pucky, the grandstanding, to dig out the salient points. This may not happen in every jury deliberation, but I'm sticking to my faith in the jury system, no matter what.

And that's why, when a supposedly slam-dunk case is lost, I blame the lawyers for not providing the jury with the evidence. And that's all there is to it.

The Fourth

When I was a kid, we always went to see the post fireworks today. Not only were they pretty great, because who blows up things better than the military, but they were also a rare event. We didn't have fireworks after a ball game, or in victory lane at the end of a Nascar race. So, every time I see fireworks dotting the skies, I think of the Fourth of July. That's all there is to it.

Often, on military bases, the Fourth is a time when families and the public are invited to climb through a tank or shimmy down a narrow ladder into the bowls of a ship. I even got to sit in the cockpit of a huge plane once, I don't know its proper designation. It humanized where our daddies worked, and we knew they didn't just sit at a desk like other fathers. Not that we knew other kids with parents with normal jobs, because we went to school on base most of the time, and our friends' fathers did what ours did. Unless they were generals or admirals, then they rode desks.

Also, a bit of advice should you find yourself living on a military base. Don't let your little terrier attack the commanding general's boxer, and win the fight. Not good for your career.

Enjoy today eceryone, and remember why we celebrate it. Freedom is too precious to take for granted.

Thank a Teacher

My eldest is home for the holiday weekend, and we were having a quick lunch at a local hangout. Three people came in after us and took the booth behind ours. Immediately, my daughter said "I think that's my eighth grade Algebra teacher!" Then she came up with her name.

Mind you, this child is now finishing up her master's degree at the University of South Carolina. She took two years off between her B.A. and starting her MLIS. She had this teacher a few years back, about eleven. So she got up, asked if this woman was her math teacher,(she was), and proceeded to tell her she was the only teacher to ever make math comprehensible to her.

I could tell the teacher was pleased, and she thanked my daughter for saying so. I hope she knows what an impact she's had on the lives of her students. At least she does for one.

Although my daughter still hates math.

The Future of Books

I just listened in on an O'Reilly Media web seminar (webinar?) on the future of publishing digitally. All I can say is, I'm flat on the floor, panting for breath, and wondering how my life has crossed into this insane publishing world. I mean, I started writing with pen and ink (and now and then, pencil!) on paper, which I would then painstakingly type up on a manual typewriter, using carbon paper so I'd have a copy. Lord help me with correcting typos. The day Wite-Out was invented, I wanted to kiss the woman's feet who came up with the formula. (Her son was one of the Monkees, I understand. But I digress.)

Now the newest thing is constantly changing content, so the latest information is constantly streaming onto the page. Videos. Animation. Web links. Highlight a character's name, and her bio pops up in a separate box with all the relevant info so you can remember who she is. Videos inserted in text. Read a paragraph about the Battle of Hastings, and you can see a quick reenactment on video! Oh my stars. I'm ready to run for the hills, where I will live without running water, electricity, or gas generators.

Okay, I take back the last sentence. After Hurricane Isabelle struck, we had no power, no hot water, no laundry, we had to boil water to drink, and NO ICE for ten days. Primitve living does not agree with me. Especially when there's no power to plug in the laptop and iPad.

Part of me is scared silly of all these new applications ready to juice up the plain text page. Another part of me says, hey, it's just like redesigning the Mustang. They made it better, hotter, faster, and sure enough, safer. Roll with it. Get the lingo down. Once that hurdle is behind me, I can see all kinds of possibilites for authors on the Web.

I will not be a stick in the mud, I promise.

Back in the Saddle again...

Now that I'm off my high horse, (see prior posting "Messy"), I have to confess I came home from the apartment search and scrubbed every inch of our several bathrooms from top to bottom, with bleach! All it did was make my eyes sting and satisfy my compulsion to make something really, really clean. Guess that was enough, because today The WIP is top of the list.

Which is a good thing. The cat is happy I'm back at my desk because it means my lap awaits for several hours, and I'm happy, too. Sometimes it's hard to pick up the threads you've steadily been weaving, and other times, that step away provides clarity. As in, what in the name of all that's sacred was I thinking when I wrote that??? When that happens, I'm grateful because it means I don't have even bigger snarls to pick through. Stop that puppy in its tracks!

Reading aloud is the greatest advice I can give a new writer. First, you see the typos more clearly. (Or not, in my case.) Next, you hear the awkward phrasing. Third, little mistakes jump out. Did I make his eyes blue in the last chapter, and now they're brown? Yikes. For me, I am reading as a reader by the third or so run-through. Am I still interested in this story, these characters? If not, why not?

Time to get the fingers on the keyboard. My bleach-pruned, poor little fingers.

Messy

We've been apartment hunting for our newly minted architect, who has a job! Yes, a job, in this economy. While she's out of town, we've been checking out some places with a realtor. All I can say is, does no one clean up their homes? It was all I could do to to not grab the vacuum cleaner, duster, and start making beds.

I am not a clean freak, I swear. General living mess doesn't get my knickers in a twist. But good gracious, who taught these people how to keep house? I'm not talkimg a few dishes in the sink. Is this general lack of respect for the home environment indicative of our society? Do we just not care on a general basis? Is home not where our hearts are anymore?

I'm probably over-reacting. I keep telling myself that. But I don't think so.

America, clean up, starting at home. There, I've shown my bossy-pants side. Why? Because Mama said so.

Finding Time

Despite a soaking rain the other night, the garden is once again looking like my dry skin in winter. Minus the hairy legs. (Who shaves her legs in the winter? I mean, really . . .) I'll water today, since rain isn't on the TV radar, but I can't complain too much. Last winter,I was clinging to memories of long, hot days for dear life.

I'm peeping over the edge of my iPad to see my shiny pink toe nails. We girls have a tradition in our house, the toes get painted for sandal wear at the start of summer, then all bets are off. Back to work time hits when the sandals are shoved into their boxes. The real problem for me is, the WIP needs work now. And the distractions are, to be understated, crazy.

How to keep focused as a writer when outside forces, family, gardens, etc., grab your painted toes and drag you down the equivalent of a primrose path? Heaven knows, I'm no expert. I've come to realize that life is messy, we do the best we can, and pray that we get as much crammed into it as possible. I don't intend on making my exit in a quiet manner. I'll probably be complaining "I have too much to do to put up with this nonsense."

The book needs a higher place on the priority list. I don't want to look back and wonder why I left so many half-finished manuscripts.

Monuments to the Dead and Injustice

Found this on Yahoo - it's the stele for a gladiator from the Black Sea region of Turkey who ended up dead as the result of the "cunning and treachery" of the referee, the summa radis, I believe is the term. Not only is it remarkably clear and unscarred by 1800 years of natural elements, but it also tells a story. The dead gladiator defeated his opponent and stepping back, waited for the verdict from the crowd as to the fate of the other fighter. However, evidently the ref ruled that the man on his butt lost his footing, so he got his weapons back, the fight started over, and the stele marks what was a bad deal for the first winner of the fight. He lost the second go-round.

This monument to injustice survived 1800 years. Do we know anything else about these men? No. Still, doesn't the story resonate even today? Bad calls in sports still happen, but lives aren't lost as a result. Maybe champtionships are lost, and that's a bummer, but a tragedy? Maybe for diehard fans.

Still, think about the bad call in battle, one that costs men their lives. (Pickett's Charge, anyone?) The wrong decision from a biased judge. (*caveat, none of the ones I know.*). The deliberate falsification of evidence. Malfeasance by elected officials that impacts a whole community. We can all think of injustices that happen on a small, local level in this world. Yet will anyone know those story thousands of years from now?

This one lone stele commemorates a death that shouldn't have happened, calls the ref a liar to his face, and manages to engage us artistically as well. That's the sort of monument we don't see anymore.

On the other hand, what if the call was the right one, and the stele is sour grapes? We'll never know.

How does she look?

I normally eat my noon time sandwich on the patio, but it was looking ominous today. So I sat down to watch the episode of RUBY (love her) on DVR, and instead, I got How Do I Look? Why oh why do all the women on this show who are supposedly fashionistas look as frumpy, or worse than, the women in need of new wardrobes? Trashy is another good word. The whole point of the show is that looks and clothes define the person. Usually there's an emotional component to the "bad" dresser. Yuck. What a stretch. And talk about cruel! Some of the so-called friends are totally unfiltered.

The worst part is, the final product isn't so wonderful, at least the ones I've seen. Why do women allow themselves to be tortured like this? You don't see men going through the clothes grinder on TV. Judging others is almost a national past time, and it's not something wonderful.

Be who you are, now that's a show I'd watch. Be the best you want to be. And above all, be happy.

Dump the "friends" who tear you down, before you do anything else.

New Web Site

I wanted something different, not the typical writer site. While I wasn't sure exactly what that entails, I knew what I didn't want. Fortunately for me, I know a creative type who happens to be good with computers as well. Guess holding her in my lap before she could talk while she played Sesame Street games on the PC has paid off. Yeppers, one of my offspring took the home page photo (real black and white film!), and the other spent hours writing code. Give it a look at www.tracydunham.com and see what you think.

On another note, I read something that said second drafts, rewrites, are usually worse than the first draft. Since I depend on those rewrites to straighten out the most obvious messes I've gotten the book into, I must disagree. However, I do think it's easy to lose that first draft enthusiasm, the eager tumble of words, in over-polishing. It's a fine line, for sure. Second, third, or more drafts are my norm. A book is an ever-evolving creature.

Like all of us.