Month: June 2017

Cheap Book and Keyboard Tip! ALL THE THINGS!

Standard

It’s been a long, well, whatever it is since you started counting, and we deserve a laugh and a break and maybe a little meddling in our brains (shh, I didn’t say that).

So for a very limited time, Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only) is just $0.99 in the US AND the UK! OK, the dollar sign doesn’t apply in the UK, but in my defense I can never find the pound symbol on my keyboard. A quick trip to google could fix that.

Ah, let’s try my newfound knowledge. £0.99. EUREKA! It worked. I held down the “alt” key and then typed 0163 on the number pad. Another site suggested “alt” plus L, but that didn’t work.

I think I’ve digressed. Bet Aunty Ida has cure for that. Probably. Maybe. But at $0.99 or £0.99, it’s worth finding out!

Advertisement

Everyone deserves care. Everyone.

Standard

To say it flatly: this isn’t political. No person, no matter where on the political spectrum, should think it’s just fine to deprive someone like Michael of the comfort and stability of his own home, let alone limit or take away his medical care completely. And along with ripping health insurance from millions by destroying the ACA, or, as it’s popularly known, Obamacare, the AHCA will gut Medicaid.

Gut it.

Why? For tax cuts for the richest Americans. Again, that’s not a “slant,” a political perspective or anything else. The Republican bill literally puts a price on people’s lives, and lives come up short.

What will happen to people with disabilities who depend upon Medicaid for their very existence?

Well, you do the math. Your Republican representatives already have.

Contact them relentlessly and tell them you will not support such open, craven inhumanity.

Chance again?

Standard

Fate, Alphonse Mucha [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I think the universe is trying to tell me something.

If you caught yesterday’s post, you may remember that I found a stray shard of glass in the carpet, luckily before it found my foot. Cool.

Well, today, I whacked a jar of coconut oil with my elbow, right on the funny bone, the impact leaving my arm tingling as the jar smashed to the floor, this time with grainy, mean little pieces.

I fear for my feet.

And it was a pretty full jar as well. Alas.

I carefully swept up the pieces, following with a handheld vacuum, and hoped for the best, but it wasn’t enough. Just as I spotted a rather good-sized chunk, a tiny spear pierced my sock.

Now, I’m an old-hand at breakage, and my body knows to take the weight off the moment I start to feel the pain, so there I stood in the kitchen, foot in hand, feeling for the needling culprit.

I used my fail-safe, a wet paper towel along the floor, the sound of the picked-up-pieces scraping against the grout. I am not confident I got it all.

Yesterday I wrote of the near-dangers we never know lurk near us; today it’s an open-and-obvious one, brought by my own hand.

Or elbow.

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

 

Chance

Standard

By user:pschemp (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

I just found a stray piece of broken glass in the carpet, a small, sharp surprise glinting when the light hit it the right way. I have no idea when or how it got there, I haven’t broken anything in a while.

But my eyes discovered it, lying in wait, before my foot did, and that’s a good thing.

It made me think of all the dangers we have, inches away from us, that we breeze by, clueless to their existence. Shards of glass quarters of steps from soft, vulnerable feet.

In life,we may never find out about those lucky escapes; we may not discover that if we’d left the house when we planned, rather than going back in to grab a forgotten phone, fate would have intervened in the form of two cars trying to occupy the same space at the same time.

Chance.

We can’t know how it might have been in life, or sometimes even that it might have been. But fiction is another story.

(What’s that, hypothetical reader? You see what I did there? Why thank you for noticing.)

Depending on the perspective you use, your readers can see that shard of glass in the carpet, even if your protagonist can’t. Your reader can know that there is a car with your main character’s name on it, even while she’s dawdling and digging through her purse for a phone that reader knows isn’t there.

Though life is full of dramatic irony, we rarely know it. Perhaps that’s why it’s such a successful literary device; it makes us wonder how many pieces of glass we’ve missed, never knowing they were there.

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

 

Let’s talk about Monday.

Standard

Hans Baluschek [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

And here we are, back again at Monday, the week as new and fresh as the hint of cool underneath the breeze. Mondays can feel like the end of something sometimes, but they aren’t really.

On Monday morning, you haven’t missed a single item on your to-do list. On Monday morning, there’s a bright, full week of planning, of room, of time. On Monday morning, the coffee is particularly punchy.

We, as humans, have the prerogative to forge fresh starts whenever we need or want them. You could pledge to healthy eating and exercise on a Wednesday, if the spirit so moves.

Yet there’s something about a Monday. Mondays are the days of determination; willpower secrets itself away in Mondays. On Mondays, we face the world with shoulders squared and backs as straight as we can muster. We look the week in the eye.

And we say “I can.”

Hey, did you see a real-life scientist scienced Aunty Ida?

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

 

The Curious Call of Cravings

Standard

Ever have one of those days where all you crave is sugar, sugar, sugar? I’m having one of those days right now.

For me, its usually the sign of an oncoming migraine, a huge, looming thunderhead rolling toward me. But unlike storms, sometimes the headaches can be fended off.

With sugar.

So obviously I need to eat as much as I can, right? I mean, it sounds perfectly logical to me, but then again, I’m the one with the tiny voice inside my head alternately whispering — then yelling — SUGAR!

In fact, it’s all I can do to keep myself planted right where I am and finish this post, instead of getting up, going to the cabinet and taking just one more of those coffee caramels I got from Trader Joe’s. Just one more. Caramel.

It’s not as though you could tell if I did, could you?

As far as vices go, perhaps sugar isn’t the worst I could have. Though recent studies indicate it’s pretty terrible for you. All this time we were giving the stink-eye to fat, and it turns out that fat isn’t too terrible a fellow.

Well, unsaturated fat, anyway. His cousins, saturated fat and trans-fat are killers. It’s awkward at Thanksgiving.

Where was I? Ah yes. Sugar craving. Which it seems I’ve managed to distract myself from with images of fat globs sitting around a turkey and sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top.

Mmm. Marshmallows.

We can’t always help where our mind goes, or what’s churning in the back while we slap on a smile and pretend to be present. What we can do, though, is focus harder on being present.

The rest will take care of itself.

Probably.

Or I’ll get another caramel. Whatevs.

Hey, did you see a real-life scientist scienced Aunty Ida?

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

Changing Tide of a Blog

Standard

With this blog, I’ve never really tied myself down to a strict subject. Initially, that was the plan; book links and blurbs and reviews mixed in with original posts.

Then I discovered I enjoyed the original posts. I enjoyed sharing a morning thought, a bit of whatever was on my mind that day.

Still a bit to read, right?

It’s the freedom, the randomness. The ability to talk when I have something to say, even if it’s about the way the sky is melding into the horizon in soft bands of blue-gray.

But the other thing I’ve discovered about blogging is the way it comes in cycles, the way it ebbs and flows. There are times when the posts flow steadily and hitting publish is as certain and easy as taking a breath.

And then there are times where a casual chat across the virtual highways aren’t where the mind goes. Periods when even squeezing in a couple of hundred words feels like a betrayal to your to-do list.

That’s OK.

To hold onto a thing — even a thing you enjoy — too tightly is to crush it, to take the joy it brings and grind it to nothing. Writing is work. Remember that. Writing is work. Most writing is not airy; most writing is not breezy, no matter how expertly one can make it sound that way.

But blogging is a simple conversation. And there’s never a need to fill a silence just because it exists.

Hey, did you see a real-life scientist scienced Aunty Ida?

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

Ruling on Rules

Standard

Image result for gif india trafficI’ve always been a rules person. Take a number; hands inside the car at all times; no sweatpants outside. I respect rules.

But sometimes the rules don’t serve us. Sometimes the rules form tiny little parallel fences that keep us on our tight little paths. Sometimes, you kinda want to wear sweatpants outside.

Rules fulfill a purpose by helping us maintain order within our lives and beyond. Imagine a busy fast-casual restaurant where the line had never been invented.

Terrifying, right?

But sometimes rules keep us comfortable, complacent. Sometimes we use them not as guidelines, but as crutches. As bases for “can’ts.”

I’m not an advocate for chaos. I think civilization is one of humankind’s greatest achievements.  Or near-achievements, given that we don’t all seem to be quite civilized.

But I digress.

Once in a while, we need to take stock of our rules. Of our shoulds and shouldn’ts and musts and mustn’ts. We need to look at which rules serve us, and which rules serve as comfortable barriers. As nice, cozy self-imposed limitations.

None of us are planted in pots. We have the freedom to grow out and up and beyond.

We need only give ourselves the permission.

 

The Work of Writing Three: Tuesday

Standard

(More Work of Writing posts.)

 

Not really spring and not quite summer, my allergies have me sneezing up a storm. Hmm. That would be a very interesting superpower.

Pretty inconvenient, I would say.

Oops. Sorry. Lost me for a second, thinking of sneeze-storm contingencies. It probably goes without saying I’d always need an umbrella, and my signature superhero outfit would involve a yellow rain slicker.

But I digress.

There’s a spider inside my window, and I’ve decided we can try to peacefully coexist. I’m pretty sure it’s not poisonous.

Pretty sure.

In other words, it’s Tuesday, and my list is laid out before me, step-by-step, cross-out-line by cross-out-line. It’s a mechanical day of writing.

I don’t mean rote (wrote?! You know I can’t resist a pun), but I mean nitty-gritty. I mean swaths of microscopic editing, pondering a comma, trying on synonyms like outfits for a hot date.

Some writing is done in a glowing haze of inspiration, a place I like to call Inside the Bubble, where you disappear through a door in your mind and suddenly discover yourself hundreds of words down the road. But that’s only some writing.

The shape, the structure, the weight and meaning come from the Tick-Tock Days, the days of filing down the gears until they all groove together. Inside the Bubble is the romance.

Tick-Tock Days are the marriage.

Hey, did you see a real-life scientist scienced Aunty Ida?

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

 

Aunty Ida got scienced. How’d she hold up?

Standard

So this is probably the coolest thing ever. What’s that hypothetical reader? Sounds like hyperbole? Well, hold on to your hypothetical hat, because it’s really that cool.

If you were around during this year’s A to Z Blogging Challenge, you probably came across A Back of the Envelope Calculation, and David, the scientist behind it. Through the month of April, David delightfully broke down the science of science fiction. Ready for the cool part?

Are you really ready?

What’s that, hypothetical reader? Milking it?

Never.

Well, hardly ever.

Anyway, today he’s taken the microscope (get it? It’s science humor!) to the science of Aunty Ida, and it’s all I’ve ever dreamed and more.

Aunty Ida, if you’re not familiar, is the owner, operator and mad-adjacent scientist of Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only).Though light science-fiction, it is still sci-fi, and meticulously researched to give the sense of Colbert’s truthiness.

So how does it hold up to scrutiny from a real, completely unfictional scientist?

Hop on over and check out Deep Frozen SQuID to find out!

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.