Halloween Special

For all you ghouls and goblins, who like a good chill, I have pulled out of my archives a few stories just for you.


Shiver

It Was Twilight

Lilith

Enjoy... WAAAAAAAHAAAHAAAA

Sideon Tagged Me

Sorry that it took so long to respond. I have been writing in the isolation of my small apartment. I just came up for air. So here is a little more about me.

3 smells that I love:

1. Peach body wash
2. Brewing coffee
3. Rain and sage

3 smells that I hate:

1. Large city smells: sewage, auto exhaust, etc.
2. Poop
3. Honeysuckle (It makes me swell up and my eyes water)
   
   

3 jobs that I have had in my life:

1. Typesetter for a small newspaper and a small publication company
2. Electronics technician for the U.S. Navy and then for Loral
3. Clerk at Kinkos

3 movies that I could watch over and over:

1. Hudson Hawk
2. Labyrinth
3. Toy Story

3 fond memories:

1. Camping in the Rocky Mountains
2. Camping in Japan with two of my best friends who had never camped before
3. Meeting my husband the first time

3 jobs I would love to have:

1. Mythologist
2. Paperback Writer
3. Psychologist

3 places I have lived in the U.S:

1. Salt Lake City, Utah
2. Pensacola, Florida
3. Las Vegas, Nevada

3 places I have lived outside the U.S:

1. Misawa, Japan
2. Panama City, Panama
3. Rodenbach, Germany

3 things I like to do:

1. Cook Italian and Asian food
2. Write
3. Read

3 of my favorite foods:

1. Shrimp Etouffe
2. Steak and potatoes
3. Bulgogi

3 places I would like to be right now:

1. Australia
2. Visiting Chiefbiscuit in New Zealand
3. Curled up on the couch with my hubby watching Benny Hill

3 blogspots I visit daily:

1. look at my daily reads on the left

3 things that make me cry:

1. Hospitals
2. Some books
3. When I think too hard about my disease

3 friends that I am tagging:

1. Since most of my friends are doing the November writing challenge... then anyone who needs a break.

Finis

I finished my first draft of my first novel today.

My husband agreed to celebrate by grilling a steak for me. Ummm...

Since I cannot drink alcohol, I will miss out on the champagne bubbles.

Oh wow, I feel giggly.

Sunday Scribblings: A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, a widow lived in a cottage in the woods.

Each morning she would call from her doorway. "Woodcutter, I need wood for the winter."

Each morning the woodcutter would call back, "Soon as I see the morning through the last year's load."

Then he would walk away, whistling. His songs would echo into the trees.

The widow knew that she would never be able to pay the woodcutter for his labor. But, she knew that when winter finally came, when the snow covered the ground and the wind moaned through the trees, that the woodcutter would give her a few logs from his fire so that she would not freeze.

Calling out to the woodcutter each morning was her way of thanking the woodcutter. The woodcutter knew, but the woodcutter's daughter did not understand.

"She can pay for her own wood," the girl muttered under her breath. "Why if she would pay up, I could by those lovely pearls. They would look good with my new red dress."

Those pearls would make her the envy of all the girls at the dance. She wanted to sweep in and amaze them all.

"Why don't you ask her for the money?" she asked her father on numerous occasions.

Her father answered with either "No, she can't afford it," or "it's not right." He'd shake his head and leave her fuming.

Finally the woodcutter's daughter decided that she must ask the widow for the money. The widow deserved to be reprimanded.

When the woodcutter's daughter arrived at the widow's cottage, she noticed that the garden had not been weeded for a long time, chinks were around the windows and logs, and the cottage had not been painted in years. The cottage looked old and cold.

She went determinedly to the door. She knocked on it. The sound reverberated through the cottage. No one came to the door.

She knocked again. She heard footsteps behind her. She turned around, but no one was there.

She knocked a third time. A hollow voice said, "What do you want?"

The woodcutter's daughter spoke through the door, "You owe my father money, widow. I want what's mine."

The hollow voice answered. "How do you want it? On your hands or in your pockets?"

She thought. if I ask fir ot in my pockets, I will probably not get enough for the pearls. But if I ask for it on my hands, I will be able to carry a lot of money home.

"On my hands," she said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

All at once a switch came up from the ground. It beat her hands. She ran, screaming home.

Her father laughed at the sight of his daughter, trying to outrun a switch.

"Are you finished being greedy?" he asked.

"Yes, yes," she said with tears streaming from her eyes.

"Be gone," he said to the switch. The switch fell to the ground.

It was many years later that the woodcutter's daughter learned about the need for charity. But, that is another story.

Poetry Thursday

Winter Wind

Wind-beast prowls
around corners
and bangs
on the shutters.
It drives
Odin’s wrath
to my door.

It gnashes,
whistles,
shivers
‘til my world
narrows
to one long moan.

The door bars the beast
that prowls by my door.

Bag 'O Bones

Some days I get a heaviness in my chest and a tingling in my stomach. One idea will pop into my head and I know that I must take that idea and flesh it out. Everything else that I have planned for the day (exercise, washing, reading, etc.) will be abandoned as I search for the perfect word.

The skeleton of the story or poem will flow out of my head and onto the page. I will then take the words and either put it into form or flesh it out. Each story says something. Each poem comes out of the void. My personality disappears in the force of creation.

"Let there be light."

In my younger years, I believed that everyone had a bag of stories. That all I had to do was pry them from their fingers and then write them. I had not read Carl Jung's theories about collective unconscious. I had not studied his theories on archtypes.

When I did, I felt a bell ring.

Now, I reach into my bones to write. I write to right my world. I feel the urgency. When I finish, I am surprised.

Good, Better, and Best

"Good" is not a word I use much in my vocabulary because it connotates a time in my life when I was controlled by my parent's religion.

One of the commandments that chained me to that way of life was the following:

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

I am on the left of this picture and my sister is on the right. Until I started school, all my memories included my younger sister. As we became older, we reacted differently to the same stimuli. I would hold things in until I exploded. I usually exploded with words. I once stood off a bully who was hurting my sister with words.

My sister would explode with violence. At school, she attacked three boys who had been calling her names (slut, whore, etc.) She was thrown out of school because my parents were embarrassed that she would actually hit back. My father's favorite saying was to "turn the other cheek." Well, it wasn't working.

When I was ten years old, I took things into my own hands. In Naples Elementary School, a group of girls would corner girls on the playground and beat them up. I don't know why the teachers were not aware of the problem, but this problem had been going on for a month or two.

I organized the isolated girls. These girls were the ugly ones, the smart ones, the unpopular ones. We would play tag. One of our rules was that none of the girls could go anywhere by themselves. Everyone had a buddy.

One day, after this group of girls found out that they could not get any of us alone, they went after the whole group. The biggest girl told us how she would bloody our noses and break our bones.

We were silent. We circled her. When she tried to hit one of us, we would rush her and bounce her around. No one was hit.

When she realized that she could not get away, she began to cry. We melted away. She couldn't explain what had happened because we HAD NOT hurt her.

I learned a lot from that year, but it wasn't until I was 27 that I finally admitted that my parents' ways did not work.

Honoring my parents' views hurt me.

Good came into my life when I left.

Snow Season

Snow Season has started in the Nevada Sierras in Tahoe. Here is my proof. Luckily for me, the snow did not make it to Carson City on Monday.

I am frantically digging through boxes and cedar chests for my thermals. They look like the ugly underwear of my childhood religion.

My peacoat will spend some time at the drycleaners. It is covered in dust.

Soon I will be feeding the goldfinches thistles. Five of the cheepsters were hanging around the fir tree near my balcony. Of course, the scrub jays and assorted chickadees and house finches have already sampled peanuts, thistles, sunflower seeds, and suet. There are no starlings this year because the scrub jays have chased them away.

We are seeing ravens near the balcony--not to eat seeds, but to aggravate the scrub jays. I think there is some inter-species rivalry here.

So this report is the first of the cold season. I'm outta here.

The Great Outhouse Race

Come one, come all to the great Outhouse crapper race at Virginia City, Nevada.

Here is another one of our Nevada classy entertainments.