so I’m at the dollar store with Mom a few months back at she spies these pink cell phones and decides to buy one to support Breast Cancer and it’s a good cause and it says it’ll be so easy to move your number, set it up. A snap, plus it comes with two Cadillacs full of minuets and a camera, and, well, it’s pink. So she buys it. I was for it because basic I am a cheap kind of guy and I would end up with her old phone which is perfectly fine it’s just old. It’s been perfect for four years. No problems. Just ate minuets and pooped data, or phone calls. Bad analogy there but you get the idea. So, great phone, just old and a new one beckoned. I would bet there are people reading this who have almost gotten into relationship problems using that same reasoning. Funny the double standards we have, eh?
So, she buys the phone, we go home and I go to work on the computer because other than going to church once a week and chasing Horny Tom Cat’s away from my Fred cat that’s about all I do. So I typed away for a few minuets but I kept hearing these sighs, and mutterings, so finally I said… “Uh, Mom… Everything okay?”
Lets set the record straight I knew everything was not okay but I was hoping for an answer like “I’m taking this $#@%^ phone back it’s junk!” Yes. I was actually hoping for that answer. Instead I got … “I can’t figure it out. I’m doing exactly what it says…”
“Okay,” I soothed. I am a man. I know how to fix these things and most of the time I don’t even have to read the Manuel. I didn’t say that. I have learned not to say it because it just turns out to be that one time when I can’t do it and I look stupid. So I took the phone and spent the next hour doing all the same things Mom had and getting nowhere.
“$#@**%# Phone,” I said.
“I told you,” Mom agreed. “There’s a number to call.” She held up a piece of paper and I couldn’t help wondering why she hadn’t given me the piece of paper earlier when I could have possibly used it. But then I reminded myself that I never would have used it anyway.
“Hmmm.” I frowned and looked over the number. “So. You have a phone that doesn’t work and they give you a tech number to call.”
“Well you have the other one.”
“Yes. But what if I didn’t?”
Mom shrugged and I realized the stupidity of my own question, still, didn’t it sort of make sense? Isn’t it sort of like offering a drunk a drink while he waits? I don’t know. Reluctantly I punched the number into the other cell phone, pretty much jambed the end of the cell phone halfway into my brain and waited.
I touched on this the other day. I had never had to call tech support in the last ten years. There is no Tech support in prison…
“Hello?”
“Hello.”
“Tech support?”
“No. There is no tech support in prison. Stop calling here you moron.”
“But I’m in prison!”
Dial tone…
The phone stopped burring and an Voice came on the line. Computer voice. Push one for billing issues, two if you’ve had an affair with a politician, three for technical support. I pushed three but I didn’t push it fast enough because the whole thing played again. I ended up having to call back and immediately press three.
Now, let me say this delicately, why would you get a job in tech support in America if English is not your first language? And, why would a major company hire you. After thirty seconds of trying to understand the woman I gave the phone to Mom hoping the kindred spirit thing would kick in but no, she couldn’t understand her either. She gave me back the phone. Apparently womaneez doesn’t cross the language barriers easily.
It must have been about two hours later and the third string of numbers the woman had given me before the phone finally began to work.
“You are being happy with your experiences?” The tech asked me.
“Are you serious,” I asked?
“Yes. Of Course. Serious is what I am being.”
“Oh God,” I said aloud. “Have you ever heard this?”
“Yes? I am Listening.” She obviously thought we had bonded.
I hung up. Mean, I know.
Two days later there was a recall on Mom’s Coffee Maker. I called tech support.
“Yes? I am being happy to be taking your call.”
“Never mind I’ll buy a new one.” I said
A week later my new laptop croaked. I called customer service.
“Yes? I can be helping you?”
“What? Do you work for the Coffee maker place?”
“No. That is my sister, Sari.”
Tech support…
Here is a Thriller you might like… Zero Zero
As the clock ticks down for our planet and her inhabitants, powers that have lain dormant for centuries are loosed on the Earth. #Horror #Kindle #Amazon #Biblical #Christian #Fiction
Tuesday once more. It is cold enough here to build a snowman, if there were snow, and it was 25 degrees cooler. Okay, so it isn’t overly cold, but it is barely 50 degrees this morning, and I think officially I can stop complaining about the heat of summer and switch over to the coolness of winter. Okay, I’ll wait a few weeks, and honestly it has been so hot and humid this summer that I don’t really mind this cold yet. I think that is my problem with the weather this year, it has been too extreme one way or the other. Not much, or enough of the nice in between weather.
Spent my day yesterday with family and the small children that result from family. If you have not spent time around small children in awhile I suggest you do. Nothing like the way a child laughs to loosen your heart up and make you appreciate life, youth, beauty, the world.
I think the goals for this month are to get all of the books that should be available available. With new writers and deadlines that is a job. That is what I will be sticking too today, getting listings done.
As for Dell he is stepping back a little further. I will take over all of the day to day stuff and that is probably where that will remain. So he isn’t gone, he just isn’t here. I think things are finally running the way he wanted them too and so he stepped back as he said he would to allow them to run.
There isn’t much else going on. We are working to get books out and listed, working on the websites. I see there are still old links that offer free chat. Does anyone even use that? So things like that will be cleaned up as I go through the links, other than that you shouldn’t see any major changes. I will write this blog from now on and so my name will be on the blog, a small change. I will continue to make the websites phone and tablet friendly.
I think one thing you will see is a more centralized website. In other words all areas easily reached from a main menu. Right now things are spread out and the information, reading, art or whatever else you are searching for is on multiple sites and not easily found. I’m making the consolidation of that sound easy, I’m sure though that it won’t be.
I am going to leave you with that as far as news goes.
New writers:
I hope your Monday is good, I will leave you with a short story from Paul Block…
BLACKNESS OF THE SOUL
Blackness Of the Soul is copyright 2014 Dell Sweet. All rights reserved.
This excerpt is used with permission. If you would like to share this short story, please point those you wish to share it with to this page. This material may not be copied electronically or digitally and or distributed without the publisher’s express permission (Writerz.net). Permission is granted to use short excerpts in critics. The publisher of record for this work is writerz.net & Dell Sweet. The copyright holder retains all rights foreign and domestic to this work.
Paul Brown settled the barrel of the nine Millimeter pistol against his left palm, curled his hand around it as if to hold it forever, and then released it finger by finger. A sob escaped his throat and a fat tear drop rolled down his left cheek and splashed against the butt of the pistols grip where the clip protruded slightly. He took his free hand, wiped the tear away and then reached for the beer that sat beside him.
He raised the can to his mouth, drank deeply, and then continued to stare at the black pistol that rested in his right hand. Once again his left hand closed around the barrel, but lightly. Stroking it. Caressing it. He fished a cigarette from the pack beside him on the floor, thumbed the wheel of his old Zippo and pulled the harsh tobacco smoke into his lungs.
The smoke, or the beer, or both seemed to calm him, at least momentarily. His chest hitched but he stifled the sob this time. The sobs frightened him more than the gun. The sobs came on their own and there seemed to be no way to fight or stop them. They were a life unto themselves. The gun on the other hand only had to speak once. And technically he would never hear it.
“Probably never hear it,” he whispered into the semi darkness of the living room. He had pulled the curtains on the outside world. Blocked it away from him.
Probably never hear it. He wondered about the truth of the statement for what seemed to be an excessive amount of time to him, caught himself, and took another deep drink of the cold beer followed by a near frenzied pull from the cigarette. He waited on the sob but it came when he didn’t expect it. A flood of tears came with it, falling from his eyes, staining his reddened cheeks before he could think to try and stop it.
“Oh, God,” he moaned. He sucked in a deep breath, lifted the pistol to his mouth and bumped the barrel across his teeth and into his mouth.
Everything seemed to freeze. The taste of oiled metal flooded his mouth He gagged, and then nearly squeezed the trigger too hard because of it. Panicked, he ripped the gun from his mouth tearing open his upper lip on the gun site as he did.
He was breathing hard. He needed to calm down. The tears just continued to fall. His cheeks felt raw. His eyes full of sand. His head began to pound harder. It had begun to pound earlier. He thought about that too. No more headaches. None. No more worries. No more anything at all. He sighed and returned the gun to his lips. He could taste the oil and metal once more, mixed with the blood from the torn lip.
His lips did not seem to want to part. He eased the gun away, took a deep drag off the cigarette, his breath shuddered in and out. He tipped the can and took a deep drink to rinse his mouth of the tastes that had made him gag, then upended the can and drained it. He reached over and pulled another beer from the bag on the carpeted floor, took another deep drink to rinse the tastes from his mouth and then lit a new cigarette from the butt of the old one. He dropped the old butt into the freshly emptied can beside him. He pulled the smoke deeply into his lungs and then let it drift from his nose as he slowly exhaled, trying to calm himself. If he could only think this out, his mind jabbered. He took another deep drink from the can.
In a way it would be nice to sit down and think this through, but in another way he didn’t care if he ever had another thought in his life. He didn’t want to take the time to think it out at all. He had made up his mind earlier. In a few minutes, when he finished the cigarette and the beer he’d do it, he decided.
He didn’t want to die with a lit cigarette in his mouth and burn down the house. Anne had to live here… Well, maybe not, but even so she’d have to sell it or something… If she didn’t lose it…
He pulled hard on the cigarette as if rushing it to its end so he could rush his own end. He took a deep drink from the beer and felt the headache ease back a little.
He could feel the buzz from the beer. Maybe it would knock down the headache after all. Either way the headache was not long for this world, he decided.
Calm seemed to come over him all at once. The sob that he had been waiting for didn’t come. His chest didn’t hitch. His cheeks still felt irritated, his eyes full of sand, his mind weary and removed from him to a degree, but the hysteria he had been sure was going to grab him didn’t make another appearance.
Through the curtains he could see the late afternoon sunlight. Still gold in the sky. Heating up his part of the south. There was no noise except the steady rumble of the air conditioner. Whatever heat the sun held was lost on him today.
He pulled on the cigarette, noticed that it was all but dead and dropped it into the can with the last one. He upended the beer can and drained it. He waited, expecting the sobs to come back but the calm remained. He sighed once, was surprised to find that the gun was only inches from his lips, opened his mouth and slid the barrel in. The hysteria stayed at bay. He adjusted the barrel so it would be more comfortable, sighed at the absurdity of that thought, and then squinted his eyes down as his finger tightened on the trigger.
~2~
“How do you feel, Paul?”
Paul blinked and tried to look around him. He found that it was not entirely possible. He couldn’t really turn around to where the voice had come from no matter how he tried.
“It doesn’t matter though,” the same voice said.
And it didn’t. It became completely unimportant right then. Just like that.
“How do you feel?”
“I’m pretty upset. I…” He stopped. He had been pretty upset, but he wasn’t now. Now he felt… Well, at peace.
“That’s good, Paul. You should feel at peace.”
“It feels good,” he said. It seemed entirely normal that whoever was behind him could read his mind… Am I dead?
“I wanted to talk to you about how you got here, Paul.”
“How?”
“How.”
The time spun out.
“I stole about… I guess I don’t even know how much… I kept stealing and it kept adding up. And I knew they’d catch it… And they did… My boss must have called the cops,“ Paul said.
“Actually the company accountant… But I meant how you got here… To this point.”
“I… … I don’t know what you mean.”
“To kill yourself, Paul. I mean how did you get to this point where you decided to kill yourself… Take your own life… How did you reach that point, Paul?”
“Oh… I thought about it… I…” He stopped and thought about it. “I see… It’s just tough to understand… I don’t really know exactly… Are you God?”
“Do you think of me as God?”
Paul thought about it. “I think I do… I think so… I believe you are God.”
“Then I am.”
“You are? … Really? You really are God?”
“I really am, Paul…”
His voice was soft. Reassuring.
“I… I thought you would sound different… I… Am I dead?”
“No… Not yet… You have some little time left… I thought, since you asked, that before you do something that will change everything we should talk.”
Paul nodded. “I prayed… Earlier I prayed.”
“I know… You know, Paul, people sometimes think I don’t listen to prayer anymore… If I ever did. They tell themselves that and then they begin to believe it. I do listen though. I do. Every prayer. Every time. Do you believe that, Paul?”
“I do… I mean I do now. I do know that now. I’m ashamed to say that.”
“Don’t be. There is no shame here. You are used to saying words that really don’t mean anything true. They are there, you say them… In this case you say that you are ashamed when you are not ashamed.”
Paul examined himself. “You’re right… I don’t feel ashamed. I feel good still. At peace still.”
“So how did you get here. How did you come to be here? Who told you that suicide was a solution?”
“I… It was painful… My wife will leave me. We’ll lose everything… The kids… I can’t imagine what the kids will do… Feel… It seemed… It seemed right.”
“Did it?”
Paul thought about it. “Maybe not… It felt like the only choice I had.”
“Yet you called out to me. Why?”
“Because… Because I used to believe in you… I…”
He laughed. “And I am still here. Did you think I had died? Did you think I had stopped believing in you?”
“Some people think so… That you died.”
“You?”
“No… I guess the truth is I just stopped believing… I believed in other things… Taxes… Bills… Mortgage payments… Summer… Fall…”
“The things you see every day.”
“That’s a good way to put it.”
“I have a way with words.”
Paul laughed and then stopped. “I thought maybe that was a joke.”
”It was… Do you wish you had not stopped believing? Do you see how things could have been different?”
“I can see that now, but what good is it after the fact? I pulled the trigger… I remember that.”
“Did you? I think you asked me to help… Sometimes I help in unexpected ways… Thomas needed to see… To place his hand in my side… Peter needed to see me risen… Sometimes my people ask me for help and then don’t recognize the help when it comes.”
“Like now?”
“Like now, yes. It’s time to think. To breath… To make a decision… A different decision.”
“Then what?” Paul asked.
“Then? … What comes, comes… I know what it is to live. I have felt what you feel. Struggled with the same temptations. We take it as it comes to us, Paul.”
“So the problems would still be there?”
“Yes.”
“That’s help?” Paul asked.
“I will help you all that you will allow.”
Paul thought about it and realized it was true.
“So… How did you end up here?”
“I guess I just walked away… I guess I chose to do that.”
You still choose words that are untrue. Do you guess or do you know?”
“I know. I walked away.”
“You know, it’s a split second decision… Many times if you take the time to think you can get through whatever comes at you.”
Paul nodded, took a deep breath. “I see.”
~3~
The finger stopped. He remembered something… Something… Summer. A thousand years ago it seemed… Anne… When they had first met… The picture in his mind was so perfect, so intense. So real, and a flood of images followed it… But… There had been something else there for a moment, hadn’t there? He had been focusing on the trigger… The pressure… And there had been something else there… Just for a moment… It seemed so. It seemed as though he had been ready to pull the trigger and… And someone…
He pulled the barrel from his mouth and sucked in a deep breath. Whatever it might have been it was gone now. The sobbing came back with the fresh air. The pistol slid from his hand and fell to the carpet with a soft clunk. He lowered his head into his hands and let the tears take over…
I hope you enjoyed the story. Have a great Tuesday! Check out our sponsors, Geo
Well, Earth’s Survivors is completely available from Amazon now and Kindle Unlimited, so free if you are a member. I hope those of you who downloaded it enjoyed it.
I am currently working on Wastelands. There are three books and a fourth due to be published soon, you can get them only at Amazon and again free on Kindle Unlimited. Zero – One – Two
It’s raining in New York. Heavy, cold rain. Summer has been pretty hard to find so far this season. I thought I would share part of my past week with you…
I use Windows Ten for my operating system. Not because I like Windows, but because Linux is not universally accepted yet. So I use Linux as much as I can and then Windows when I have to.
I purchased a new machine a month or so ago and it came with Windows Eleven. Oh, I could write a whole blog about how I hate Windows Eleven. And I do. It compromises you and your information on every level, because it insists on having it. It insists on knowing everything there is to know about you. Do you have five freckles on the inside of your left thigh? That would be about the only thing it doesn’t ask or know about it, but I would not count on the fact that it doesn’t know, it just might. Anyway, for me, too nosy. I buy the software and so I guess that means I am supporting the invasion of my privacy. But I would like it to be more like a car. A Toyota will drive me anywhere I want to go, but, so will a Ford, or a Chevy, or a Dodge, or, well, you get the idea. So why is it we only have Windows? Where the hell is the support for Linux? Or something else? Okay, That’s all I have on that.
So, I deep sixed the machine I bought because, as it turns out, you can not easily delete win 11, at least on this machine. It would not allow me to install my Win 10. I struggled with it for a week. I decided in that space of time that there was not redeeming quality there and then one day I went online, ordered the parts from Amazon to fix my old machine. Kicked myself for not doing that first, and once they came I spent a few hours fixing the old machine. Once I was done I unplugged the new machine, stuck it back in the box and slid it under my desk. It made a great foot rest until my mother’s machine locked up the other day.
Moms machine is my old machine. I wrote several short stories and my first novel on that machine, a lawn sale item I had all of 40.00 dollars into. “Well, how would you like a Windows 11 machine, Mom,” I asked? For her it’s great. She is a social animal, Mom is. I think something like 600 face book friends. She has all her on-line shopping places, her Kindle account. Huh, I said to her, people actually use computers to socialize? Mom just laughed at me. She figured out Win 11 immediately and has no problem with it. Humph…
I use Windows ten and it makes me money, or helps me to make a living. It’s a tool I use to run the software that makes my living, and allows me to access the publishing services I need to be able to make my living. It also allows me to buy and sell on-line if I so choose, use software to listen to music, manipulate my artwork and create Artwork too. Record Music of my own. Read other E-Books (Yes, I read other authors, not just the ones here at writerz.net). In short I spend a great deal of time in the Windows environment and all I ever do is complain about it, uh, sort of like I am right now. But once I got a load of Win 11 I decided I would embrace Win 10. No more complaints from me.
So, last week I went to Google for a translation for a phrase spoken by one of the characters in Earth’s Survivors Three. Candace Loi is Japanese and African American. Her Grandmother spoke Japanese. I remembered the pronunciation for Grand Daughter in Japanese, but did not want to hack the spelling. And, growing up and hearing it, having an idea in my head what it meant, and then what it really means are different things sometimes. I went with Magomusume instead of Mago. Magomusume is more formal, and not really used often. But, I didn’t want to confuse things, it’s not like the character can launch into a long explanation about why it is not usually used in the Gender specific form.
So, I found it, but, when I had searched, it had also shown me a few images of people that indirectly related to my search. Japanese life. Yes, for once, not porn that always seems to pop up, but actual people… With their clothes on. I was awed, and I did something I rarely do, I spent about four hours more on Google looking for more pictures of people from all walks of life. So when you read Earth’s Survivors Three and you reach the point where Candace explains Magomusume you will know that as soon as I wrote that I then spent four or so hours Googleing stuff. I went ahead and clicked the ‘Images’ link on Google. Like I said, usually I am Leery of it, but this time I carefully restricted my keywords and was rewarded.
Poor, Gypsies, Vietnamese, Japanese, Native American, African and African American. One simply led to the next. And, why look if you don’t intend to keep? The reason I thought of that is because I know a man who, whenever I visit, has his desktop machine (A MAC, Ironically) set to show different life scenes. And this is on his office machine, so, while I’m waiting, I watch the picture show. I have been there enough times to know the pictures, and so I anticipate certain ones.
I sit in the padded leather chair, in his office, in America, where even the very poor do not starve to death in the streets, or get shot or terrorized by soldiers, or shot, killed and dumped in a ditch somewhere. At least not as the normal course of a day. Violence does happen here too. Having both grown up poor, and spent time actually living on the streets as a teen, I understand that what we see on the surface is only a poor reflection of what is under that surface. But I sit in his padded leather chair and I watch scenes from all over the world. People, Artwork, Animals, Architecture and more. It’s pleasant to watch. Soothing. I suppose it is for him too.
But the images I discovered that day were people who knew nothing at all about me. My life. My computer. The life I lead is so far from their life that it might just be incomprehensible to them. In any case, for most of them, they will never live this type of life. And, they don’t look all that unhappy about the possibility of never living this life to me.
Yes, in some instances I’m sure they are. When their basic rights are violated, when they are oppressed, when they are hungry. Not our version of hungry, I mean when they have not eaten. Maybe for days. So, their life is not all roses, but they don’t miss what they have never thought about, seen, or experienced. And I looked at the pictures and I thought this is what I need to look at every day. This is what can keep me connected to the real world. That is important to me. Being grounded. Staying grounded.
So I spent about four hours and downloaded every picture that I came across that I liked. I put them in a folder and I have added to that folder a few times now when I have thought of other people I would like to see. Then I set my desktop to that folder and voila. I Guess I am bringing it up because it affected me in some unexpected ways.
First, I have 4 monitors, so as I work I can see the pictures change, for the most part. The only time I can’t is when I have something else up on the other monitors. But, I found that I tend to leave a monitor blank most of the time now. And that, throughout my day, I am watching the faces pop up. A mother in Africa with her baby. A band of Gypsies exiled by Hitler before or during the war. He hated them as much as he did the Jewish people. A proud but poor father in Mexico posing outside of a house most of us would not want to step inside of let alone call home, with his family. All smiling. Looks like they have a lot of love if not money.
A young Native American mother sometime back in the 1700’s staring wide eyed at the camera, her child held in her arms. She looks so young and scared. A little Boy smiling up at the camera, tribal scars on both sides of his face. He looks so happy. His smile is genuine. A mother nursing. Rebels posing with Machine Guns on a road in a jungle somewhere. A young Vietnamese woman making her way through the ruined streets of some Vietnamese city. A Chinese woman with her child on her back, wrapped and looking at the world go by as mom makes her way to where ever she is going. And more…
A family on the road. A father carrying his children. Images of war, images of peace. Images I have no context for, only the people looking into the lens of the camera, or away: Caught unawares. I realized it really was keeping the world in my mind. Why is that father carrying his children? What does that mother feed her children? Do they know about the western world? What do they think about it? I like it. It keeps the world on my mind. The part of the world that is important.
I don’t mean our jobs, bills, house payments aren’t important, I am only saying that people are more important. Seeing these people from all over the world. Some surely still living, some long gone away, keeps me grounded. If only because of what I just said. Know some a re gone. Some still here. It reminds me that there were times with my family, friends, I wish I could have back, had cherished more. Some of those people are gone now. If I remember them as I look at the pictures it’s like they never left. And, there are the questions I have for those I see in the pictures too. It keeps the important things in the world in perspective for me.
It has been an interesting week, and I am glad I made the change. It even makes me grateful, yes, grateful, to Microsoft for this desktop where I can watch those changing pictures. Or whoever came up with the idea. Does that mean I can’t complain about Windows anymore?
I have a plan. I think I spent a good portion of my life without a plan. Just sort of walking along, not really expecting much at all, at least nothing good. I had a larger view of the world that said, “What happens, happens. It’s pretty much ordained, and so there is little I can do about it.” Does that sound ridiculous? Well, it does to me too, now anyway. But for most of my life I had that thought in my head and so, true or not, I believed it to be true and it became true.
Then one day I woke up. I woke up and I looked at the world and I thought “What the hell have I been doing? Why am I in situations I do not want to be in? Where the hell is this car going? Who’s driving?”
After that I went through a period of cynicism. It is the worlds fault. I didn’t have a chance, someone should have told me. More in that vein. Then I stepped back, looked at it and I realized I had had good breaks. I had seen things clearly. I had looked at it. And I had decided that I didn’t want to drive. I had decided to be a passenger. Well, you got to go where the driver is going then. You have eliminated all of your other choices.
So I made a plan in four parts. My plan was pretty simple.
One: I will retain all the control over my own life that I can. As long as getting that control doesn’t cause me to hurt someone, doesn’t become all encompassing. Doesn’t make me stop seeing that compromise is a part of life. I have thought out my actions rationally, without simply reacting during the heat of the moment. Man, I thought. There is a lot to do to simply have control over your own life. And how come I have to give up some of that control to have control. Isn’t that the opposite of what I wanted? It is, but it is the way the real world works.
Two: I will set goals and work toward them. In that way the things that are truly important to me are attained. Great. That is great. A clear path to a clear future, to… No. The problem is that we do not live in a vacuum. How do you set your goals and have them remain static? You don’t. At least you don’t if there are people in your life you care about. I remember someone asked me, what are your plans for the future, and I said well I plan to leave here, move to the middle of nowhere and live off the land as best I can. Maybe find someone who wants to do that and that would be great, a perfect life.
As soon as I said the words I knew I was not thinking rationally about it. If I love people that are in my life then they should count when I make plans for the future. Having lived most of my life in the vacuum that is alcoholism I had rarely ever considered others. Tough to admit, but true, so as I was saying the words they became untrue. I realized my family and friends were more important to me that anything else. And I realized I had to permanently alter my thinking. The people you love have to count. Compromise is a part of life. People who are living in the world know all about that. Those that are only in the world don’t really understand that. Which type did I want to be?
Three: Doors. I grew up on the streets. Yes, I grew up with a moral code, but chances are it was not the same moral code that most people that know me grew up with. On the street loyalty was a big deal. Men would say, “Hey, I’d die for you,” and they meant it. You could watch someone do the worst thing in the world and you would keep your mouth shut. Loyalty. It was a code. Somehow the cops became the bad guys and the bad guys became the good guys. Sounds like different subjects, but it isn’t. You are isolated from mainstream society. Disconnected: Mainstream society becomes incomprehensible. It makes no sense at all. Meanwhile the people you deal with come in and out of those doors you have. Those doors you can choose to open or close. Only you are so disconnected that you leave them open all the time and people come in and out. You become a doormat. You understand doormat. Doormat makes perfect sense. Use and be used. Except, when you come off the streets you still have the doors open. Wide open. You let everyone in, some you should, some you shouldn’t. Some who mean you grave harm, some who try to love you, but you don’t understand any of that. You only left the door open and the stuff is happening People are coming and going.
So one of things I did was shut the doors. Yes, at first, all the way. Then I realized those doors are there for a reason. A door is meant to be opened and closed. On a warm summer night you can crack it a little to let some air in. In the winter to close it to keep the heat in. And life is the same way. Sometimes you can decide to let that person in. Others no. Still others, crack it just a little. Let that breeze in. Maybe leave the screen door shut to keep the insects out. Poor analogies, I know, but I was a street kid. A street kid who was far from stupid, but carried my ignorance like armor. I finally got it though, and I told my self that from now on I would choose how far I would open that door.
Four: The plan. I will sit down and look at what I really want out of life and begin to work toward it. I will realize that, long before I attain it, something might happen that will cause me to want to change my plans. I can not be so rigid that I can not look at it and realize that it needs to be changed. That my needs have changed. That someone in my life has needs that will affect my own needs and that I may have to sit down and do it all over again. Set a new goal. Come up with a new plan. That it’s okay to do that. That if what you are doing no longer makes sense you need to do something else.
That was how I came up with my plan. My plan was a multi year plan. Save my money. Then go in one direction or the other. Land or sea.
Sea: Buy a boat. A big boat. Cast off and spend a few years, as long as I can, sailing. After all, the price of a house, it is about the same.
Land: Buy some land in the mountains. Build another house, I have done that before, and that’s it, retire. Walks in the mountains. Maybe do the Appalachian trails. Live as close to my characters lives in my books as I can.
Then I mentioned it to people in my life. By the time I got their reactions I realized that I may just have to scrap both plans and start over. Not because any of them said anything to dissuade me, but because I realized how much I loved them and would miss them if I did either of those things. How life really is about compromise. After all, I can rent a boat, can’t I? I can rent a cabin in the sticks, can’t I? I can walk the Appalachian trail, I don’t have to live there to do that. So I made a new plan. My new plan is not to make any other plans until I sit down and think about the people I love and how it will impact them and me.
