CarlHoliday

You've shown the gun (premonition) so I hope you're going to use it soon. I'd hate to have Twoey be surprised when Danny takes a polar bear swim in a snow storm and ends up in the morgue. Other than that startling revelation, another remarkable addition in this tale of young gay teens.

Mama’s surgeries started the night of her arrival at the emergency room. She’d lost her left eye when her husband’s fist slammed into her face too many times on that side. As best as Bert could figure she was going to be in the hospital for at least a month, not getting to go home until after school started. That could have been good for me and Ricky, but it wasn’t to be. Ricky had what seemed to me to be an unnatural love for his father. It was almost like he wanted to get beat up by dear old

Chapter 19 Ship Clock 262349 Abner (Abe) 34-793k Gene & Children, Part 2 “Hi, Abe, how are doing?” Doctor Haraldan asked. “You tell me. How is Gene?” “Well, as I feared the nano bots went where they shouldn’t have. They got down into the hypothalamus, that’s the part of the brain that regulates cardiac function. That’s why Gene’s heart stopped. The one thing good out of this is that we have surgical bots that are able to go into that area and repair the damaged neurons. We retrieved

I knew I was jeopardizing my creative abilities by increasing the amount of Depakote I take to stabilize my mental state and, happily, I am now stabilized and do not fear having a misstep leading to a fatal plunge into nothingness. Not being suicidal is much more important than writing. But, that does little to assure me that there will ever be anything more coming out of the creative vault. Remembering Tim has two final chapters to publish. I wrote an epilogue to finish the work because I knew I could never come up with fiction necessary to do more to the story. The G.M.Os. has eight chapters to go. Plus, I’ve decided to append the five chapters I planned for the sequel since there definitely isn’t anything going on there either. Hopefully, I will be able to at least come up with a short story now and then sometime in the future, but right now I don’t think that will happen. Last week I did try to write something new, but after a little over 1,700 words found I wrote myself into in a corner and couldn’t figure out how to get out of it. The words just don’t seem to want to go together in any logical manner. So, once Remembering Tim and The G.M.Os. are finished I’ll be able to fully concentrate on reading the stories on GA, learning how to play the guitar, listening to music, and looking forward to training our new dog. After going through research on a number of other breeds, including speaking with people who have experience with them, we’ve decided to get another GSD, a female this time. The breeder has a number of litters coming up and my son will be putting down a deposit this week on a litter that will be ready in early May. I haven’t decided what I’m going to name her since, technically, she will be my dog. I'd like to be creative, but that is certainly out the window now.

“Do you know what this is?” Ricky asked as we stood beside the car that Uncle Walter said I was to drive. The garage was lit with fluorescent bulbs and the white floor and walls reflected that light into a uniform, unshaded glow throughout the garage. There weren’t any tools to be seen, just four automobiles occupying the garage’s four bays. At the far end, stairs led up to the former apartment of a chauffeur, I suspected. Who else would have lived above the garage? “Yeah, Uncle Walter said it’

Chapter 18 Ship Clock 262349 Abner (Abe) 34-793k Gene & Children, Part 1 “Gene! Wake up! You didn’t shut off the alarm,” Abe said. He jostled his husband’s shoulder, but Gene didn’t wake up. “Gene! Wake up!” But Gene didn’t wake up. Abe went out to the module and sent an emergency message to the clinic down at Commune Center requesting an ambulance. He didn’t know what else to do. He went back and shook Gene’s shoulder, but Gene just lay there in the bed breathing softly. Abe put on

The nephews turned out to be seventeen-year-old, Ruben, and fifteen-year-old, Rick. Ortega was their last name. I thought I could practice my Spanish skills with them, but Rick said, “We’re from Illinois, Peoria, Illinois. The last person in our family to speak Spanish was our grandfather.” Ruben was taller than me, over six feet at least, muscular like a quarterback, but didn’t act like a jock. His face was more round than long and his smile was natural. He had a California tan and straight bl

Chapter 17 Ship Clock 262299 Abner (Abe) 34-793k Master & Slave Abe came out of his residence, shut the door, and stretched his arms. It was after seven, he didn’t have anything to do until later when he would move some beefalos to a new pasture. While he was out there he planned to stop by where Roger’s ashes were and spend a little time with his former husband. He saw Willy land her speeder in front of Moli and Eddy’s residence and walk over toward him. “Neither Moli or Eddy have c

Chapter 16 Ship Clock 262299 Eugenus (Gene) 54-721c Abe Gene sat at his module watching an old Humphrey Bogart vid about the old United States Navy. It was one of his favorites and had watched it at least ten times. He had access to all of the actor’s vids and watched little else, except for Orson Welles, especially the vids he directed. Those were his two favorites, but that didn’t mean he didn’t watch other vids because he did and spent most of his free time doing that here in his bedro

This morning I read Don DeLillo's short story, "Sine Cosine Tangent", in newyorker.com. As surprising as it may be, I have never read any of DeLillo’s fiction, but this story intrigued me as it is about a teenager coming to grips with his parents' divorce. The story takes place in New York City and covers the boy from age thirteen, when his parents divorced—in a very telling scene as he is doing his math homework, his father informs him of the fact—until the boy grows into adulthood. Therefore, most of the story covers the time the boy lived with just his mother in an apartment in Queens. His father, obviously rather wealthy, is involved in global finance, while his mother works full-time for a lawyer who deals with real estate transactions. His life with his mother is full of the angst of a teen boy coming to terms with his social environment and dealing with the break-up of the family unit. So, do I read more of DeLillo? Probably not, though I may buy his collection of stories, The Angel Esmeralda: nine stories. On the home front, I’ve been suffering through excruciating muscle spasms on the right side of my back since Saturday afternoon. It makes working at the computer next too impossible, but I am still able to read stories, so it can’t be too serious. I went to Guitar Center on Saturday (maybe it was the long drive in my son’s Expedition that sprung the back) and got the deal of the day. They were having their President’s Day sale and had an Epiphone Les Paul Limited Edition Traditional PRO electric guitar for $399.00. It had been marked down from a sale price that had expired on 2/3, but as it was still advertised at $399, I got it for that price. My other Epiphone turned out to be a piece of cheap shit so I upgraded and can now get back to learning how to play the guitar, for no other reason than to give myself something to do. Tomorrow morning we’re taking Rambo into the vet for a testosterone reduction operation that is long overdue. Hopefully, he won’t be too cranky over the weekend. Sometime between now and whenever, but definitely this year, we’ll be getting a new puppy for the house. I’ve been saying we should get a Chihuahua because, well, I think they’re cute, but my son says that is a definite NO. He wanted to get a Pit Bull, either a Staffie or an Amstaff, but I’m not in favor of either of those mostly because I have to take the dogs out during the day and don’t want to have to watch out for some stupid dog jumping over the fence to get at the neighbor’s cats. Luckily, Rambo hasn’t learned that the fence is only 4 feet high and he could quite easily jump over the silly thing. So, we’re going for intelligence. I wanted a Miniature Poodle, but my so is definitely against that. “NO SMALL DOGS!” So, that leaves a Border Collie, smartest of all. German Shepherds are supposed to be the third smartest dog, but sometimes Rambo impresses me as being only slightly more intelligent than a Chihuahua (No. 67). With two local Border Collie breeders, we should have a fairly good chance of getting a puppy this year. We’re going for a female and would like a traditional black/white one. We’ll have to see what we get. In the meantime, we have my son’s ’72 Cadillac to get running, the cherry tree to be trimmed, and the back porch to be redone. (My son insists that since I’m “old” it’s time we put in a ramp so I don’t trip on the steps, again!) Only after those three things are accomplished can we even think about getting a new dog.

It's only been just over a week on 1500 mg of Depakote and that old, familiar feeling has come back. You could say I feel like I was taking 2 mg of Risperidone and 1000 mg of Depakote, but it's different than that. There's no energy, zero, zilch. There's nothing there. It's like being in a warm pool of salt water. You just float there without a current to move you along. You're going nowhere and there's nothing to stop you from getting there. Yesterday I wrote 3,000 words, but it was mostly therapeutic. Dialog mostly, very little narrative, but the dialog wasn't close to playwriting, which I enjoy, but haven't done in years, decades. It was Chapter 3 of Children of Eden. In Chapter 2 there were a lot of loose ends that needed to be tidied up, but when I finished Chapter 2 I didn't continue on with another chapter, so I went back and over the course of two days wrote nearly 5,500 words. I figure there's another 2,000 to do and at the rate I'm going right now that should only take another week. Once I get that done I can go back and work on what is now Chapter 5. But, right now, I'm at a loss as to where the story will go from there. I suppose my biggest problem with Children of Eden is that there are so few antagonists. Even the bots have become nice, aggravatingly nice, but nice all the same. I think I want to do some sort of a sequel to Remembering Tim, which is moving right along and should be completely posted in six weeks. The story takes place in 1965/66 with two boys in high school. If I do a sequel, it will take place today and the characters will be in their sixties. Of course, those would be the main characters. There could be a full cast of supporting characters, maybe even an antagonist or two. You need good guys and bad guys or you're just telling a tale about pablum. But, where to place it? As I see it, I have four possible choices. North Park, Washington, an imaginary city carved out of the northwest corner of Seattle; Fort Okanogan, Washington, which, if it existed, is located at the confluence of the Okanogan and Columbia Rivers in North Central Washington where the Hudson's Bay Company had a post in times long past; Warnton, New York, a small college town in apple country of Upstate New York; and, somewhere in LA, where a few chapters of Remembering Tim take place. There will be a small, liberal arts college, either North Park, Fort Okanogan, Warnton, or something in the LA area. And, quite likely, there will be disease and death. It's kind of nice thinking about stories like this. It keeps the creative juices flowing, even though they may be a bit sluggish these days. Well, I go back to the psychiatrist on 3/3 and we'll see what can be done. I've been reading about adding another anti-psychotic to the mix and maybe I'll suggest that. The only problem I can see with that is the VA seems to think Abilify is a great anti-psychotic and who wants to take a pill that has immediate, unexpected death as a side effect. I want to get better, not die. If I wanted to die, I'd commit suicide.

Until I went down to California to spend three weeks with my Uncle Walter, I had never been in an airplane. Dad, of course, flew all the time when he was selling pipe, but the rest of us were relegated to ground transportation. Mother, Sally, and an unusually passive Johnny took me to the airport. Johnny was upset about me getting to leave for three weeks, when he, Scott, and the new kid, a strange, ugly, schizo named Norman, had to stay home. I think the only thing that saved us on the drive w

Chapter 15 Ship Clock 262235 Edward (Eddy) 01-787o The Self-Destructionists The psych ward dayroom had a large screen vid adhered to a light green, cinder block wall. There was a whole collection of vids from the present to far back on Earth when the possibility of space travel was nothing more than a pipe dream, something of fictional speculation. There were enough recliners for all the patients confined to the ward, but only one, a schizo named Paula was crazy enough to control what vid

Chapter 14 Ship Clock 262195 Jacko 09-325e The Bot Way Jacko came out of the shower and started to dry himself. Another day, another fifty credits, in thirty days he’d have fifteen hundred credits in his account. Rent was four hundred fifty credits; electric service shot away a clean hundred; water ran seventy-five on good months, a hundred on bad months, so he put away a hundred; public transport cost a solid hundred fifty because not only did he have to use it to get to the office, but

Wicked is a word I would have used.

Mark came home, to our home that is, a week after almost dying. His mother and father brought him to us. It had been raining for three days and there was no sign of improvement on the horizon. Mother and Doctor Randall welcomed them into our living room. The rest of us, Sally, Scott, Johnny, and I, stayed in Sally’s room playing Chutes and Ladders. We kept the door cracked so we could eavesdrop, we didn’t want any surprises. Doctor Randall sounded very clinical; in fact, more clinical than he u

Chapter 13 Ship Clock 262167 Moli 20-578p Eddy, Fourth Day “Morning, Mother.” “Huh, oh, you’re here, Happy Botsday, Bud.” “Happy Botsday, Mother.” “Bud, you keep talking like that and we’re going to have to get married, whether the bots like it or not.” “That’s okay, Mother, I think I’d like that. Now, go pee and come back. I need something.” “Ah! Boys!” “That didn’t take long; lay down, close to me. A little closer, give me your right hand. Yes, that’s the one. It’s the morning, Mo

For the optimist, all bad things do tend to fade away. I've gone from normal thru suicidal and back to some semblance of normal in three long weeks. Although mental stability has regained a footing, I don't feel I'm completely out of the woods. I would like to get back to writing, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards right now, which is okay because I have a lot of material to post on The G.M.Os. and, now, Remembering Tim. Right now I'm reading my old stuff and works by other authors here at GA. Over the course of three days I read thru Pastel Cowboy and was surprised by the number of typos I found, but there are no major structural problems with the story and I think it can stay as is for the time being. I want to thank all of my readers who expressed concern over my mental state and look forward to the day when I will be back to at least 90% of normal. I still have a strange feeling that creativity will be jeopardized in the name of mental stability, but can that be all that bad? That's the big problem with bipolar disorder, or any other mental disability, having to accept what's good while giving up somethings you feel you need or want. And, so, I move forward with the game and play the cards I've accepted because I know that I cannot go back to the darkness that exists on the other side of creative freedom.

I just found this story yesterday and have read it through to this chapter. I usually avoid crime stories, but you’ve got my attention with this one and it isn’t just the BDSM, which, in my opinion, is being handled very well. The dominance of Dorian is probably softer than Felix wants, but is Felix a snitch? I have my doubts because Marshall knew too many of the details and made the other officers at the café. So, I guess I’ll have to wait for Chapter 15. You’ve laid out so many suppositions on the possibilities of how the op went wrong. There are personality conflicts running through CID that might lead someone to believe one of the members of the op team ruined the operation just to get at Chase or maybe it is Felix, but did he know all the details other than what Dorian looks like. After all, Dorian did ask Felix if he had heard Hawthorne mention the name Marshall. Look forward to discovering the secret.

Thanks for the review. Hope you enjoy reading Remembering Tim and the rest of my stories. CarlH

Three months later Sam, Johnny, and Peter moved into the house and my life began to change. It was a gradual process that in the months to come would result in a change that I couldn’t imagine at the time. The boys were different, too. There was something about Sam I couldn’t put my finger on. He was more aloof than usual. It was as if now that he was living in my house he didn’t want to be there. Every morning he got in Doctor Randall’s car with Johnny and Peter and was dropped off at St. Xavi

Remembering Tim is ready for a republication with material from Tim and the Corsair added with a bridging chapter. Publication will follow under the title Remembering Tim - Redux. Mental state is stabilizing and will probably stabilize further with a change in dosage I'm implementing. From now on I'll be taking 1500 mg of Divalproex and 1 mg of Risperidone. I was taking that two years ago and will take it from now on. The only foreseeable problem is a dulling of creative abilities, but I'll have to live with that. You have to give up something to get something and, right now, mental stability is more important to me than creative talents. If all goes well, as I hope it might, once The G.M.Os. and Remembering Tim have finished publication, I'll go back and look at Pastel Cowboy and see if anything of that needs to be revised and/or changed. Well, I know there are some parts that definitely need to be changed, but I'll have to wait and see how much the creative talents are tempered by the adjustment of brain chemicals. Things are looking up even if they look level.

I was hoping my shrink was going to call today, but she didn't so I'll have to wait until next we to talk to her about what changes I can make. I'm thinking of going back to how it was two years ago when I was taking 1500 mg of depakote and 1 mg of risperidone. I was stable, but did suffer from a certain lack of creativity. My son is very definite that I go for stability because he worries when I start getting weird. So, I think that's what I'm going to ask her or tell her, whoever calls first. I have to do something because what's happening now isn't cutting it.

The problem is I've been here before when I was triple dosing the Depakote. I convinced my old psychiatrist to allow me to drop back to a double dose so I could be more creative, but my son's been complaining I've been getting too OCD over things like spending 10 hours a day writing. I want the creativity, but that means dealing with mental instability. So, maybe the new shrink can come up with a medicinal combination that will give me what I want without causing too much mental dulling. I've got this Remembering Tim project and I'm going to have to write at least two new chapters, probably more and will need as much creativity as I can muster.

Well, I'm definitely not going to drop all meds. I've done that before and ended up having a total breakdown, plus being put in a psych hospital for three weeks. Then there are the local opportunities for offing myself to consider. One way or another things will work out.