CarlHoliday

It had to happen. Eventually, your number comes up and you got to go. I did my civic duty yesterday and answered the request for jury duty at our municipal court. The only other time I

Early this week, probably Tuesday night, I was watching an episode of CSI: Miami when I experienced something I haven't experienced in quite a while because I don't watch television when I'm on the road. Oh, I catch a program or two in trucks stops, but I don't have a television in my truck so whatever entertainment I utilize comes via the internet or what I have saved on the laptop. Anyway, this particular episode triggered a shot of adrenalin quickening by pulse, changing my breath rate, and triggering the ever popular fight or flight response. Damn, don't you just love watching television and getting those jolts of hormones. Well, it's certainly better than being in a copse and realizing a leopard is sharing your tree; or, bedding down in some tall grass and hearing a bear snuffling around for a tasty morsel of long pig. Well, anyway, that jolt of unexpected hormone lasted a few days and triggered a number of unwelcome changes in my behavior like more aggressive behavior out on the road and an unwelcome exposure to the dark side of my creative process. The aggressive driving was quickly recognized and dealt with in an appropriate manner. The expression of my dark side, however, was allowed to progress to a logical end. I'm working on Chapter 11 of The Pastel Cowboy an Zach is seeing a psychiatrist because of the gay bashing that occurred in Chapter 10. He is suffering from Anxiety/Panic Attacks and the psychiatrist is helping him deal with that and other issues he has with being gay. One of those issues is Zach's submissive tendencies with partners. He's probably totally a bottom, but, unfortunately, he's not very good at recognizing inappropriate behaviors in that regard, which, as in the case of the bashing, sets him up for violence. Anyway, I was doing pretty well with Chapter 11 until yesterday when Zach remembered being sexually abused by his oldest brother. I know, as I'm sure most everyone else is aware, that male to male sexual abuse does not have anything to do with causing a boy to become gay. But, there are those who may interpret the writing in a negative sense. So, I'm at a quandry as what to do. I can rewrite the chapter and do away with this section and, possibly, come up with some other logical reason for Zach's submissiveness, or I can add sufficient supporting narrative and dialog for Zach to realize that being gay has absolutely nothing to do with the abuse he suffered. I'd prefer the latter, but at the same time realize the former is probably the safe solution. You know, add more than sufficient disclaimers at the beginning so that whoever is reading this chapter hopefully realizes my position on this situation. I've never been one to play it safe as far as writing goes, but in this situation maybe it's better to keep the dark side at bay and come up with another solution. I've been playing with this entry for a couple days trying to work it out, but tonight we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant and I had a Grande Gold Margarita on the Rocks, a Chicken Caesar Salad, a Sierra Mist with a double Cuervo Tradicional, a side order Tamale (I love Tamales and one of the waitresses has promised to teach the wife how to make them!), and a Gold Mexican Coffee. Needless to say I'm feeling very good and was able to type this after getting home. Nothing like good Tequila to get the ol' creative juices flowing. :wacko:

Let

Another night of too much tequila, too much spicy food, a killer giant molasses cookie, an orange, and a couple slices of buttered bread, makes for a restless sleep. The really bad thing about doing this shit is everything tastes so good. It

Actually, I hate snow, now. In earlier times, way back in the days before color TV, automatic transmissions, and multiplex theatres. When computers were took up whole basements, reprogramming involved rewiring the silly things, and they broke down for the stupidest reasons like one of the gears lost a tooth. Yeah, way back then. Well, I did like snow, but I was a kid and what kid doesn

Good I woke up at 3:00 this morning and lay in bed hoping the reflux would just go away and leave me alone. I always get this when I have too much cheap tequila, a picadillo tamale, a hazelnut mocha, and a slice of marionberry pie. Mostly, though, I think it's the marionberry pie because I can have the other three and nothing happens. After thirty minutes of feeling like I was going to vomit (I DO NOT vomit. I've vomited less than ten times in my life and have no desire to do it again.) I got up and turned on the ol' laptop. No use in wasting time lying in bed in pain. Might as well get up and type in pain. Four hours later, I've got 3,555 words done on a new short story. It's about two college guys who've known each other for years, but don't discover they're in love until a crisis hits one of them. Donny Mitchell is about five feet tall and looks like a twelve year old, until you get up close and realize he might be older. According to Donny, David Peterson is "... what you

I don't like this blog because it's taken me away from my LiveJournal blog, but since I don't have that much of an audience over there, I might as well bore people over here. Chapter 10 of The Pastel Cowboy is up on Nifty, but not yet, as of 2116 PST, on The Cove. I don't know what I hold up is. Maybe it's something trivial, maybe something drastic. I don't know. It's not like I can call the webmaster and ask. This is the internet after all, telephony has been superseded by email and instant messaging. I started work on a new short story. I'm working off the GA Anthology nomination list, starting with the suggestions with the fewest votes. The first one I'm tackling is "Odd Man/Woman Out." Been there, done that. It's not a happy memory, but one that's full of angst so it should make a good story. I'm going back to work Wednesday morning. There's no question unless I suddenly come into a lot of money. Bought a lottery ticket tonight, since I don't have a forgotten uncle who's suddenly going to die and leave me with millions. Actually, I had a forgotten uncle, but he left me with $8,000 back in the early Seventies. Uncle W__ was single. Lived with his mother until she died in 1955 and then moved into bachelor housing out behind a sporting goods place on Crown Hill. He lived there until he died. My parents wouldn't let me be around Uncle W__. He was different. He was single. He had male friends. My cousins, on my father's side who I stopped seeing when my father stopped talking to his sister, got to hang out with him, but then they were Catholic, so probably knew how to hang with older men. Anyway, Uncle W__ is an enigma. Actually, my father's side of the family is one great big enigma. Eight cousins who I don't know and probably never will know. All gone because of some stupid argument between my father and his sister. That's the way with some families, though. It's hard to miss someone you've never met, except there's an emptiness over there than I can't seem to fill. Maybe I just care too much about trivial feelings.

I have always been very glad we did the boy thing. I don't know what I would've done if we had a daughter. And, our son didn't discover girls until he was fifteen, sparing us all that trouble with fickle middle school girls.

Back in the late Eighties, we lived for a year in a house that had been divided into four apartments, but only had one plumbing system with one hot water heater. I always took my shower at about five in the morning, long before anyone in the house took theirs or was awake enough to flush. My wife, on the other hand, took hers at night, usually around ten or eleven. She screamed bloody murder every time the water went from hot to icicles then back to scorching hot, but it did little good because whenever I heard the distinct sound of a shower going I figured it was time to test the flush mechanism on the toilet. You can't be too prepared and you never know when the silly thing isn't going to flush. Hope it works out for you on that other apartment because there's nothing worse than a cold water rinse.

Well, it

I get a few more days to fully recover from my sprained wrist.

I stopped running studs back in the late Seventies when we stopped going east of the mountains for Xmas. Haven't really missed them, but then we usually don't get enough snow to worry about it. Our cul-de-sac still has patches of ice, but the main roads are mostly clear; and, the front lawn, much to the dismay of Bonita, our two year old Chihuahua, still has about two inches.

And the world came to an end. Gloom and doom are upon us. Hunker down, do not leave your homes, keep your children safe, and watch the horrible news of the latest winter nastiness courtesy of El Ni

It has come upon me and it is not welcome. I have a gut. It wasn

Since we have members from a lot of countries other than the good ol

Have you taken your stupid pill? Well, don

I dreamt of my father last night; or, rather, I had a dream with my father in it. I don

Okay, so with further research using Google, I found that moutain lions and other big cats generally go for a bite on the back of the neck at the base of the skull to sever the spinal cord. For larger prey, or maybe prey they have little experience with, they go for a bite on the front of the neck, or to the snout or muzzle, to suffocate the victim. So, I guess it depends on the amount of surprise a large cat has when attacking a human and how much fight the person can muster before the lion's mouth does its bit. Personally, I'd prefer being suffocated (throttled) to death, rather than possibly not being killed by a bite through the spine, which may only paralyze, leaving the mind to experience the joys of being eaten to death. Another interesting item was that mountain lions do not eat stomachs, possibly finding the vegetable contained within unpalatable. Oh, and the claws? Well, those are utilized mainly for bringing prey to ground so that the mouth can go for the neck. Of course, big cats are like little cats and have a tendency to play with prey. You know, bat them around a bit, watch them try to get away then running up and pouncing on them, and after a while getting bored and leaving the scratched and bleeding toy to do whatever it is that forgotten toys do. People probably don't have enough prey mentality to act appropriately and would probably piss kitty off and end up as an after exercise snack.

Yes, throttle: Main Entry: throt-tle Function:verb Inflected Form: throt-tled ; throt-tling Etymology: Middle English throtelen, from throte throat Date: 15th century transitive verb 1 a (1) : to compress the throat of : CHOKE (2) : to kill by such action b : to prevent or check expression or activity of : SUPPRESS <policies that throttle creativity> Sometimes strangle just doesn't work and throttle isn't used that much anymore. Besides, throttle has a more guttural sound than strangle, which seems to be more nasally pronounced. I tend to pay attention to things like the sound words in my pieces and in this case throttle seemed more appropriate.

I think about death. I

Be yourself, don

Last night we watched

The other day when I was heading for Denver with a load on non-dairy creamer, I had to stop outside Pendleton, Oregon, and put on chains to go up Cabbage Hill. Now, putting chains on in winter is one of the joys of driving a truck. There just isn

I

I realize few will understand, but Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" by Leonard Bernstein and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, has defined my life better than any song, poem, or piece of narrative. If it has to be a song, then Bob Dylan's "Beyond the Horizon" comes close. Maybe Johnny Mercer's lyrics to "Moon River." Hard to say, as I've always felt "Rhapsody in Blue" pretty well described me. It doesn't have any words, but sometimes words are necessary.