Your Poem Didn't Speak to Me

Your poem didn't speak to me
which was rude
I thought—
the two of us
alone
in my parlor.

The silence
was awkward
(to say the least).

Caring for My Pets, Complete Walk-Through

Dear friend,

Thanks for agreeing to take care of our pets!  It's really pretty simple once you get the hang of it. Just follow these instructions exactly.

You have entered the FOYER. There is a DOG1, DOG2, and KITTEN. The KITTEN is crying. There is no sign of CAT.
>CLOSE ENTRANCE DOOR
>CLOSE DOOR SOUTH
>CLOSE DOOR WEST
>NORTH
You are in the SMALL PARLOR. KITTEN is crying.
>CLOSE DOOR SOUTH
>CLOSE CLOSET DOOR
>WEST
You are in the DINING ROOM. KITTEN is crying. DOG1 looks like he might explode.
>CLOSE DOOR WEST
>SOUTH
You are in the LIVING ROOM. KITTEN is crying. DOG1 looks like he might explode.
>WEST
You are in the SOUTH portion of the KITCHEN. KITTEN is crying. DOG1 looks like he might explode.
>TAKE KITTEN
>OPEN BACK DOOR
DOG1 and DOG2 exit WEST through BACK DOOR.
DOG1 and DOG2 pee on the TULIPS.
>CLOSE BACK DOOR
>DROP KITTEN
>OPEN CABINET
>TAKE SMALL PLATE
>NORTH
You are in the NORTH portion of the KITCHEN. KITTEN is crying.
>NORTH
You are in the BATHROOM. KITTEN is crying.
>TAKE PILL BOTTLE
>OPEN PILL BOTTLE
>TAKE PILL OUT BOTTLE
>PUT BOTTLE ON WINDOWSILL
>PUT PILL ON WINDOWSILL
>SOUTH
You are in the NORTH portion of the KITCHEN. KITTEN is crying.
>OPEN REFRIGERATOR
The KITTEN begins to yowl.
>TAKE CAN FRESH CATFOOD
The KITTEN is yowling.
>TAKE BOWL OLD CATFOOD
The KITTEN is yowling.
>CLOSE REFRIGERATOR
The KITTEN is yowling.
>TAKE OLD CATFOOD
The KITTEN is yowling.
>PUT OLD CATFOOD ON PLATE
The KITTEN is yowling.
>PUT PLATE ON COUNTER
The KITTEN is yowling.
>TURN ON SINK.
The water is cold. The KITTEN is yowling.
>PUT BOWL IN SINK
The bowl fills with COLD WATER. The KITTEN is yowling.
>WAIT
The bowl fills with COLD WATER. The KITTEN is yowling.
>WAIT

The bowl fills with COLD WATER. The KITTEN is yowling.

>WAIT

The bowl fills with COLD WATER. The KITTEN is yowling.

>WAIT

The bowl fills with WARM WATER. The KITTEN is yowling.

>WASH BOWL

>TURN OFF SINK

>TAKE BOWL

The KITTEN is yowling.

>TAKE FRESH CATFOOD OUT OF CAN

The KITTEN is yowling.

>PUT FRESH CATFOOD IN BOWL

The KITTEN is yowling.

>OPEN MEDICINE JAR

The MEDICINE JAR is filled with POWDER. There is a SMALL PLASTIC SPOON.

The KITTEN is yowling.

>USE SPOON WITH POWDER

You have SPOON OF POWDER.

The KITTEN is yowling.

>PUT SPOON OF POWDER IN BOWL

The POWDER is in the BOWL. You have a SPOON.

The KITTEN is yowling.

>PUT SPOON IN MEDICINE JAR

The KITTEN is yowling.

>CLOSE MEDICINE JAR

The KITTEN is yowling.

>TURN ON SINK

The KITTEN is yowling.

>PUT BOWL IN SINK.

The BOWL fills with WARM WATER. The POWDER dissolves in the WARM WATER.

The KITTEN is yowling.

>TURN OFF SINK

>TAKE BOWL

>TAKE PLATE

The KITTEN is yowling.

>PUT PLATE ON FLOOR

KITTEN is eating OLD CATFOOD.

KITTEN is purring.

>NORTH

You are in the bathroom.

>PUT BOWL ON TABLE

>SOUTH

You are in the NORTH portion of the KITCHEN. There is a KITTEN eating OLD CATFOOD. KITTEN is purring.

>SOUTH

You are in the SOUTH portion of the KITCHEN. DOG1 and DOG2 are watching through BACK DOOR.

>EAST

You are in the LIVING ROOM.

>EAST

You are in the LIBRARY.

>EXAMINE CHAIR

You realize that the black shadow is actually a CAT.

>TAKE CAT

CAT is growling.

>WEST

>WEST

>NORTH

>NORTH

You are in the BATHROOM.

>PUT CAT ON TABLE

>HOLD CAT

CAT is growling.

>TAKE PILL

CAT is growling.

>TELL CAT YOU LOVE HER

>KISS CAT ON NOSE

CAT is growling.

>OPEN CAT MOUTH

>PUT PILL IN CAT MOUTH

>CLOSE CAT MOUTH

>WAIT

CAT is growling.

>WAIT

CAT is growling.

>WAIT

CAT swallows PILL.

CAT is growling.

>RELEASE CAT

CAT drinks WARM WATER in BOWL.

>SOUTH

You are in the NORTH portion of the KITCHEN. A KITTEN is eating OLD CATFOOD from a PLATE on the FLOOR.

>TAKE CAN FRESH CATFOOD

>OPEN REFRIGERATOR

>PUT CAN FRESH CATFOOD IN REFRIGERATOR

>CLOSE REFRIGERATOR

>NORTH

You are in the BATHROOM. A CAT is drinking WARM WATER from a BOWL with FRESH CATFOOD.

>WAIT

CAT jumps off TABLE.

>TAKE BOWL

You notice that the FRESH CATFOOD has become OLD CATFOOD.

KITTEN enters the BATHROOM.

>SOUTH

You are in the NORTH portion of the KITCHEN. There is an empty PLATE on the FLOOR.

>OPEN REFRIGERATOR

>PUT BOWL IN REFRIGERATOR

>CLOSE REFRIGERATOR

>TAKE PLATE

>PUT PLATE IN SINK

>SOUTH

You are in the SOUTH portion of the KITCHEN.

>TAKE KITTEN

>OPEN BACK DOOR

DOG1 and DOG2 enter through BACK DOOR. They sniff the floor and go NORTH.

>CLOSE BACK DOOR

>DROP KITTEN

>NORTH

You are in the NORTH portion of the KITCHEN. 

>TELL DOG1 DOG2 SIT

DOG1 sits.

>WAIT

>WAIT

DOG2 sits.

>OPEN BIN

The BIN is filled with DOGFOOD. There is a SCOOP.

>TAKE SCOOP

>USE SCOOP WITH DOGFOOD

You have a SCOOP OF DOGFOOD

>PUT SCOOP OF DOGFOOD IN BOWL1

You have a SCOOP.

>USE SCOOP WITH DOGFOOD

You have a SCOOP OF DOGFOOD

>PUT SCOOP OF DOGFOOD IN BOWL2

DOG2 stands

>TELL DOG2 SIT

>WAIT

>WAIT

DOG2 sits.

>TELL DOG1 DOG2 OK

DOG1 and DOG2 eat noisily.

>TURN ON SINK

>WASH PLATE

See! Nothing to it. Again, thanks for your help.

Goodnight, Blog

I'm closing the blog again. Two reasons.

First, I  created this blog to let people know that I was okay when I was writing something obsessively, but frankly, I haven't been writing obsessively, and besides there are better tools to do that now anyway. (So, yeah, I'm on FaceBook. I've had an account in heavy stealth-mode for a few months while I tested the defensive shields. I've decided I can live with it, so the account is out of dry-dock. If you know my gmail address, then go ahead and "friend" me.)

The other reason I'm closing the blog is because I don't like the type of writing I do here. It's just an extension of my type-A public persona, and I'm working on digging a bit deeper. That's really hard, and it's not something I can do online.

This isn't really goodbye, as I'm sure I'll see almost everyone on FaceBook, but I do appreciate the support over the years, especially during my NaNoWriMo fits.

The Girl Who Rides Bulls

1.

in the splintered bleachers

of the Kahoka rodeo

to watch her daughter—

the champion barrel-racer—

my grandmother hears

my mother’s name 

instead announced

as a bull rider.

2.

in a flooded ravine

a man not yet my father

kicks the passenger door

of his inverted car

and shouts Stop faking!

at my mother

and her shattered pelvis.

3.

in the bedroom

of the farmhouse

of her birth

my mother 

holds her belly

and her tongue

as her father declares

he don’t want no bastard

calling him Grampa.

Auto Tune

Today I need to be grateful... so:

1. The head gasket leak in my car should be covered under the warranty from having this same repair done last year.
2. I brought my car in for its 90,000 mile checkup before the warranty ran out.
3. I have retired friends who can shuttle me around town during the day.
4. I made a habit of saving up money each month to keep my car running.

This Is Now My Life

Everybody who wants to write for a living needs to read Karen Maezen Miller's little article "They Don't Pay Us to Write Books." In particular:

They don’t pay us to write books... [I]n relative terms we write for free. What they pay us for is to sell books.

A writer who doesn't grasp that important aspect of this business will become bitter.

(I'm not bitter, by the way. I'm excited to be doing this book.)

Random Gratitudes

• New book contract!
• New grant-writing contract!
• Unexpected visits from family

Evidence of spring

• Snowbell blossoms in the cemetery
• A swarm of robins... seriously... like dozens of them... 
• NEW KITTEN! (*)

(*) Technically a kitten is not evidence of spring, especially since he was probably born some time in October. Still... ohmygoditsakitten!

Incidentally... new kitten... not so bright. Last night he got lost halfway down the stairs.

The Internet is Magic

Do you realize that we live in a world where I can just Google something as weird as a "seitan corned beef" recipe and find 17,800 results in 180 milliseconds? I mean how cool is that?

(If you want to be a downer... yeah it also underscores that there is no such thing as an original thought... but I'm okay with that tonight because we're having vegetarian corned beef for dinner.)

Mission Accomplished

Well, yesterday marked a full 31 days of documenting reasons-to-be-cheerful. I have a more positive outlook than I did last month, and I'm willing to attribute that at least partly to making a daily habit of focusing on things for which I am grateful (... and not having to sue my ex-employer... for which I am grateful). I intend to continue spurting out little bits of gratitude, but not as the focus of the blog. I'm really happy for all the participation from other people.

Shawn Achor (the author of The Happiness Advantage, from whom I lifted the "daily gratitude" exercise) has partnered with Catch.com to create a free little iOS App for optimistic journaling called I Journal. For me it's a bit over-specialized, and I also find smart phones to be beastly for typing anything longer than a brief email, but other folks may find it useful.

Anyway... gratitude:

• Leftover chipotle lime pasta
• Brad's really amazing pureed mushroom concoction that used to be the filling in his really amazing stuffed mushrooms until we realized it was just fine on its own, at which point I started using it in all kinds of stuff including the sauce for the above chipotle lime pasta
• No seriously, the mushroom stuff... it's amazing... kind of a vegetable pâté. It's good hot or cold.

Gratitude: Day Thirty-One

• Waking up to sunshine
• The first geese of the year!
• Tax breaks for new windows and insulation

Gratitude: Days Twenty-Eight through Thirty

Day Twenty-Eight

• More paid work!
• New Lovecraftian board games

Day Twenty-Nine

• Undertow (winner of the audience-choice award for Best Independent Feature Film at the ImageOut Film Festival) getting a theatrical release in the US
• Lazy days at home

Day Thirty

• Geeky science chats over breakfast
• Watching Lost while I eat lunch
• Neodymium magnets... just too fun

Gratitude: Day Twenty-Seven

• Signing for UPS packages
• Not having to sue my ex-boss
• Dan Simmons: He's just smarter than all of us, isn't he?

Gratitude: Days Twenty-Three through Twenty-Six

Day Twenty-Three

• Networking
• Networking
• Networking

Day Twenty-Four

• Networking
• Networking
• Networking

Day Twenty-Five

• Networking
• Networking
• Networking

Day Twenty-Six

• Feeling too busy to blog
• Realizing that I can spare the time to be grateful once a day
• Guest bloggers Baron & Tybalt: "Having a human at home during the day to operate that tricky door knob."

Gratitude, Days Eighteen through Twenty-Two

Day Eighteen:

• Getting my health insurance sorted out (with a lower co-pay!)
• The crunchy sound of my lumbar vertebrae being popped back into alignment

Day Nineteen:

• Breakfast meetings
• Rediscovering that I am actually a morning person
• Finally settling on a name for the new business

Day Twenty:

• Friends with copious website experience
• A continuous stream of meetings
• Taking it easy on days when I am sick and depressed

Day Twenty-One:

• The Rochester Public Market
• Birthday parties with pagans
• The curious phenomenon of straight guys who flirt with me(*)

Day Twenty-Two

• Unexpected snow that means I don't have to clean up muddy paw prints first thing in the morning
• Crawling back into a warm bed on a cold day
• Cooking brunch in the new kitchen
• Dinner plans with Nerkygrrl's Gramma

———

(*) OK, actually this is at least as discomforting as it is flattering, but I'm focusing on the flattering part.

Gratitude, Days Thirteen through Seventeen

Fell off the wagon on this while I've been sick and delirious, so for the past few days I have been grateful for:

• Netflix streaming video
• Blue fuzzy blanket
• Dayquil and Nyquil
• Being warm enough to attract the affection of my cat
• Having a good excuse to skip the Academy Awards

Today I am grateful for:

• Waking up to sunshine
• A return to my normal sub-human body-temperature (*)
• Getting back on the wagon

(*) Alas, this means the loss of cat affection.

Gratitude, Days Twelve

• Making new friends over coffee.
• Being able to write two pages of fiction in the middle of the work day, because writing is now my job.
• Unexpectedly running into old friends over coffee.
• Increasingly artful uses of 3D computer animation (with lemurs!) (*)

(*) Brad thought there were too many different animation styles, but I thought it fit perfectly with the "scrap book" nature of the film. I loved that, although the film is clearly computer animated, any given frame looks like it was hand-painted or hand-drawn. The animated water-colors particularly impressed me.

Gratitude, Days Seven through Eleven

Been traveling, so here's the backlog...

Day Seven (Saturday)

• Subaru all-wheel drive
• Dogs who sleep in the car, Part I
• Animal fables

Day Eight (Sunday)

• The niece who still loves math at the age of 16
• The niece who has had straight A's since kindergarten
• The niece who still uses the art easel we bought her when she was 8
• The niece who, despite being in preschool, can operate an iPad better than anyone else in the family

Day Nine (Monday)

• Institutional gluttony (in moderation)
• Cancer researchers
• Hyperactive Labrador Retrievers (in moderation)

Day Ten (Tuesday)

• Dawn through ice-enameled tree branches
• Dogs who sleep in the car, Part II
• Leftover lasagna and cheap red wine

Day Eleven (Wednesday)

• Working when I want
• Wanting to work
• Time enough to share Brad's hobbies (in moderation)

In other news, Brad and I started writing a story together. This is actually our first attempt at writing together, despite fifteen years of living together. The working title is "Questions about Angels," on account of I'm reading Billy Collins poetry right now.

Gratitude, Day Six

Today (or technically yesterday) I am grateful for...

1. Artistic friends.
2. Songs about monkeys.
3. Twenty-four hour emergency vets. (*)

(*) Advice for pet owners: Don't leave a plastic bottle of prescription chewable canine arthritis medication lying about in a forgotten bag because... you know... maybe your smaller, prettier, healthier (but stupider) dog will secretly eat all of it during Bad Movie Night prompting the veterinarian to say things like "You need to come in RIGHT NOW" when you call to ask about overdose symptoms.

Gratitude, Day Five

1. Being home when Brad gets home from work.
2. Conversations with new friends over coffee.
3. Magic rubber chickens. (*)

(*) This probably warrants further explanation.

Gratitude, Day Four

The series continues:

1. The triangular patch of velvet fur where a cat's eyes and nose meet.
2. Gamma World's return to silliness.
3. Brad's education discount on Apple products.

Today's Gratitudes

Three Gratitudes, Day Three

Thing 1: Licensed Massage Therapists

Thing 2: Nasopure sinus irrigation system(*)

Thing 3: Big dumb dogs jumping through the snow


(*) Disgusting, but effective. Don't look at me that way... make your own damn list.

Reasons To Be Cheerful, 1... 2... 3...

Three Gratitudes, Day Two

Thing #1: Arizona Statehood Day

Thing #2: The Will & Grace generation(*)


Thing #3: Ian Dury & The Blockheads' "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3"

(*) The video is a shot-for-shot remake of Taylor Swift's video, but performed a cappella by the University of Rochester YellowJackets. The guys made the whole thing themselves and ended up winning national acclaim. Anecdotally, I've heard that Roman White, the director of the original video, likes this one better. (Incidentally... the accompaniment is all vocal, including the cymbal crashes and "drum machine.")

I'm back

Long story short:

I can't separate myself from my job. My life is a long "To Do" list, and while I make an active effort to keep my life balanced, my career takes up over half of my time, and I like it that way.

Or I did.

About a year ago I discovered that the little start up business that I had poured my guts into for six years was going to be sold, and that my cut of the sale was going to be about 3%. You have to keep in mind that I had worked full-time for the company longer than the owner. I won the first government contract for the company, and I did it on my first try. I eventually grew that into a million dollar project that became the life support of the company during the recession, when almost all of our other work dried up.

So... that was all kinds of devastating. On top of the fact that I already had misgivings about the direction I had taken career-wise, I was now being told that the work that I had done wasn't valued. It took awhile for that to sink in, but if you look at my posting frequency, you can see that I became increasingly withdrawn, and then in May, I just stopped writing. At all.

Hmm... this seems to be more "long story" than "short."

So, if we just jump to the end... I resigned from my job and started my own business. I'm loving it. I wake up in the morning and bounce to my computer to get to work. My life and my work are all tangled up again, but I find myself smiling and singing at frequent intervals.

That being said, I'm still delicately managing a debilitating run-in with clinical depression. As luck would have it, I recently happened to catch an interview with Shawn Achor on the Groks Science Show (broadcast out of University of Chicago these days!) about his new book The Happiness Advantage, and I decided that I would like to implement one of his behavior modification exercises on the blog, partly to get me writing, and partly to do something that might make other people happy.

So every day for the next month I am going to post three things that are making me happy. I've done this intermittently before, but this is going to be a concerted effort. If anybody else wants to play along in the comments section, I would be thrilled and honored.

Thing #1: Feathered frost on my bedroom window.

This pattern of frost completely covered my window one morning. This kind of self-replicating braided pattern could probably be modeled using cellular automata, but I still just want to call it "magic."

Thing #2: Domestic partnership health insurance in New York.

Thing #3: Friends like you.

Today's Vocabulary Word

Lawyer: (noun) a very expensive prostitute you pay to screw with someone else.