I’ve been told the proof is on the way!
I can’t wait to hold it in my hands and flip through the pages.
The cover has character, don’t you think?
2016
Just seeing it written is exciting.
I love fresh starts.
The last few years have been full of upheaval. It started when new neighbors moved in next door. To say they were weird would put them in a better light than they deserve.
Our house, which we had lived in for thirteen years, had no side yard or backyard. So when these neighbors took an immediate dislike to me and my family we found ourselves in a bad situation.
If you’ve ever lived next door to someone who is determined to make your life miserable you’ll know what I mean. Things were done that made us jumpy and uncomfortable. We quickly began to feel we needed to close our curtains and keep the doors locked at all times.
Which made sense, since we were under attack and we were being watched. A drop camera was positioned so that it would capture both the only entrance and the interior of my house (which explains the desire to close the curtains). I thought of calling the police about it, until I noticed that the camera disappeared whenever we had company.
We were ready to dig in and fight back. Then we noticed that our other neighbors had decided to turn a blind eye to the bad behavior, and there was a lot of it, and act like the newbies were their best buds.
It disgusted me. Where was that community feeling we had been building for over a dozen years? Were they scared they’d be next, or did they just not care about us?
We were under constant stress. So we sold our house and moved to a noisy apartment in Ballard. It had a lot of inconveniences, but it felt safe. After a while we got over our shell-shock.
Mostly, at least. I still shiver when I remember the many, many things that happened the last year in that house.
When our lease was up on the apartment we bought this house. It has a huge yard with plenty of buffer from the neighbors, just in case.
I’m ready for the fresh start.
To 2016, and a new beginning.
There’s something peaceful about the day after Christmas. For me at least.
The mad rush to ‘enjoy’ the season is over. As is scurrying around like a demented squirrel trying to find that last perfect nut, I mean gift.
But there’s still loads of goodwill floating around in the air, waiting tickle a frown into a smile or smooth out the rough edges of what we call civilization.
I think it hides in Christmas decorations and sneaks out when no one is looking to lighten the mood. Or maybe so much goodwill is spread around Christmas day that there’s an invisible layer on the ground that takes several days to evaporate.
Whatever the reason, the day after Christmas is one of my favorite days of the year.
All I need to do is relax.
It’s a good way to end the year.
And to look forward to a-
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I’m on writing vacation until the new year.
That doesn’t mean I won’t do any writing, just that I’ll steer clear of those projects that are likely to suck me in and make me manic to finish them.
Like the novel and screenplay I’ve put on hold. Both are completed first drafts, and both have the potential to mesmerize me to the point that I forget the million and seven other things I should be doing.
But even though I’m on vacation, I’m not silly enough to restrict myself from all writing. I’d go crazy, which certainly wouldn’t promote a holiday spirit.
So this morning I dug out a five page short I’d written for a class. Only one person other than myself has ever seen it, and he was the professor who had given out the assignment.
As I reread it I became increasingly glad it had remained dormant on my computer. I had written it early in the program, before I learned about the proper formatting of scripts. It was a bit of a mess.
Not the story, mind you, only the formatting. I love the story. It’s from a picture book I wrote about six years ago that is due to be published in January 2016.
As I scanned it I clearly remembered the problem I had had cutting the story down small enough to fit into five measly pages.
But now that the arbitrary length requirement is lifted, it’s going to be fun to spread my wings and fly with it.
I just have to decide, do I keep it a short, say under thirty pages?
Or do I really spread my wings and make it feature length?
Hmm. I feel a strange swirling sensation. Almost like-
Darn. I’d better put this one aside, too. It’s chock full of those nasty mesmerizing properties.
Sigh. Isn’t there anything safe to write when I only want to write a little?
We are humans, people! If we want our species to be around a bit longer, it is up to us to band together and really show our humanity.
We can start by raising our children to be happy, healthy, contributing members of society who know how to think for themselves and are willing to work for what they want. Not bitter, self-centered robots who have easily pushed buttons and no respect for the rights of others.
Like the terrorist couple in San Bernardino who not only decimated multiple families, but left behind a 6-month-old. Their actions showed a total lack of humanity.
So take note, all you bullies, mass murderers, terrorists, anarchists, and despots out there. You’re on notice. Step up and join humanity, which means respecting your fellow humans, or get out. Of the human race. You don’t belong.
And when you go, leave behind the trappings of humanity. You know, technology, language, clothing, books, and all the other things humans have bonded together to create throughout the years. If you can’t play by the rules of humanity you can’t play with humanity’s toys.
Instead, take your naked little selves off into the woods and see how the rest of the animal kingdom treats you.
The dog thinks the walk is for her,
so she can search out new and exciting smells.
But I’m also on a treasure hunt.
Eureka!
I’ve struck gold!
I woke up this morning to the realization that all of my dreams last night centered around sleep.
Curling up on the floor to sleep.
Laying my head on a desk to sleep.
Stretching out in a chair to sleep.
In my dreams the desire to sleep was so great that I didn’t care where or when I closed my eyes. I just wanted to sleep.
Strange. I could understand daydreaming about sleep, if I was very, very tired.
But why dream about sleeping while asleep?
I hope I didn’t break some rule of the universe, like the time travel one where you’re not supposed to interact with yourself.
I don’t know why it has to be this way. Empathy is supposed to be a good thing.
But it has a dark side. Very dark.
You know what I’m talking about. Guilt.
The unescapable curse of the empathetic.
I guess it’s a matter of dosage. A little bit of empathy is a good thing. Everybody should have enough to let them feel another’s pain. It keeps us human.
But an overdose can turn a person into a guilt sponge.
Or maybe it’s more that empathy gets twisted.
Whatever the reason, it makes it so I cannot watch THAT commercial on TV. You know, the give-us-money-so-we-can-save-a-dog commercial. The one that floods the screen with heartbreaking pictures of dogs that have been mistreated.
Even the thought of it makes me cringe. Those sad, sad eyes, looking at me, blaming me…
I tried watching once. Once. By the end of the commercial I had soaked up about a ton of other people’s guilt. And like any good sponge I proceeded to ooze it back out again. In the form of uncontrollable tears. Even though my head knew it wasn’t true, my heart felt that I had personally been cruel to each of those poor dogs.
And that was just a commercial.
It was so quiet when I got up this morning that I imagined I could hear the delicate mist of Seattle rain as it tiptoed a landing onto my roof.
In reality, I could hear no such thing. My house, like most modern houses, is never truly silent. Every mechanical or electrical gadget contributes to a background noise we have all become so accustomed to that we rarely notice it anymore.
So I decide to tune in. Just out of curiosity.
The first thing I notice is the clock on my wall, which is the kind that either ticks or tocks to mark each second. Day in and day out, that clock provides a steady beat, yet I rarely hear it.
Then the refrigerator kicks in with a series of random clanks and bangs it is fond of contributing several times a day, I assume to let me know it is doing its job. As the last bang fades away, I realize what I had thought of as silence from the refrigerator is in reality an incessant whirl that fills in all the blank spaces and assures that the house is never truly quiet.
Outside a car motor revs into life just in time to distract me from that ever-present refrigerator, and I listen as the purr of the engine gets louder, then fades away, taking who-knows-who to some kind of adventure who-knows-where.
As the last vestiges of the purr fades away it is replaced by the steady drone of a plane engine. But before my brain has time to focus on the plane, the loud wail of a siren from a nearby fire station rents the air and overwhelms every other sound in a 10 block radius.
Ah, yes. There is nothing like morning quiet.
