Monthly Archives: March 2009

Updating From a Semi-Prone Position


I have flu. The kind of flu where your feet are blocks of ice and the room spins, and you can watch nearly a season’s worth of The Tudors without once thinking “I should really look THAT up on Wikipedia.”

It’s day two of  basically not being able to eat because now, in addition to the horrid stomach pain, nothing lingers long anyway. I am so dehydrated that every inch of me itches.

I have concluded that when I am feeling iffy healthwise in the future, I will not do yoga class three days in a row as I did this week, nor will I stay up late watching dreary anti-hero comic book movies. 

The movie was The Dark Knight which probably could have been a whole lot shorter. Two things stood out. The Joker’s speech to Harvey in the hospital and Havery’s grief-induced “I hurt so I can be a shit if I wanna be” spree of violence. 

Reminds me of Rick Santelli’s “spontaneous” Tea Party movement of late which actually turned out to be a carefully orchestrated plan of the Republican right wing’s increasingly strident attacks on the new administration. I don’t know about any of you, but the fact that the people “in charge” are pulling things like this in the name of preserving the disappearing status quo that constituted life in North America – worries me. Introduce a little chaos folks, and look what happens.

My faith in the wisdom of Canadians was shattered yesterday morning when the phone rang at just before 7 A.M. and it was the school bus driver informing us that the buses wouldn’t be running due to “inclement weather” which turned out to be not so much, but left us scrambling because BabyD already had Friday off due to in-service and there was no way she needed a four day weekend. 

Oh, and I nearly erased a voice message from my late father that I had saved from my birthday in 2007. That produced tears, I can tell you. One of my biggest regrets is that I do not have my late husband on tape – voice or physically, and almost losing Dad’s voice was traumatic. Fortunately, Rob was able to retrieve it and we are transferring it to a computer file.

Writing is crawling. I think the combination of coming down with flu and the unrelenting winter weather is probably the root cause. I need a vacation, but as I have mentioned, the only thing coming up is the trip to Penticton at the end of the month. BabyD and I will be staying with Rob’s mom while he runs up to Revelstoke for the wedding of Shelley’s nephew. It’s not a kid friendly affair and the young man’s mother is having belated issues with Rob and I being married – which because she is a raging alcoholic makes it imperative that I not attend. But, a weekend in a tiny retirement condo trying to entertain BabyD is not my idea of a vacation – especially when it is a 12 hour drive through the mountains, in winter, to get there. Oh, the weather stands a 50-50 chance of being warmer than it is here, but it’s winter in the Canadian Rockies, folks, so I am not counting on it. Besides, Rob’s mom lives in the downtown. There is nothing to do outside and nowhere to go really.

I just need to hang on until May and our timeshare in Fairmont. And summer.

I amused myself a bit trying to plan a summer vacation. It has to be somewhere in Wisconsin though because we don’t feel like taking a marathon drive after the marathon it will take to get to Iowa. Oh yeah, I know, I had thought Blogher, but I am cooling rapidly on blogging. I love my blog. But I hate being thought a mommy-blogger and that is what Blogher glorifies. And I don’t see it as a way to further my fiction aspirations. It would be fun to see people, but I don’t need lessons in blogging. 

Wisconsin in July though? Hotter and more humid than the lower levels of hell – if it were a real place. Hell, I mean, is a made up place. Wisconsin is real. My mom is from there.

But nothing is completely on or off the table because it’s only March and the world economy is still melting down and anything could happen and probably will, and I need to get to June first before I worry too much about summer, which doesn’t officially start until school lets out at the end of the month anyway.

And that’s it. Have a nice weekend, people.

TLC Book Tour – Zig-Zagging by Tom Wilson


zig-zagCartoonist Tom Wilson is the current animator of the Ziggy character originally penned by his father, Tom Wilson, Sr. His inspirational memoir  Zig-Zagging is about his journey as an artist and person and how the death of his young wife followed by his father’s chronic illness helped shape both.

In his book he attempts to tell the reader through inspirational musings and the sharing of his personal trials and dark times that the detours in life are the real teachers of life and the builders of character.

I would have enjoyed – if that’s okay to say about a book that centers on loss – it more without the inspirational message. I have never cared much for other people telling me what I should learn from my own tragedy. However, that said, I think Wilson is spot on with many of his conclusions.

The book works best when Wilson is willing to write about the adversity he’s faced. When he describes the struggles dealing with years of his wife’s cancer, her death and its impact on him and their children, the writing is at its best.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t stay  there, but I understand why. It’s hard to offer up the most painful experiences of your life and hope that those reading understand how those events shaped you or led you to the actions that brought you to where you are. Wilson wanders away when he gets too close into greeting card sound bites that pile up like clichéd cord wood which is too bad because his story didn’t need the shiny gloss coat to still make his point that we learn the most from the unexpected and the roads we’d never have taken if the universe gave us a choice in the matter. How we weather loss and struggle, and navigate the dark, is the true test of who we are.

I think people who love Ziggy, inspirational memoirs and/or are struggling with adversity will find this book most helpful and even comforting.

I read “widow” books anymore to discover how people have rebuilt their lives. What motivated them to get back up and try again? That’s what I want to know because there is no real formula or “how to” guide for a person whose spouse has died young. Wilson’s journey, the steps and mis-steps, was interesting to me because I could identify with some of it and it was in these parts of the book that the writing rings most true.

It could have been a more honest book, in my opinion. I am not really sure where the tendency to find deep meaning or pretty up rough patches with platitudes comes from, but there is more here than I care for. Perhaps though because I am looking for the real deal in terms of enlightenment where it comes to loss and coping and moving on.

It’s a good book. I am just not its target audience. 

Wilson is a good writer. He is a devout man. He makes a good case for bothering to learn from things you would prefer not to experience at all.

zigg-book-contestClick here for details.

Read more about Zig-Zagging:

Wednesday, March 4th: Traveling Through Time and Space

Thursday, March 5th: Anniegirl1138

Monday, March 9th: Bookfoolery and Babble

Tuesday, March 10th: Widows Quest

Wednesday, March 11th: Not Quite What I Had Planned

Thursday, March 12th: Reading, Writing, and Retirement

Monday, March 16th: Learning to Live

Tuesday, March 17th: Book Addiction

Wednesday, March 18th: Confessions of a Book-a-Holic

Thursday, March 19th: Peeking Between the Pages

Friday, March 20th: Beth Fish Reads

Monday, March 23rd: Literary Menagerie

Tuesday, March 24th:  Joyfully Retired

Wednesday, March 25th: Madeleine’s Book Blog

Thursday, March 26th: Texas Red Books

Friday, March 27th: Bermuda Onion

Monday, March 30th:  Should Be Reading

A Little Accuracy with My Historical Pornography – Please


I know I have mentioned before that I like my historical fiction – regardless of the medium – to be fairly accurate. It’s more than having been a former teacher and believing that there are things to be learned from the interpretation of history. I don’t believe that blatant inaccuracies make something more interesting or “artistic”. Instead it simply presumes the ignorance of the audience and inserts pointless fiction where it would have been just as easy – and interesting – to relay fact. Inaccuracy is just laziness on the part of a writer or filmmaker. If one cannot make real history live and breathe, then one is either not as gifted as one thinks one is, or the subject matter isn’t worthy of retelling. Often the latter is the case.

Not so the Tudor Dynasty of England. The real history is fascinating enough that most people have a vague idea or better of who Henry the VIII was at least, but if you have watched any of the Showtime series based on his life, you have been treated to an historical misrepresentation that would make former Vice-President Cheney proud.

Knowing English history, as I do, every re-interpretation of fact and character jars me out of my suspension of disbelief, and this shouldn’t happen with good story-telling. The reality being built should never stray so far that the audience consciously realizes it.

Granted, many people don’t know much about history and I guess that is the sadder fact. Most of the folks who watch this series haven’t a clue that much of what they are seeing is basically an excuse to legitimize soft-porn by calling it “historical”.

Four episodes in and I have decided to amuse myself by ferreting out the examples of  the Hollywoodization of Henry and enjoying the discussion that Rob and I have during the cheesy moments and afterward – aided by Wikipedia searches to verify our arguments.

And yes, that is a very geeky thing to do. But we roll like that.