writing skills/profession

Hitting the Road


So the last time I made this trip it was in reverse, driving from Des Moines, Iowa to Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. Because Katy and I were road novices, Rob broke up the trip. We left on a Wednesday evening and stayed at a hotel about an hour away. This way we’d said goodbye to the house and would start the trip a bit “fresher”. We crossed the border on Saturday and stayed that night in Regina, Saskatchewan where I met my mother in law, Gerry, for the first time. It’s also where we met Rob’s sister, Lice Widow. The journey ended with our new home on Sunday evening. I think it may have been solstice or pretty close.

This evening we are heading in the opposite direction with Northeast Iowa as our destination. Just four hours tonight and crossing the border Saturday morning and then heading to Minot. Minot to the Minneapolis area Sunday. Monday to my folks. And yes, this is much abbreviated. We aren’t road virgins anymore.

I may “live” blog over the weekend. Depends on the scenery. The flora, fauna and natives you run across on a road trip can make for interesting blog fodder. 

I have a new short story I am working on and it might distract me. It’s terribly sad. So sad that it made me cry while I was working on the beginning the other night. I am stuck in post-apocalyptic themes. Not cheery and it was only yesterday that the reason for it hit me quite squarely during my morning run.

It’s about surviving. 

On the day after – when it’s obvious that you are still alive and will be for a while – you get up, survey the wreckage and get on with whatever it is you have to do.

Anyway, it’s a really sad story. Even Rob couldn’t believe I was writing something so sad.

Regardless, I will be blogging over the “holiday” though  playdate mommy today remarked that it didn’t seem as though we were going to have much of a holiday.

We’ll see.

Save the ‘Net! – Net Neutrality is in Danger


I have been meaning to blog about this and got a bit of a push while reading over at Under the Mad Hat recently.

Apparently there are a couple of big problems with Internet and the WWW as we know it today. First is that it’s basically unregulated which makes me wonder why Republicans aren’t falling over themselves to protect it. Until I get to the second point, an unregulated Internet is not a profitable Internet. At least not for ISP providers who could make a heck of a lot of money if they were allowed to two-tier their bandwidth. Doing so would allow them to sell the broadest and fastest band to those who could afford it and leave the rest to well – us. Finally, a neutral net allows we who use it to do just what we are doing now. Writing and sharing and meeting and bringing a whole new meaning to the idea that it is truly a small, small world.

So find out more about the campaign to protect what we have. Here (if you are in U.S.) and here (if you live in Canada).

 

Updating My Dear Readers


Looks like my sixth revision is the charmed one and will go off in the post today. I hacked about 600 words from it. It was very heavy with exposition, mainly backstory. The original was not part of a series of short stories though now, I think, it is on the verge of being a novel.

Sometimes characters and situations just spring to life and take over.

Life in the non-drenched corner of Iowa is still precarious. It seems my youngest sister, her son and her son’s dad (who is not my ex-brother in law despite the fact that I grant in law status to my brother’s ex  – and that is such a long and trailer parkish story it should get a blog post of it’s own, so remind me someday) descended on my folk’s home because nephew wants to move back in.

Quick backstory. My sister was living in a hovel with nephew. At his 15 month check-up it was discovered that he had high lead levels. Not a surprise. Their living arrangements redefined the word “dump”. Living in a parked car would have been a step up.

So I (yes it was me and my parents NEVER let me forget that) convinced the parental units to let BabySis and Nephew move in. It was not supposed to be a permanent arrangement.

They just moved out at the beginning of the month (not quite 13 years later).

BabySis is in Wisconsin with her boyfriend to whom she has been engaged for the last six years. He is the one who knocked her up the first time back during her junior year of high school. Their daughter mercifully escaped being raised by them and last we knew was quite happy with her adoptive family. She is twenty-two. Boyfriend took up with BabySis again after a hiatus of sixteen years. During his wanderings he actually had dealings with my CrazyBrother in California. CrazyBrother called home when he spotted Boyfriend and offered to have friends “take care of him”. My parents declined. See what happens when you are good Catholics?

Boyfriend is a drunk. He has lost his driver’s license so many times that he has given up driving and rides a lawnmower to his job on a dairy farm. Although he has managed to get arrested driving drunk on that too. They can’t prohibit you from exercising your right to ride a LawnBoy however.

Nephew went to live with his father. He was excited and really wanted to go but is homesick now and forced his dad to drive him the 70 some miles to my folks to try and convince them to let him move home.

This is what Nephew does when he is living with my parents. Anything he fucking wants.

So BabySis, BioDad and Nephew proceeded to shatter the calm of my parents home with a knock down that lasted a couple of hours, reduced my mom to tears and guaranteed that dad would get upset and short of breath to the point where he was needing O2.

Fun times. I am so looking forward to next week.

I only discovered the doings because I called to check up on them and to let them know that CrazyBrother was physically okay. After I hung up, I called DNOS and told her what was going on. She headed over to the folks immediately to make sure that Nephew went home with BioDad.

Nephew is home with BioDad. BabySis is home with LawnMowerMan. All is once again on the functioning side of dysfunction on the WestEnd.

Did I mention that I finished my story and am sending it back to the magazine?

Well then, next there’s the packing – overpacking really. How do some people manage to travel with just a suitcase? One freaking suitcase?

I have three right now on the bed and two are full. This will not do.

So, packing. Blogging. Basking in the glow of a finished story that just might be published. And relieved that we will not get to my parents’ and find BabySis and Nephew. Just that damn bird he left behind. He named it Princess and then it got the other bird pregnant.

Five more days. Then I could be live blogging all this. Better than reality tv.