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 |  It's who we are. It's what we stare at in the middle of the night. It's a bug zapper. |
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My friends, When we were young and newly hatched—also young and in love—my husband and I lived with our four young children on the Space Coast of Florida. The massive propulsion of rocket and shuttle launches from Cape Kennedy often rocked the windows and doors of our little love cottage. We were always properly respectful and impressed by the reach of mankind’s achievements. It was a point of pride to stop whatever we were doing (dishes, dinner, dancing, sleeping, fist fighting, etc.) to watch the eastern horizon—hands on hearts, tears in eyes—as the United States of America raced into the frontier of space. One deep, dark morning (about 2:00 am) I shook my husband awake to watch yet another triumph of human advancement. “Get up,” I mumbled to Sherwood, “the shuttle’s going up. We gotta’ watch.” Sherwood moaned, “The garbage is out all ready. Let me die.” He did not open his eyes. “Come on. We should watch. Night launches are amazing.” He dragged himself upright and clung to the window ledge behind our bed. We knelt, with our chins braced on the ledge, our bleary eyes fixed on a blazing light in the eastern sky. We watched. The light did not appear to move. We stared some more. The light remain fixed. We struggled to focus. The light blazed away. We waited for the light to fade into the blackness of space. It did not. We watched and watched and watched. The light stubbornly refused to move. At last, collapsing back into my pillow I said, “Honey, go back to sleep.” Sounding confused, miffed, and a little whiney Sherwood asked, “Why?” “Because for the last eight to ten minutes we’ve been staring at our next door neighbor’s bug zapper.” He went back to sleep. And I lived to worship at the altar of space exploration another day. This story pretty much sums up who we are, and how we got this way—excessive staring at bug zappers. And this is my blog, a space-age way of recording one’s thoughts, ideas, embarrassments, and foibles for the entire known world. Once upon a time, I would have made this record on papyrus, rolled it up, stuffed it into a ceramic jar, and asked to have the whole thing buried with me in my sarcophagus. I still might. Disclaimer: Some of the stuff you will read here is true. Some of it is not. Some of it is the result of wishful thinking. Some of it is the result of too much thinking, and some of it is the result of too little thinking. But all of it will be written with joy and laughter, because the alternative is despair and weeping, and isn’t there more than enough of that stuff out there? Thank you for your support, Linda (Zippity the Zapped) Zern |
| There isn’t much that three-year olds aren’t excited about. And that’s a double negative. So, what I’m really saying is that three-year old humans are excited about pretty much . . . well . . . everything. Learning to jump with two feet is a huge deal. Finally being tall enough to reach the soap dispenser in the church bathroom is an occasion. Knowing all the words to Twinkle, Twinkle is cause for celebration and often a little dancing. Or as one little girl told me Sunday, “Sissa [Sister] Zern I can turn the sink water on now ‘cuz I’m on my way to being an adult.” “That’s true, Raelyn, that’s true,” I said. She skipped out of the bathroom, the hem of her dress neatly tucked into the back of her princess panties. There isn’t much three-year olds don’t want to do by themselves. I can “do it” they often say: like go into a bathroom stall, lock the door, completely undress, climb onto the potty, and then decide they “need help.” When my grandson, Conner, was three it was my job to escort him to the bathroom during our church meeting. “I can do it,” he would say. “Are you sure?” “I do it.” “Okay,” I agreed. “But don’t lock the door, just in case, okay? Please. Please. YaYa looks pretty stupid crawling around on the bathroom floor.” “I do it.” Then he’d enter the bathroom stall and CLICK, lock the door, completely undress, climb on the potty, and . . . “YaYa?” The sound of my head banging against the LOCKED stall door reverberated. “Yes, Conner.” “I need help.” There isn’t much that I can’t stand more than the floor of a public bathroom. And that’s a tortured double negative, meaning that I hate crawling under bathroom stall doors in a skirt, heels, and panty hose. But I’m the YaYa and Conner was in luck. I’m pretty small. I fit. And I did crawl. The best part of this story is that a friend of mine heard me warning my Sunday school class not to lock the doors so that I wouldn’t have to crawl under their doors to rescue them. She let me in on the big secret. “You can open the doors from the outside.” “What??????” “Sure, see that slot in the door. Just get a quarter and twist.” She ripped a paper towel free and dried her hands. “Do you have any idea how long . . .” I paused. “Never mind.” There isn’t much that I don’t like learning. Especially, a better way to rescue three-year olds from behind locked bathroom stall doors. I am a Sunday school teacher. I teach three-year olds the right way to live and be happy. A lot of the time they teach me the same thing. Linda (Rescue Me) Zern |
| A full-grown American alligator raced across the road, right in front of the car in front of us, a taxicab full of tourists. I was driving my husband to the Orlando International Airport at the time, and I was fairly certain the taxi carried tourists. There were a lot of open mouthed screaming faces when they saw the ‘gator. “Hey, wasn’t that an alligator running across the road?” I asked my husband. “Yep,” he said. “Can you imagine riding in a taxi on your first trip to Florida and seeing an alligator run across the road?” “Yep.” My husband doesn’t let a whole bunch excite him. Which is a good quality, because when our boys were young it was nothing for us to have to make strange alligator related rules. One such rule went something like—Aric, you are the big brother and you are not allowed to ask Adam, the smaller and younger brother, to jump on the back of alligators that you catch on fishing poles. Or—Adam, you are never, ever to do anything that your big brother tells you to do—EVER. Occasionally, before nodding off to sleep, I would ask my husband, “Do you think Aric is trying to kill Adam via an alligator related hunting accident?” He would say, “Yep.” Alligators are a real conservation success story. On the verge of disappearing into the endless kiosk of designer handbags and boots, they’ve come back to threaten the safety of every poodle in the state of Florida. Or as we like to say, “You can hardly spit around here without an alligator crawling into the damp spot. They’re everywhere.” In Florida if there’s water, eventually, an alligator is going to crawl into it or through it on its way to a better damp spot looking for a date. We lived on a small lake which forced us to develop the Zern Family ‘Gator Capture and Relocation Program. The program worked liked this: 1) Adam would mimic the grunt of a baby alligator (no one can grunt like my Adam.) Adam’s ‘gator grunt attracted adult alligators the way farting the alphabet attracts Cub Scouts. 2) Alligators would glide in like heat seeking missiles to the sound of Adam grunting. 3) Aric would then flip a bit of a chicken’s inside parts, on a hook, in front of the cruising reptile (no one can fish with chicken gizzards like my Aric.) Worked every time or just about and he’d reel the ‘gator to the shore. 4) And then Aric would yell. “Adam, jump on the alligator’s back.” After that they’d tape the ‘gator’s mouth shut, heft it in their arms, and bring it into our bedroom to show Mom and Dad. We would be napping at the time. Another Zern family rule stated, “Never, ever bring alligators in to wake up Mommy and Daddy from their nap, because Mommy hates to wet the bed. (It’s so important to explain rules to children, don’t you think?) At this point Sherwood would roll out of bed, muttering things. “It’s like living in an episode of . . . flipping . . . wild . . . flipping . . . kingdom.” Making the boys toss the alligator in the back of our truck, he’d then help them take it down the road to release it in someone else’s pond. I would remain at home stripping sheets off the bed. Let me shatter some alligator myths for my friends around the global water cooler. Alligators are not ambitious. If you fall into their mouths, they might take advantage of the situation. But they don’t plot. Alligators are not like us; they are cold-blooded and the reason that they’re hanging out in the parking lot of the Winn Dixie is to get warm, not stalk you or your groceries. Alligators are not mean. I once saw a baby alligator riding through the swamp on the nose of a gigantic Mommy alligator. How heart warming is that? Of course, when the Mommy alligator started swimming toward us the park ranger screamed, “Run!” Alligators are not clever. Adam and Aric outwitted them on a regular basis with a fake ‘gator call and some chicken livers. When my husband flew to Detroit, Michigan for work, he took taxi cabs from the airport to his hotel. I asked him, “What would run across the road in front of your taxicab in Detroit?” He said, “An out-of-work auto worker.” Scary. Linda (‘Gator Bait) Zern |
| My husband is an engineer. He likes the solid reality of computer languages and Internet access. I enjoy the idea that trolls live in the knothole of our live oak tree in the backyard. When Robin knocked on the giant metal island with his fist in that one Batman movie and joked, “Holy rusted metal, Batman,” my husband snorted through his nose and declared, loudly, “Oh, that’s so unbelievable.” Astounded, I looked at him and said, “Which part of this movie did you find believable? The bat suit with the rubber man nipples?” Movie watchers sitting near us in the theater were happy to tell us to shut up. Fantasy is not my husband’s thing. I love Godzilla and Mothra and horse riding wizards. Sherwood loves jock straps. Sigh. After watching the latest incarnation of the great Godzilla franchise, I waxed enthusiastic. “Godzilla as he was meant to be. Big. Tough. Ticked off. Loved it. Loved the train full of atomic bombs, conveniently lined up for radiation eating monsters—to eat! Loved it!” I never told my husband to go see Godzilla. Never. Why would I? He is NOT a true fan. He is an engineer, forced to see the world as a giant Sudoku puzzle—poor linear man. He went to see Godzilla . . . And found it wildly flawed. Then he went to see X-Men with our son, the same kid that used to wear fish shaped oven mitts on his feet and stomp around my kitchen pretending to crush some guy named Tokyo. After the movie, my husband, the computer engineer, came home on a tear. “So how was the movie?” I asked. “Ugh! It was so ridiculous. All the creatures are so fantastic.” “Sure. Sure. Fantasy tends to be kind of fantastic.” “But why? Why can’t there be realistic fantasy?” “It’s called the suspension of disbelief or pulling the stick out of one’s bottom for a bit and having fun with monsters. That’s all. You have to want to believe.” “But I can’t.” “I know, honey. I know. It’s okay. You don’t have to believe. Just sit here next to me. I’ll believe for both of us. See there,” I said, pointing. “In that big old oak tree over there, I think I see a troll peeking out of that knothole. Just squint your eyes up a bit.” He never did squint. Linda (Run, Tokyo, Run) Zern |
| We drive our vehicles into the ground, quite literally, into the ground. Sometimes, before the end, it’s possible to see the ground through the floor of the car. It’s our culture. It’s our way. If we lived in a third world country you’d find it charming. We had a green Dodge caravan that, in the end, would only go in reverse, so we used it to take the garbage out to the curb. Our curb is a bit of a trip. I can tell you that it takes some planning to get where you’re going when your vehicle only goes backwards. We also used that caravan as a battery charger for an electric horse fence. When enough stuff falls off our vehicles, we pass the crap-cars down to our children. It’s our culture. It’s our way. Maren, our youngest daughter, inherited my green Grand-Am. It had a bumper sticker that read, “Proud Parent of an American Soldier,” a driver’s side mirror hanging by wires, and no functioning window on the passenger side. But it still went forward and backward. That car was perfectly fine. The law enforcement officer that pulled Maren over for speeding agreed. By the time the good officer got to the car, Maren was hysterical—booger crying, laughing, and possibly braying like a donkey. He asked for her license and said, “Do you realize you were doing forty-six miles per hour in a thirty-five zone?” Maren began to yowl. Shocked, he asked, “Why are you crying?” She blubbered on and said, “Because (sounds of wailing) my parents (more yowling) are going to kill me.” She handed him her license. “Why is the car’s side mirror in your front seat?” “Because my brother ran into a mailbox, ripped it off (wailing sniffles) and my dad tried to epoxy it back on but all he expoxied was his pants, and this car is a piece of junk . . .” She trailed off in a flurry of post nasal dropping. The officer observed. “Well this piece of junk was good enough to do forty-six in a thirty-five. What’s that under your leg?” “My cell phone,” she hiccupped. “Why is it under your leg?” Her dignity gone, her life a shipwreck on the shoals of emotional despair, she did not have the moxie to lie. Sniffling, she said, “So I can feel it vibrate when someone calls.” He started to laugh at her and then walked back to his partner where he related Maren’s sad tale of woe and travail. They started to laugh at her, and then—still laughing—the officer walked back to Maren and said, “Thanks for the laugh. Slow down next time.” She sailed away, the wind from the broken passenger’s side window drying the tears on her cheek and chin. We did not kill her. It’s not our culture. It’s not our way. Linda (Speed Racer) Zern |
| According to The American Heritage dictionary of the English Language, the word clatter means a loud disturbance, a commotion. Now that I’ve discovered it, I intend to use the word at every possible opportunity. “Let’s keep that clatter down.” “What’s all that clatter about?” “Clatterers will be flogged.” Flogged, another excellent word but I’m only up to the C’s in my self imposed dictionary writing challenge, so we’ll stick with the word—clatter. Conventional wisdom says that a successful life should be steady, educated, well traveled, and civilized. Clatter is frowned upon. In fact, when I was newly in college and newly engaged to be married (right out of high school) one of my professor’s expressed her complete sorrow and disappointment in me. “I hate to see you waste your mind like that, Linda,” she said. “You could be a CEO of a big company or . . .” I looked down at the miniscule diamond ring on my finger and wondered what the crud she was talking about. I still wonder what the crud she was talking about. Sunday, I walked into my beautiful home and stopped to listen to the clatter of my family. Out, under the maple tree, my children, their spouses, and my grandchildren waited for me to get home and begin the ritual of Sunday dinner. They were laughing: about crazy kids or nutty jobs or the mysteries of the opposite sex or . . . I don’t know. Does it matter? Their laughter flew across the yard, seeped under the door jam, crept through the cracks around the windows casements, and filled up my house—AND FILLED UP MY HOUSE. That, I thought, is what I wasted my life on—the clattering, lilting sound of laughter . . . . . . and crying and raging and demanding and griping and joking and all the rest, make no mistake because clatter is a loud disturbance, a commotion. Later, one of the little boys pretended to pick his nose and eat the fruits of his labors. He did it to make his mother scream. Me too, I screamed too. It was such an awful joke I could hardly think straight. There was a lot of screaming and commotion, which was highly pleasing to any five-year old boy. The clatter was off the charts. And then I walked out to the office, where the little girls like to “play” school. Zoe (10) and Sadie (5) and Emma (9) were making hand crafted books. Sadie looked up with doe eyes at Zoe and said, “That’s so wonderful, Zoe.” Zoe said, “I want to be a writer just like YaYa and make books.” There’s a lot of clatter these days about sacrificing for the common good, giving back, paying fair shares, social justice, and what not. I get that. I really do. Because that’s what I did with my life, I sacrificed for the common good of others. Or as I like to declare when people get snarky about stay-at-home-moms, “I’ve been like fetching Ghandi for thirty years. Everything I ever did was for love and not for cash. I’m the biggest socialist you know.” The payoff? A house filled with the clattering sound of the future and forever. Linda (The Matriarch) Zern |
| A few people I know are convinced that I am a successful author. It must be that I’m on Facebook a lot and I know how to Twitter (sort of) because by any worldly measure, I’m not. A successful author, that is. I’ve never broken even—money wise. I’ve never been on any bestseller lists. I’ve never been on Oprah’s book club. It’s hard to get my English professors to read anything I write over four pages long. Then again . . . maybe a few people I know are right. About the success, I mean. I’ve written a children’s chapter book about fairies, published three, almost four E-Books on Smashwords, written and illustrated an inspirational book about hope and love, and published a chapter book for middle school kids that was a finalist for a cool prize. And as I type this, I have three new manuscripts in the editing pot, bubbling. But let’s face it, everyone is writing a book these days, including my bug man. So success? How do you know? Recently Phoenix (age 6) came to see me, a little girl some might be tempted to label “different.” Her mother, Paulette, has been trying to educate the rest of us about Phoenix’s autism. Her mother is brave and beautiful, so is Phoenix. Phoenix came to my home, bringing her book so that I could sign it: a dog-eared, well-loved copy of The Long-Promised Song, words and pictures by Linda L. Zern—me. It’s a little story about tiny creatures and an impossible friendship. The drawings are charcoal and very simple. At first she didn’t look at me or say anything. She played with my grandchildren. She sat in the talking tree. She visited the rabbits. She listened while the adults talked. I signed my name in her book. Mostly, she ignored me. Before they left, Paulette suggested that we take a picture of Phoenix with her favorite author, Linda L. Zern—me. I sat in front of the fireplace on the cedar chest I’ve had since I was a little girl. Without prompting or prodding, Phoenix jumped up next to me, threw her arm around my shoulders, squeezed me tight, squashed her cheek up against mine, and smiled. I could feel her smiling against my face. I heard her mother whisper something like, “I can’t believe she’s sitting there like that.” I held my breath because I knew what she meant. I felt what she meant. It was as if a baby fawn had wandered into my living room, jumped up on my cedar chest, and allowed me to pet it. I could feel the joy in that moment, the joy in that little girl, and the delight of sharing an idea that began as fragile as a cobweb that grew and then changed and became, finally, someone else’s beloved story. A successful author? Are you kidding? Have you seen the picture? Linda (Count Me Blessed) Zern |
| Having children is considered a punishment by many, a mistake of biology by some or a burden of massive sacrificial torment to still others. Many of these folks developed these viewpoints in their own misspent youth—while stoned—also hungry and . . . sexually chipper or romantically frisky . . . or . . . oh forget it . . . The word is horny. They were high and horny. Our village considers children a bold blessing with eternal bodacious payoffs. It’s true there is a price to pay, and we pay it. Happily. We like to entertain, which means we like to talk endlessly. Food is often present. It’s also true that our conversations have their our own special rhythm because of the presence of a large number of juvenile humans in our midst. Conversations often follow a certain . . . pattern: A serious minded soul tried to start a serious minded discussion as we habitually congregated in lawn chairs under the maple tree. “So, what about this special committee to set to rights the under secretary of the over reach party of the governmental suck ups . . .” A lawn chair crashed to the ground. Shrieking plus screaming stopped the conversation in its tracks as a random mother jumped to her feet, “Good God! Where did those boys find machetes? Put those down. Immediately.” The speaker struggled to recover, “Did she say, ‘Machetes?’ Are those machetes? I can’t remember what I was saying.” After the random mother disarmed the rebels, yet another brave conversationalist made the attempt. “So, I was reading an article about the overrated undertaking of the top notched experts in the field of bio-repulsion and electromagnetic shock futures . . .” “Oh no! Stop him. Stop him. He’s going to kill the baby,” I screamed. Several rational, highly educated grownups jumped to their feet while knocking each other out of the way as they shouted, “No. No. Don’t hit the gas. Stay right there. We’re coming. Don’t hit the gas.” They rushed off in a pack to prevent one soggy bottomed toddler from being mutilated by the spinning wheels of a Fisher Price lime green dune buggy, driven by another toddler sucking a binky. And then as recently as just the other day sometime, a dear friend waxed on about the importance of becoming keen on the contemplation of the careening nexus of the world on the recent educational morass found only . . . when a child’s hysterical wail rang out. “She’s trying to drink poison!” Parents scrambled, looking for sources of drinkable poisons and a kid determined to test them out. I watched the mad rush and smiled at our guest who had yet to close his mouth. “Around here it’s all kinds of exciting,” I said, shrugging. “It’s impossible to finish a sentence around you people before someone goes apoplectic.” “Which makes everything all kinds of exciting. Don’t you agree?” The sounds of bloody murder and wild hooliganism drowned out his response as a binky sucking toddler roared by in a lime green dune buggy chased by a semi-nude kid swinging a curtain rod. And that is how our bold + audacious = bodacious village spends its time in the Florida sun under the maple tree. Frankly, I find the rest of the world faintly boring. There’s hardly ever any machete wielding five year olds and the grownups NEVER STOP TALKING. Linda (Drop the Machete) Zern |
| My husband rattled his keys and checked his back pocket for his wallet. “Okay, let’s go.” Surely the shock on my face could be seen from space. “What are you talking about? Go where?” My husband made that face he makes when he thinks I’m being obtuse or uppity. He makes that face a lot. “Sherwood, I’m in my bathrobe. I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about or where you think that we are going,” I yipped. I was, in fact, standing in my bathrobe—a great fluffy yellow bathrobe affair tied with an old purple poke-a-dot bathrobe belt, because I had lost the belt to my present fluffy yellow bathrobe affair and had to go back to the default belt from the purple poke-a-dot bathrobe affair. I happen to know that I looked like an out-of-work circus clown. “We talked about it.” He was insistent. The furrows between my eyes became deep-sea trenches. “We talked about it? In this life? Were my eyes open?” “Sure, you know, that time when we talked about it?” “Honey, look at my face. Ignore the fact that I don’t have eyebrows.” He looked at my face. “See this?” I said, pointing at my face. “This is shock. I could not be more shocked. Do you think that if we had talked about this I would look this shocked?” I pointed to my feet. “See these?” I wiggled my toes in my No-Nonsense socks from Walmart. “These are socks. I’m in my bathrobe and I have no idea what you think we talked about or when. I am not dressed for going to anywhere, nor will I be anytime soon. Keep in mind it takes me twenty minutes to draw on my eyebrows with a crayon.” For the first time he seemed unsure of our alleged conversation. “Well . . . maybe . . . you forgot.” Retying my purple poke-a-dot furry belt, I tipped my eyebrowless furrowed forehead at him. “Maybe, and maybe you have conversations in your own head that you think I can hear because you’re thinking really loudly.” His brow furrowed. The conversation deteriorated from that point. I appreciate that my husband and I have been cheerfully wedded for more than thirty-plus years. I appreciate that he thinks we have reached a state of sync that means we can read each other’s minds. I appreciate ESP. I just wish that it were real. Well, maybe next year. Here’s to conversations that happen in real time and with audible words. Linda (Read My Lips—Out Loud) Zern |
| My first Mother’s Day was a celebration of sleeping baby atop Poop Mountain. Sherwood worked graveyard shift. He offered to “watch” the napping baby while I went to church. He didn’t mention that he would be napping while watching. It’s a little reported but true fact that napping babies wake up. Napping husbands who work the graveyard shift not so much. Our eight month old woke up. His father did not. Our eight month old, unable to rouse his father, entertained himself by sketching, smearing, wiping, trailing, painting, and possibly ingesting through his ear-holes—poop, his own. I came home from church to a Mother’s Day tribute of poop-encrusted child, napping—once again—on an artful poop mound. The nursery smelled like a scene from the movie Slumdog Millionaire. I cried. Three more children quickly followed. They also tended to poop. I cried a couple more times—off and on. They cried. Then they laughed and brought me wads of flowers ripped from the ground, trailing roots and dirt. I taught them to read the great books of their people, and sacrifice for the good of others, and dance the dance of duty versus personal fulfillment. Mostly, I raised them not so much to kiss me but to kiss their children. For this, I am accused by my silly, short-sighted, materialistic society to be a do-nothing, stay-at-home mom. I have nine grandchildren and if each of those children have spouses and produce four children . . . well, you do the math. That first kid, the poop artist, he grew up and went to the Amazon as a warrior. Then he went to Greece, and Spain, and Iraq, and Afghanistan and Texas as another kind of warrior. This Mother’s Day he sent me a zombie novel, a rifle, and a note: "To the greatest survivor I have the honor of knowing. In this text lies a story of great adventure. Happy Mother's Day. From: Your Son--Stay Alert, Stay Alive! And I earned every word! By the way, I finished a five hundred page zombie novel in three and a half days and harvested a butt load of green beans from my garden, pressure washed a chicken coop, and finished the second draft of an eighty-thousand word manuscript on a new book and . . . . try to keep up . . . would ya’. Linda (Barefoot and With Child) Zern |
| WRITING MY WAY THROUGH THE DICTIONARY WEEK ONE: A is for Ameliorate I don’t know anyone who isn’t writing a book, who isn’t thinking about writing a book, who hasn’t already written a book, or having written a book isn’t now planning to write My Book, Part Two—Cash, Check, or Charge. All of which is wildly exciting—also bewildering. It’s a brave new book-writing world. Guttenberg would be proud—also bewildered, I bet. I’ve written a book—of course. It’s a middle grade, soft cover, work of historical fiction called MOONCALF. It’s literature. It contains no sex, drugs, wizards, or rock and roll. I made $1.68 cents in royalties last month, and I’m competing with 700,000 other titles in my category on Amazon. I have eighteen EXCELLENT reviews on Amazon and only one of them is my mother. The problem with everyone, including my poet house painter, writing a book is not the competition it’s the sheer mathematical mass of the competition. It’s like being one oat in a silo of oats or a jet liner at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Tricky. Very tricky to get noticed. A writer friend of mine suggested paying for and participating in a Book Blast to ameliorate the trickiness of being one book in the flood of one million plus titles published each year. I did this and wrote the check. Please don’t ask me what a Book Blast is, because I still don’t know. I think it’s when your book title gets tweeted by a trillion people hoping to win a free _________________ (fill in the blank.) It was fun. I got lots of strangers wanting to be my tweety friends and email pals. I also got promptly hacked, causing my new email, tweety friends to send me messages alerting me to the hackage. They were very nice about the hundreds of posts advertising weight loss products that appeared to be coming from my fat bottom. They said, “Hey, you’ve been hacked. Fix that would you.” It wasn’t a request. My book, MOONCALF, was not mentioned. And so I ameliorated—a word meaning to make better or improve--the problem of someone pretending to be me by changing all my passwords, ninety percent of which I’ve promptly forgotten. No worries. I press on. My next book Beyond the Strandline is a young adult romantic action adventure that will fit nicely into the already over crowded young adult romantic action adventure genre. To ameliorate the potential of being crushed under the endless weight of vampires and death game players, I plan to keep my characters naked for the entire book as they fly from spot to spot while hanging from their own personal drones. No I don’t. Someone’s probably already written that book. Linda (Better Now?) Zern |
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