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| Sunday, October 31st, 2004 Happy Halloween! Rick and I were up in Pineville at Camp Beauregard to visit Billy for Family Day. He looks and sounds so good. It is amazing how good military training is for young men. He is seriously thinking about joining the CB’s, Construction Battalion. He goes to Baton Rouge to start training on heavy equipment January 9th, 2005. He hasn’t told me the serious reason why he has chosen heavy equipment, but the smart-ass answer he gave me is, he gets to sit on his ass and let the equipment do the work. God, I hope that is not the only real reason he wants to be a heavy equipment operator, surely not? Jon-Ray was there too. He looked good and he is driving back to Fort Benning as I am typing this. He has further to drive than we did, but I am mad at him. He said he would put my dishes in the dishwasher and take out my trash. Guess the military can teach a young man to do just about anything except what they promise their mama their going to do. Ray Daniel, my oldest son is here, and I don’t know why, he hasn’t said, but generally my kids don’t just show up and hang around out of mere love for me. He wants something, and he is obviously just waiting until exactly the right moment to ask for something. Kids can, will, and do break your heart. I don’t think my brothers and I were this hard on my daddy, I hope not, but I honestly can’t remember. I do remember that daddy use to say that we could f*** up an anvil. Now, what kind of thing is that to say? I wish I could remember what we did to make him say that so often. I just heard my son refer to us as “my people’s” and say he was just here at “my people’s house”; he is well over twenty-one, what is wrong with these kids? Well this is the end of this writing challenge for the month of October. Tomorrow is the beginning of NaNoWriMo. One door closes and another opens. I just hope that this year I have more success with this Mork & Mindy sounding NaNoWriMo than I had last year. I feel like I will. As I write this, my son is brushing my hair, and I have to admit it feels good. If he continues I will be asleep in a very little while. He must really want something big. With this entry I have completed this year’s promise to myself. It started out as part of the Olympic Decathlon, but I am not going to say anymore about that. The important thing is that I kept the promise I made to myself. I used this journal, as like a warm up exercise to get ready for NaNoWriMo, and tomorrow it starts with something like 1667 words a day needed to make the 50,000 words count for November. Now, the question is can I do it, and have it all make sense and end up with a piece I can edit and hopefully have my first completed book. We’ll see. I am always saying I need a higher word count; tomorrow I will have it, and is this going to prove to be another one of those things that you tell yourself that you should be careful what you ask for? Trick or Treat? Hallelujah! Amen. |
| I am sitting in room 304 at the Sleep Inn in Pineville, Louisiana. Of course I have to use my husbands computer because for some reason mine just doesn’t travel well. His works, mine doesn’t – I don’t understand – standard operating procedure, and I have no clue how to punctuate this sentence, which should be totally obvious. The drive here was nice and easy. I am watching the news, and Bush is an arrogant ass. If his misguided bunch of supporters continue to arrest and intimidate private citizens with his blessings hopefully people will see that him for the terrorist that HE is, and will not tolerate being intimated any longer. The tactics of the Bush administration and the Republication Party is just wrong, and I am sick and tired of it. Enough said. Tomorrow I get to see my son who is at Camp Beauregard in a pre-boot camp. Jon-Ray, my son, his brother, who is in the Army, will be there too. It is a Family Day. Jon-Ray leaves for Iraq in 69 days as of tomorrow. I get some twisted comfort from the fact that the news continues to report that the military personnel killed in Iraq are Marines, and my son is in the Army. I just can’t deal with the thought that my son might not come back, not for lies told by George W. Bush. We have three cases of sodas iced down in an ice chest in the van, and Rick and I bought Billy a 500-minute phone card to use to call home. I haven’t told Rick but I suspect that Billy is a little hustler. He only gets to call home approximately ten minutes every Sunday maybe. I think he is selling minutes to other guys in his platoon. Oh yes Billy would do that; he really thinks he is slick, but I got his number. I am drinking coffee this time of night; I cannot believe that this hotel does not have diet sprite in their soft drink machines. Unfortunately, I have a problem with sodas that have dyes in them to artificially color them. I don’t know why, and I am not going to spend a fortune on medical tests to determine why either, as that seems like a waste of good money. How come nobody ever talks about how really ugly Arafat is? He may be the nicest man in the world, but he is certainly the ugliest. The man is sick and dying and everybody seems so surprised, the man is ancient. Nobody lives forever, people are just stupid sometimes, and why is everybody acting so shocked because he is so sick? Strange. Well, one more day and this year’s daily writing challenge will be over, but for November I am doing Wannabe’s NaNo Challenge. I think that this is going to be a very good way to assist me in keeping track of my word count. Jessiebelle has a picture of me in her portfolio from when I visited with her in Houston. Gez, I have gotten really old, and fat. I had forgotten my brush at home in Houma since Friday, and I don’t normally wear makeup so I didn’t have any makeup on, and I haven’t met a camera yet that really liked me. Well, at least she made it NOT ratable as I requested. |
| Friday, October 29th, 2004 Oh man, my husband just got home from work and had to wake me up. I vaguely remember deciding to lie down for a just a minute at about 2:30 this afternoon. I also vaguely remember talking to my yardman, but I thought it was a dream until my husband asked, “Who swept up all the leaves?” Then, it must have not been a dream, but the poor man didn’t get paid either because I was in one my “Never, Never Land” state of minds. When Rick woke me up, I thought it was morning and coffee time. He mentioned that he had been calling, and he was relieved to know that he hadn’t done anything to make me mad at him. I love my husband. He really frowned when I told him I was glad that when he got home he didn’t find me dead. Oh, the man was NOT amused, especially since he knows that I am really not kidding. I am a good wife. Now, mind you I am not as good a wife as I use to be because of some of my health problems, but it is very old technology that is really helping me maintain my good wife status. I’ll explain, evidently this morning I made dinner in the slow cooker. So, here I’ll sit with my loving husband, and still have a fine dinner, Beef Stroganoff, even though I slept all afternoon. I didn’t remember that I had fixed dinner right away after I woke up either; after all I thought it was morning and I wanted coffee. Oh, I am so easily confused, but I love my husband, and he thinks I am a good wife, and it is all because the man bought me a slow cooker, and he just finished fixing me coffee. Have I told you how much I love me husband? I have gotten so many sympathy e-mails about the confusion and miscommunication between the Milkman and I. I love Writing.Com. So many nice people in one place, I wish we could have our own little town, or at least a retirement community. Someplace that is just not all virtual, someplace that is real, someplace where we could all meet face to face and someplace that is just not up NORTH. So, with that in mind, I think that I am going to divide the United States up into four quadrants: two Northern Quadrants, and two Southern Quadrants. We know that the Northeastern quadrant has it own real Writing.Com yearly convention, well now, we need three more and every four years, NOT ELECTION YEARS, we could have an ALL Quadrant Writing.Com Reunion Convention. Yep, that is my plan. And I will present StoryMaster and StoryMistress with a formal Preliminary Proposal at the 2005 Convention in Pennsylvania. I know how wonderful and wise the StoryMaster is, but I wonder if he is really understands that Writing.Com is a growing global entity and he just can’t keep on having just one convention in the far Northeastern quadrant of the United States and expect us Southerners to just sit back an do nothing about it. Oh, yes! The Critic wakes up out of a coma like state and wants to restart the war between the North and the South. I really don’t want a Civil war; I just want the StoryMaster to cooperate. Nobody ever just cooperates with my wants and whims. So I am going to have to resign myself to accepting the fact that I’ll probably end up starting another Civil War. |
| Thursday, Oct. 28th, 2004 Well, I have my Chicken Cordon Blu with Alfredo Vegetables in the oven. That will make my husband, who will be home late for supper very happy. I have been up since 5:30 this morning trying to get going reviewing Anna’s Mare for I can’t remember who, at the moment, but I evidently got too excited yesterday over that Olympic Decathlon humbug, because my get up and go is GONE. Damn, and I so did want to finish that review of her book, and it is NOT about the 1,000,000-gift point prize she is offering. If it were, surely that would motivate me, don’t you think? Well, I go see my son, Billy, who is up in Pineville Louisiana at Camp Beauregard. My other son, Jon-Ray, who told me he only has 72 days before he leaves for Iraq, will be there too. I know because I had to send his broke ass 150.00 dollars to make sure he would be there. Got a wonderful letter from my mortgage company announcing that in a few short months the interest rate on our adjustable mortgage will be going UP! That is always such pleasant news. Tomorrow I am going to see some local bankers, and see if I can’t do something about these rip off lying, two-faced, hope they burn in hell, Home mortgage carpetbaggers. I am an idiot. There has to be a way to get out from under these bastards. I went shopping today. I used to really enjoy shopping, but the powers that be have managed to take the fun out of that too. I am not talking about recreational shopping; I am talking about just plain old regular household shopping: toilet paper, paper towels, coffee, coffee creamer, the blue stuff sugar substitute, and meat and vegetables. At the prices that Wal-Mart had their beef priced at it is just going to stay on the shelves. I can fix eggs 365 different ways. Shhhh! Don’t tell anybody, the price will go through the ceiling. But while I was fussing and cussing out loud to myself in the meat department, it occurred to me that I don’t know what these grocery stores do with all this expensive meat that nobody buys. Do you think they turn it into expensive cat and dog food? Or are they selling it to Taco Bell, Burger King, McDonalds, and all those other fast garbage food dumps? Think about it, I don’t believe for one minute that they are going to just throw it out. I can’t believe that everyday it seems that I stumble across another reason to be paranoid. I have been researching something I read about the food manufacturers adding ADDITIVES that make a person hungrier. The FDA does not regulate spices, and the food manufactures have a HUGE lobby, which spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to influence politicians in Washington, DC, and I don’t trust the Government of the United States of America to look out for the best interest of Americans. This business about making sure Canadian Prescription Drugs are safe for Americans is bunk. How many Canadians’ are dropping dead from using the same prescription drugs? American people must be the laughing stock of the known Universe. I am sure the Canadian Government is too busy laughing to be mad at the allegation that their drugs are not necessarily safe. And so many Americans are lapping up every word that Bush says just like a dog laps up their own vomit. PEOPLE ARE STUPID. |
| Wednesday, October 27, 2004 I AM AN IDIOT. If there were no word minimum the aforementioned typed words would be the extent of this day’s entry. A few weeks back, I posted “Questions & Consequences” in the Olympic Decathlon Forum concerning asking judges questions. So what did my idiot self do? Since I had not seen my name on the two lists showing Olympian’s points the Milkman posted, I typed my question in the forum, “Am I still a contestant?” Judges have enough to do. I know that, and I wish I had kept my big mouth shut. Well, this is why the word, “miscommunication”, has earned such a well-established place in the new American vocabulary. Did the Milkman say, “Of course you’re still a contestant, just don’t plan on winning any medals.” No, of course not, he said that I was no longer a contestant. I was devastated. Physically, mentally, and emotionally devastated. I was crying so hard my poor husband thought somebody had died. To my way of thinking somebody had, but he just could not grasp the importance I put on my being told I was disqualified from the Olympic Decathlon. He works eight hours a day, and I read and write eight hours a day, sometimes more. He understands how important my writing is TO ME, but he does not understand or can he hardly tolerate me when I get very emotional and when I cry and nothing is broken, or hurting me that he can see and make stop. My husband wants to fix things, and it frustrates him when he has no clue what is broken. If it was a lamp, he could fix it. Men are so concrete about some things. Well, after I went out and feed myself massive doses of high carbohydrates, my good sense returned. I realized too late exactly what the problem was. It was a “MISCOMMUNICATION”. I hate that word. I think it is just an ugly excuse, but regardless of the fact that I deleted myself from the Olympic Group, I am going to finish this journal. That was my promise to myself. And I will state emphatically something else I believe: Without losers there can be NO WINNERS. Everybody can’t win a medal, but at least they are allowed to finish. Even the New York Marathon, and others keep the finish line open until the last runner crawls across. How well would the winners know they did if they did not have others to compare their times and speed to? Well, I am so much better now. A good cry is one way to get over things. And I have coconut cream pie to help, too. All this just helped put things in perspective. The main point being I write, and I read. I enjoy doing both. I am fortunate to be able to do both. I have so much to be thankful for, and I don’t need to lose sight of that fact, EVER. I enjoyed the contest, and I like writing this journal. Would I be as dedicated if it was not for a challenge? Probably not, since there are so many things to get distracted with. Life is complicated and challenging enough, without putting myself through emotional turmoil over a simple miscommunication. Life is good, and I have some good, sincere friends. My husband loves me. God save the Queen. |
| Tuesday, October 26th, 2004 I am so confused. I am beginning to hate this Decathlon. I have been reading and writing my ass off. I have missed a few competition deadlines, and I have had to play catch up in my journal, but I am hanging on to the absolute bitter end. The Milkman posted a list of scores in the Olympic forum, and he even stated that he knew that some of the scores covered people who had already dropped out. The lowest score on the list was ten. A mere 10 points, all this work and I don’t have a measly ten points. Where do all these POINTS come from? Whatever! After this month I am going to stay away from contests, and work towards REAL life writing issues, like PUBLICATION, and getting paid REAL money for writing. I am going to file this Olympic Decathlon business under, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”. Today has been productive; I got my poem written for the Ghostly Goblet of Horror Poetry Contest. It is another Pantoum, why not? I have been required to write so many of them that I am beginning to like writing them. This last one is twisted, who has ever combined Halloween, and Political Commentary into a Pantoum? ME, that’s who. I read an entry by InkyShadows~Happy Hauntings. My God, the poem is about burying her dead baby boy. I knew I should not have read it. I felt anger, passion, inconsolable grief, physical, emotional, and psychological pain. Death is cruel, especially when visited on the young. Women, who are mothers, suffer so much. Yet, there were her words. What kind of bravery did it take for her to even allow herself to think such words? Write such words? Keep such words, and then share them publicly in an open forum? Women are singularly amazing creatures. Four people before me had rated InkyShadows poem; will somebody explain to me how somebody, anybody can rate a woman’s poem about the burial of her child less than a 5.0? What kind of insensitive morons are members of Writing.Com? I really wish I didn’t let things bother me. I censor my own reading because I know how I react to death, dying and a multitude of other human tragedies. I knew when I read the description I should not have read the poem. It is a good poem, but when I read, I read with raw emotion. The loss of a child at any age is unnatural and not as it should be. NO parent should ever have to bury a child. I fear burying any one of my own children. I didn’t do well when my brothers and I had to bury my daddy either. Yep, I cleared the room in the funeral home, slammed doors, and spend some time alone saying good bye to my father. I only had one child then, and I put her picture inside his coat pocket. After a while my brother came, and I let the other mourners come back. I want talk about chasing my stepmother to her car after the thing at the graveyard. Let’s just say, it is a good thing the cow could run, and although I made a bunch of racket beating up on the car she locked herself in, I didn’t do any real physical damage. So I go over the top, and out of control on occasions that really upset me. InkyShadows poem really upset me, a lot. |
| Monday October 25th, 2004 I am so tired, and I haven’t done a blasted thing except read. I know it is the medication the doctor changed. I am taking it as prescribed, but I don’t know what else to do. I will call him again tomorrow and once again explain how I feel, and this time I will tell remind him how much better I felt when I was not taking any medication at all. I just don’t believe in this business of the cure is worse than the disease. My feet still hurt too. I just bought these expensive brand name ugly SAS shoes, and my right foot hurts like the dickens. I am going to the foot doctor tomorrow and make an appointment. I can’t call him because I don’t remember the wicked man’s name. It is not funny. Pain is terrible distracting. If all this is my Karma, I must have been an awful person in a previous life. I just feel so run down. Food is my worse enemy. It can be good nutritious food, like vegetables, and that still runs my blood sugar sky high. Diabeties is just evil. I think that there should be some kind of genetic testing option if people are going to have babies. Get tested to make sure your kids are not going to grow old before their time, or suffer unnecessarily from genetic type diseases. Technology can do a lot of that now. We need to keep the evil insurance companies and their life expectancy evaluators out of the picture, but there could be some good scientific stuff for the good of all mankind come out of this if the profit motive was not such a strong temptation for evil, greedy men. Checked on Usenet news groups today. Whoa! There is a tremendous amount of garbage in this virtual world. And it seems everybody has something for sale for $19.95. Wouldn’t you know that I missed that damn boat? Do those mail a dollar scams really work? Seems all I got in this world is a big mouth, and finally a husband that I believe truly loves me. Guess I could certainly do worse? Both are worth a whole lot more than $19.95, and neither my big mouth nor my husband is for sale. I can design, manufacture, and sale kitchen lighting fixtures, but it cost a whole lot more than $19.95. I use to do that in my younger, healthier years. Wonder if I could start doing it again, even with my tired, old, broken down self? Seems there are a lot of homes out there with same, old, tired light fixtures, and I have seen the light fixtures in the stores. They suck. They don’t provide enough light and they’re not stylish, unique, or as functional as they could be. Wonder if I should bother myself with this kind of humbug again. Last time, I almost had to kill a witch for stealing my designs, and don’t give me that garbage about imitation is the highest form of flattery; that is just bull – she was a thief. I didn’t have to do her much of anything; she got her butt sued, by somebody else, for plenty of money – more money than I could have sued her for. HA! Served her right, she deserved it. I did give her an earful of what I thought about her and her ways. I have mentioned how much I like to say, “I told you so.” Haven’t I? I still see her out and about once in a blue moon, and all I say, "I told you so." |
| Sunday October 24th, 2004 Yahoo! Yippee! With this entry I am once again caught up and back on track with my journal. Now the question is can I stay that way from now through October 31st, 2004? I hope so. I got some contest entries to work on. I don’t care if I missed the official deadline. I am competing with myself more than with any other enrolled, enlisted, signed up Olympians. I got a little sideways over the Milkman’s post in the Writing Decathlon forum. It took the wind out of my sails, so to speak. He has never been a chatty type but how could he misinterpret my Questions and Consequences post as being any sort of a review of him and his Olympics. Guess I just need to concentrate on my writing, and plan on getting published someday and just not worry a whole lot about too much else. Yep, that is what I am learning from this Olympic Decathlon event. I have been sick and I am still writing. I have been very sick and I all I think about is reading about writing and writing. I have some stories that need editing, and I am planning on doing the NaNoWriMo Novel writing event in November. Can I write 50,000 words in one month? Absolutely. Can I stay focused and write 50,000 words that make sense? I have no clue. I wrote something the other day about what people say about Writer’s being solitary creatures. That is not true. The writing process is a solitary activity, watching a writer write is about exciting as watching paint dry. But a Writer has to be involved in the world and with people and things to write in a way to make other people see, feel, and hear through their words. Leonardo de Vinci said something like, “Painting is art that is seen and not heard, and poetry is art that is heard and not seen.” My husband said, “Poetry is art for blind people.” Yes, my husband and I have some very in depth conversations about some very deep topics. He can be very profound. At the moment I am more than a little upset by the numbers of people who don’t seem to read. People are not only NOT reading the classics they’re NOT reading the daily newspapers. This is an ELECTION year. I nearly read myself blind daily. I listen to a wide selection of news stations, and I even listen to radio broadcasts that read books aloud. Tell me why kids don’t read today, and I will show you a household with adults who don’t read, either. I read a newspaper article the other day where the reporter quoted too many working mothers who said they had not read a book since school. I have books stashed in every room of my house and in the car. I read in traffic jams. Go figure, I guess I am just weird. I have stopped reading journal entries on Writing.Com all together. Most are written so poorly that it has a bad influence on my own writing. I don’t know how judges do it. After my last judging experience, I will be very selective in the future. Well, I have now met my word count for today, and I am up to date in this journal. We’ll see what tomorrow brings; in the meantime, I’m off to read. Later, |
| Saturday October 23rd, 2004 I called the doctor an informed him that his medicine changes sucked and were causing me great physical distress. This highly educated, experienced man said, “Give it time.” “Time for what, doc? For me to be found dead, curled up in a ball on my sofa from the pain I am feeling from the knots in my stomach.” No, I didn’t say that, but I probably should have. My own doctor of over twenty something years died January 29th this year. A big part of me died with that man. This new doctor has a lot to learn about people. He knows plenty about doctoring, but other than that he is an all-controlling male chauvinist. The only reason I haven’t gone off on him is because he has spent so much time learning to be a doctor he ain’t had much time to learn much else. For the most part, really smart people are not like plain old regular people. They just aren’t. Can’t be, no matter how hard they want to be, and they just look a little silly when they try. Doctor’s get paid a lot of money, but they really need it. They really do. They don’t think about spending the way regular people do. And the more money they got, the more money they spend, too. I couldn’t be a doctor, not because I am not smart enough, but because these men and women, doctors, have to go to bed too early in the evening and get up to early in the morning. They miss so much of what is really going on in the world while being kept ever so busy with masses of sick people. Doctor’s are just people. Granted really smart people, but just people. Dr. Levine would spend the first thirty minutes discussing world events with me before we ever got around to why I was in his office. I suspect that he talked to a lot of his patients this way. There were no windows in his exam rooms. I offered many times to put a big hole in his wall so he could put a window, but he never took me up on it. He would ask me why I came to see him when I was sick, and I would explain that I was just confirming my own diagnosis. We’d laugh, but he knew I wasn’t kidding, and he also knew that if he wanted me to really take the medicine he’d have to give me a shot. I went through a particular bad year of being very sick very often, and I was also very particularly poor, but Doctor Levine carried me on his books. Once when I showed up sick I told him that he really needed to keep me alive so that I could eventually pay him. He looked at me with a strange sort of gaze and said, “Maybe it would be better if I just cut my losses.” We laughed. I miss that man. No, this new doctor I got has a long way to go before he can be a Dr. Levine. If he don’t start talking better to his wife, and stop making me wait three or four or more hours pass my appointment time before I get in to see him, I suspect he is going to have to go back to work at a hospital some where. |
| Friday October 22nd, 2004 Today is Sunday, October 24th, 2004. I am playing catch up in my journal, so I am writing as if it were Friday. Yesterday, Thursday, October 21st, went to New Orleans to see an attorney to ask him to handle the succession for my children because their father died without a will. The last attorney wanted $70,000 to handle the succession. WE HAVE NO MONEY. It is not an extremely complicated succession. It is all spelled out in the law, it is just that the judges here have already ordered me more than once not to come into their court rooms unless I am represented by an attorney. These judges all know I can read, and read well. I almost got thrown in jail for pointing out to a judge that the law gave me the right to represent myself. “NOT IN MY COURTROOM” was all he had to say. Another gave me a lecture about how dare I come into HIS courtroom and presume to tell him what the law says, “THIS IS MY COURTROOM. I AM THE LAW.” Yep, these Southern judges sit behind some mighty fine, big, fancy wood desks, and violate American citizens rights day after day. The sad part is most of the good citizens just accept it, and don’t know these honorable judges are law breakers. Lawyers keep their cowardly mouths shut because they are waiting to be judges in this small one horse back ackwards town. Personally, I think I can understand why some people decide to become terrorist. Could I kill someone? Probably not now, as most everybody I really wanted dead is dead already. Good Lord seen to that for me. I believe God’s justice is better than any punishment that I could ever dish out. God's justice is not swift, mind you, but it is usually worse than anything I could come up with. Now, if any one of my sons gets killed in Iraq, I honestly don’t know what I am going to do. Don’t know who I am going to blame. I have a pretty good idea, but it will depend on too many variables to list here. I do know that I am not going to blame the poor soldiers that come to the door. I am not going to burn their van like that distraught father in Florida. All I know is that somebody better hope that I remember my faith at that very moment and for many, many moments to follow before I find a way to exact my vengeance on some deserving war whoring politician. There was a movie that called lawyers “dung scrappers”. Seems about right. Every one of the blood-sucking politicians is usually a lawyer first. Given that more and more women are running and winning seats in Congress, it has occurred to me that once again the men are going to make a really huge global mess of things eventually and yes, ladies, it is going to be up to the girls to clean up their mess. This is not new news. We have been cleaning up after the fellows for centuries. It is also a shame that some of us women have proven that we can be just as low down, dirty, double-dealing, and under-handed as the men are. |
| Thursday, October 21st, 2004 Today is actually Sunday, October 24th, 2004. I was actually caught up in this journal on Wednesday, October 20th, but I made the mistake of going to the doctor and agreeing to let him change my diabetic medicine. At the moment I don’t know who is the bigger ass – him or me? I should know better, but I just keep hoping for a miracle. I actually believe in miracles. Well, the change in medicine is NOT working. My sugar levels are worse than ever. I really wish I had the money to hire a private lab. I do not believe that generic medicine is exactly the same as brand name medicine. Something has to be different. If there is no difference then why can’t I just have the brand name medicine? If it is exactly the same, why is there such a price difference? Profits over people, it is just wrong, and I hope there is a special hell for the pharmaceutical company executives, the government’s men and women who allow this travesty, and a very special hell for the greedy bitches and bastards that have allowed this to continue. When the greedy have finished poisoning the world, and killing off all those they think exist just to serve them, then I wonder what will be of such great value then. Our Democracy is for sale, people are stupid and don’t take time to read or comprehend what their reading. Everybody is job scared. Whoa! Speak against Bush and you lose your job. Get investigated. Arrested by other well-intentioned citizens who don’t have a clue. Everybody is just doing his or her job. Bulls***. Cowards. NO job or salary or pretend security is worth my giving up real freedom. I got news. TERRORISM is not NEW. Bush has sold Americans a bill of goods. He is an old-fashioned carpetbagger. He is taking advantage of ignorance and fear. He is mostly responsible for creating the ignorance and fear. Other countries have suffered horrendous loses at the hands of terrorists for years and years. America has been extremely fortunate that this country has never experienced such an attack since Pearl Harbor. Given how the American government sticks its nose in every other countries affairs, offers political hand-outs in the form of food, weapons, and medical aid, and then treats the other countries like bad children, I am not surprised that America has not experienced worse. Have our American President’s really been blind, deaf, and dumb to global events caused by America’s involvement? Are American Political leaders really innocent by standers? I think that anybody that wants to be President is suspect. What is this mystery behind this secret skull and bones society at some University that is said to produce all Presidents? People are too busy working piss ant jobs to buy mostly depreciating assets to worry about the really important things, and that is just the way the government likes it. I am tired. I hope that I do not see in my lifetime what I fear is really happening here and now. |
| Wednesday, October 20th, 2004 With this entry my journal is now, once again up to date. I made the return trip home from Jessiebelle’s Monday. Traffic was horrendous, weather varied from over cast and cloudy to raining cats and dogs. I got a ding in my windshield going under an overpass that was being newly erected. I made good time, but at least I did stop instead of driving straight through like I did on the trip to Jessiebelle’s. Tuesday morning I had a dental appointment. Root canal sucks. So between being too exhausted to journal Monday, and the root canal job on Tuesday, today is the first day that I have even attempted to bring my journal up to date. Sunday with Jessiebelle: We were able to get away and go to Barnes and Noble bookstore. The store is much larger than the store here, and way bigger than the Books A Million here, too. Coffee was good, and I spent another $44.00 on books. It is like an addiction, but at least it is healthy. After better than an hour in the bookstore, I needed a cigarette and I was starving. I hate non-smokers at times like these. The first four or five restaurants we stopped at were all non-smoking establishments. Jessiebelle was kind enough to tolerate my request to find a restaurant that allowed smoking. We finally found an excellent Mexican restaurant that Jessiebelle frequents with her fellow workers regularly on weekdays for lunch. The Mexican food alone is worth a trip to Houston, Texas. We had a late lunch, which caused me real grief because I was still not hungry by seven when we planed to have dinner at a restaurant called the Texas Steakhouse. The atmosphere was so… so Texas Cattle country like. I’d advise that if traveling to Texas start eating early so that you can actually eat three meals a day. Portions are large, very large. I know that I am going to feel cheated by the serving size in my hometown restaurants when I get home. Of course, if I lived in Houston, I’d end up as big as a house with so much good food everywhere, or if I lived in Houston, I’d probably end up in a diabetic coma, because of the wonderful gourmet pastries. Food is a good reason to travel, but when you can combine good friends and good food the experience is almost spiritual. I have a 4:30 pm doctor appointment today. I hate doctors too, although I’d probably be dead if not for doctors. I’d be toothless, too, if my husband could not afford the cost of sending me to the dentists. It is an attitude I have developed since getting older. Evidently my genetics suck. My brain and my body are not chronologically in agreement. IT is this physical chronological disagreement that made it imperative for me to go see Jessiebelle, as well as making me feel it necessary to make plans to attend the 2005 Writing.Com Convention in Bethlehem, PA. I have NEVER made plans so far in advance in my whole entire life. I can’t imagine how wonderful it is going to be to meet so many people all at once that I have come to know so fondly as my Writing.Com family. I think if Bush wins reelection, it will be necessary to get Visas to travel from State to State. Democracy is definitely under a bigger threat from Bush, the man who thinks he is King, than from any other foreign terrorists groups. Bush is a dictator. |
| Tuesday, October 19th, 2004 I don’t know how many people are as casual as I am about just deciding to do something, and then just doing it. My husband chose not come with me to Houston when I decided it was imperative that I meet my friend, Jessiebelle, in person. My husband is not a spur of the moment type of guy. His every action is well thought out and planned, so are the words he speaks. He processes everything, and everything he says and does is deliberate and intentional. So completely opposite of how I am. I never know what I am going to do or say from one minute to the next. I live life according to the mood I wake up in on any given day, and my moods can be extremely varied depending on something as simple as the dream or dreams I had the night before. Life with me is typically very chaotic. Rick, my husband, is my Rock of Gibraltar, so to speak. He is steady, consistent, stable, and predictable. We are what some might call polar opposites. Rick missed a delightful trip, and missed meeting some wonderful people, too. Sunday at Jessiebelle’s started with her picking me up at the hotel. I convinced her that we had time to grab a quick cup of coffee at the restaurant, Harris County, which was located directly in front of the hotel. At 8:30 in the morning the Harris County restaurant was already setting up for an oversized Texas lunch. There was a cafeteria type serving line, and the walkway to the buffet line contained at least thirty large, metal bins containing approximately fifty different types of ice-cold beer. The aromas from the brisket, bar-b-que chicken and ribs, and sausage were totally enticing, but it was breakfast time as far as I was concerned. The coffee was excellent, as was the grits and toast. I simply can’t resist grits and toast at 8:30 in the morning. The walls were filled with animal skins, old trappers tools, mounted deer and fish, and other very interesting, visually appealing memorabilia. By 9:00 we were off to where else, but the amazing donut shop. We loaded up with a varied assortment of delectable pastries, and headed to Jessiebelle’s where everyone was awaiting the arrival of more gourmet pastries. Shortly after Jessiebelle’s daughter drove us to Circuit City, or Best Buy, I don’t remember which, where Jessiebelle and I both purchased wireless Internet cards. Hers worked, my computer wouldn’t work, and consequently that fact also contributed to my long weekend absence on Writing.Com and my expected participation in the Olympic Decathlon Daily Writing Challenge. I did have a very mild case of Writing.Com withdrawal symptoms, but it was more than worth it to spend time, in real life, with a friend. I think that the Milkman’s announcement that he was only going to hold one more Olympic Decathlon has taken the wind out of my sails. I honestly believed that his Olympics would be an on going yearly event similar to the yearly NanNoWritMo. Seems the Daily Writing Challenge is an on going, dependable event that I will plan on staying a part of, since the Milkman is not planning on continuing the Olympic Decathlon. And since he has never responded to any of my e-mails and no longer intends to continue the Olympics, I reconsidered sending him any contest ideas. I am feeling upset with the Milkman but I am sure it is my overall disappointment in the inevitable discontinuation of the Olympic Decathlon. |
| Monday, October 18th, 2004 The time line I am writing about in this journal entry is two days behind the date that this entry was suppose to have been made. I suggest that you ignore the date on the page. The word limit is a serious hindrance to my reporting the events of my enjoyable weekend at Jessiebelle’s in Houston. After coffee and donuts, Jessiebelle welcomed me to accompany her to the airport to pick up her husband. He really is tall, dark, and more handsome than Jessiebelle has every explained. The man could be a model, and he has gorgeous legs. I first noticed his legs as he was dutifully doing yard work while wearing shorts. I notice men’s legs because my father’s legs were so … so ugly. I love my husband, but he has legs that look just like my father’s. I hadn’t really thought about any of that until I witnessed Jessiebelle’s husband attending to their yard. Jessiebelle has a very nice back porch were smoking is allowed, and we spent many enjoyable hours on her back porch over the entire weekend discussing everything under the sun – including her husband’s legs, and the fact that he really is a fine specimen of a man. J.J., Jessiebelle’s husband, made me feel every bit as welcome in their home as Jessiebelle did, even after I explained my burlap feed sack and burka comments that I made concerning his daughter’s wardrobe. I was a state licensed building contractor for over twelve years, so my interest in construction should be understandable for those who know this. Jessiebelle and J.J. have an amazing home, and I am so happy to report that she maintains what I consider to be a very normal, comfortable, lived in home. I explained to Jessiebelle that I was coming to see her, not her house; if I was coming to see her house I assured her that I would have made an appointment. That is what I always tell people that come to visit me, “If you are coming to see me - come on, but if you are coming to see my house, then you need to make an appointment.” Jessiebelle has an amazing, eclectic collection of things that I would not dare consider dust collectors. Nope, I would not consider any of the well-placed accents as typical or run-of-the-mill. Some of her pieces I would consider museum quality works, but the most amazing thing to me is that she has managed to keep them while raising children. Incredible. My children, on the other hand, can screw up an anvil, so I can only talk about the things that I used to have verses what I actually have. So not only is Jessiebelle incredibly smart, married to a tall, dark, and handsome man, she has managed to raise two exceptionally well-behaved children. And I met her father in law, A.J., who at eighty-two years of age could still be considered quite a catch, and he also has a healthy appreciation for gourmet donuts, too. Saturday evening Jessiebelle cooked dinner from scratch. I can’t begin to remember or explain exactly what she cooked (a plentiful, uniquely flavorful beef & rice traditional Iranian affair), but lets just say that it was really more than just delicious. I ate well and plenty, and not because I was exceptionally hungry; it was truly exceptionally good. Dinner was wonderful, but being made to feel as welcome and comfortable at their family dinner table gave me a very delightful, warm fuzzy. |
| Sunday, October 17th, 2004 The above date is when this journal entry is supposed to have been made. Today is Wednesday October 20th – and although I have regrettably gotten behind in my Olympic Decathlon journal and events – I don’t care. People are more important than contests. In my humble opinion, to write well and have something interesting for readers to read, a writer must experience life. This weekend was my opportunity to meet a very good friend and important person in my life. I would probably never found my way to Writing.Com if not for Jessiebelle. I met her on another fledgling writer’s site, and due to my eternal curiosity and her including the link to her portfolio in one of her articles, I found my way here. Up until I met Jessiebelle the majority of my Internet time was spend doing research and reading news. I did not know that sites like Writing.Com even existed. Amazing isn’t it! And I have to say that the friendships that I have made since arriving at Writing.Com are very important to me. This virtual world of Writing.Com is made up of very real people, just as the real world. Saturday morning at Jessiebelle’s in Houston: Jessiebelle and I agreed to meet at her house by no later than 8:15 am. She had to pick her husband up at the airport. Well, I was wide-awake by six o’clock Saturday morning. I was parked at the corner convenience store by 6:45 am. I got me a plain old, regular cup of coffee, but it could have quickly turned into a serious problem since the store had about ten different flavors to choose from. In Houma, we have coffee, and decaffeinated coffee, either or, not a real choice for a real coffee drinker, but in Houston it is a whole other situation. At seven o’clock I called Jessiebelle. She graciously lied about being up, but when I mentioned that I was just around the corner – she was totally busted. I asked if I could bring donuts, because donut shops are very plentiful in Jessiebelle’s neck of the woods. She advised which donut shop to go to, and off I went. Well, in addition to really good Mexican food, Houston has at least one really good donut shop that I am now very familiar with. Oh my God, this tiny hole-in-the-wall donut shop was a gourmet delight. The prices were so reasonable that I thought they were WRONG. I am a diabetic, and the trip to this delightful pastry shop was the equivalent to a diabetic suicide mission. Who knew? Donuts proved a big hit with Jessiebelle’s son, and earned me a reprieve of sorts with her daughter. Jessiebelle’s daughter is sixteen, tall, slender and beautiful. It is my belief that when young teenage girls are as pretty as Jessiebelle’s the only fashion choice should be burlap feed sacks or those long black robes like the women are forced to wear in Afghanistan – I know they’re called a Burka, but I am not sure about the spelling. Needless to say, me being me, I did not keep my thoughts to myself, so I had been at Jessiebelle’s house for less than six hours on Friday and her daughter already decided that I was certainly going to be an evil influence on her mom. I really don’t think the woman/child realizes how pretty she is, and she certainly didn’t know that as far as I am concerned all men are dogs. Jessiebelle’s daughter did not appreciate my over protective, grandmotherly comments. |
| Saturday, October 16th, 2004 Beautiful weather, clear sailing, and not one stop along the way contributed to my making it to Jessiebelle house in record time. The fact that each of us had a cell phone allowed Jessiebelle to verbally direct me to ever-necessary turn in the road. As I carefully navigated along the residential street that lead to her absolutely gorgeous house, in an obviously up-scale neighborhood, I finally got my very first, live and in person, glimpse of her standing in a very neatly groomed front yard. I pulled my suburban into Jessiebelle’s double driveway at approximately 3:30 Friday afternoon. Jessiebelle looks exactly like her smiling picture that is in the signature of all of her e-mails and posts on Writing.Com, and since we have been having telephone conversations for well over a year, it felt amazingly like just seeing a friend that I had not seen for a very long time. Of course I still physically felt like I was still traveling at the 70 to 80 miles per hour that I had spent the last six-hours driving along to get there. Her daughter is beautiful and just days away from getting her real driver’s license, so with my arrival we almost immediately got into Jessiebelle van with her daughter driving to go to Starbucks for coffee. And as any typical teenager who just wants to drive we headed off to Starbucks, not the nearest Starbucks, but a Starbucks just the same. Jessiebelle daughter is an excellent driver, and this would be just the first of many trips we’d take with her at the wheel this weekend. There is not a Starbucks in Houma, Louisiana that I am aware of, so I was delighted to go. Coffee is always good, and of course being a smoker, our designated seats were outside. The weather was beautiful, the coffee was good, and I was still bouncing and vibrating from my drive to Houston. Everything is bigger in Texas, including the potholes in the roads. Bush being President and from Texas it was too obvious that fact had been of no benefit for road repair and maintenance. I am happy to report that Louisiana is no longer, I repeat, IS NO LONGER the only state in the Union with potholes and road repair issues. Jessiebelle and her daughter soon noticed that I changed topics of conversation almost every minute; topics jumped around so sporadically that I sounded like a radio that someone had pushed the scan button trying to chose a channel. My excitement of actually sitting and having coffee with Jessiebelle live and in person was more than obvious. We finished our coffee, and Jessiebelle’s daughter drove us on one of the many scenic routes back to their lovely home. I have not been in Houston since the early 1980’s, and as far as I am concerned it could be six separate cities. It is just HUGE. I followed Jessiebelle to the hotel, got checked in, and we left my vehicle, and we were on the road again. Amazing as it sounds, where Jessiebelle lives is like a separate city from Houston proper. Later that evening, Jessiebelle’s son and daughter actually wanted McDonalds for dinner, and Jessiebelle and I went out to eat Mexican food. There is no good Mexican food in Houma, Louisiana, but I assure everyone that there is in Houston, and I attempted to eat way more than one person should at one meal. I am delighted to say that Jessiebelle has a hearty appetite too, so I did not feel like the Lone Ranger. |
| Friday, October 15th, 2004 My drive to Houston, Texas to met Jessiebelle was exhilarating. This is the longest road trip I have taken in over two years, and it made me realize that I really need to get out more. Although I am an avid reader, nothing replaces first hand experience, and as my trip progressed I felt a gigantic rush of excitement. I felt like I was escaping from some sort of prison, albeit a self-imposed prison. Visibility was one hundred percent; the skies were a solid sheet of blue, and the sun provided comfortable warmth through the windows of my GMC Suburban. Being that it was a Friday morning, I was not expecting the tremendous amount of traffic flowing in every direction. I knew where I was going and why, but for the most part I couldn’t help but wonder where everybody else was going. Summer is over; gasoline prices are still on the rise, children are in school, and it was not a holiday weekend. It seemed curious that there should be a continuous flow of traffic, but there is was, every make and model of automobile stretched out in front of me during my six-hour drive. The number of tractor-trailer trucks on the road was light when compared to the number I witnessed parked in rest stops. I can only guess, but most tractor-trailer drivers must still do the majority of their driving at night when the traffic is lighter, the weather is cooler, and various enforcement authorities do not monitor speed as closely as they do during daylight hours. I have been driving for well over thirty-years, and I noticed that there seemed to be an extraordinary number of very expensive, new, and almost new vehicles on the road. The auto industry must be experiencing a selling boom. There was the occasional, familiar clunker, but not as many as I would have thought given the overall condition of the economy and the price of gasoline. I still have not decided if the traffic situation was in anyway related to population growth. Having traveled this same route almost monthly for a year in 1999, the increased commercial and residential growth was very noticeable. It appears to me that at the current rate of construction that some of the towns that are connected by Interstate 10 are going to grow into each other as if they are suburbs. The boundary lines are blurring. Five-years ago road construction created pockets of heavy, bottlenecked traffic, and I am sorry to report that the situation has not changed. Seems that road construction is a guaranteed constant. From what I witnessed on my trek between Houma, Louisiana and Houston, Texas there seems to be little if any advancement in the technology in road repair and construction. While the on going construction is made clearly obvious by the signs, equipment, and barricaded traffic lanes, the men and women that one would expect to see on an active construction site on a regular Friday workday are still to this day invisible. State employed road builders’ have been the butt of jokes, and ridiculed for as long as I can remember, and it is still a clear, and richly well-deserved testament. While there are noticeable and notable improvements in the roadways, there is still an amazing lack of actual visible work crews working. The foremost question in my mind is, “How do they do it?” |
| October 14th, 2004 Oh, my dentist was snippy today. I guess I need a root canal, and he just wants to yank out my tooth. I want to save it, and all he wants to talk about is the last three cleaning jobs that I couldn’t manage to sit through. I just wish that he realized that the young ladies he has working in his office do not have the skill and proficiency that he does. I have been going to him for well over two years now, and if he is just going to bitch at me because I am a big coward when it comes to dental work, I can always go back to where I use to go. Reservations are made, and I leave for Houston after my husband and I have breakfast at 6 am. I am so looking forward to meeting Jessiebelle. We have been talking on the phone for well over a year. It is going to be fun to sit down and have a real cup of coffee and a face-to-face conversation with fun, entertaining friend. Unfortunately, I will have to make the trip alone. It will be all right but it will just seem strange. All I got to say is, Thank God for antibiotics. I am feeling so much better. I still have a dull ache in my left, lower jaw, but I think root canal and saving the tooth is more important than just yanking it out. It costs a bundle to put something back in the holes that dentist make. Bought a new purse today. It was fun. That is the first new purse I have purchased in over five years. I kept the last one for over fifteen years. So, now whoever is reading this journal knows that I am not a big spender. Actually, I hate shopping. I’ve often wondered if I would feel that way if I didn’t just shop out of sheer necessity. Picked up some new tee shirts, some socks, and a new pair of s t r e t c h pants that feel like jeans but don’t look like jeans, because the pants at brown not blue. Yep, I shopped today. My loving husband is now printing out maps for my trip tomorrow to Houston. I know the man is worried; he knows first-hand how geographically challenged I am, and he also knows that I will only drive during daylight hours. Diabetes has started wreaking havoc on my night vision. And it is because of my health that I feel a need to do some of the things I want to do now; I fear if I wait I will never get to do them. I may live another 20, maybe 30 years, but then again there are never any guarantees. So I am just planning to do what I can do, while I can still do it. It has been over ten years since I have just up and decided I was taking a trip on my own. I used to just up and take a relaxing Sunday drive to Memphis, Tennessee, visit some cousins and turn around and come back to New Orleans. Life is good. I am looking forward to meeting Jessiebelle, but I still wish my husband were coming along for the ride. |
| Written October 14th, because I was too blasted sick to write October 13th. Can a Doctor's Excuse excuse me? I didn't think so. I had to try. When I get sick, I get very sick, very fast. I don’t know why. I do know that I am fortunate that I don’t get sick often. Wednesday, started out with an 8:30 am doctors appointment where antibiotics were prescribed. I wanted a shot that I didn’t get, and now I have yet another appointment scheduled for next Wednesday, October 20th. I think the less time spent in doctor’s offices the better, because everybody there is SICK and I definitely don’t want to catch what they’ve got on top of what I’ve got. It’s a vicious merry-go-round. Even though I was feeling like death warmed over, I stopped to get my engine oil changed. Sick or not I am still planning to go to Houston Texas for the weekend, as long as it is okay with Jessiebelle. Then I am still dealing with the aftermath of a near fatal tax audit, and the last extension only gives me to October 15th to make sure the CPA that I now have gets it done and ready to be signed and mailed. Taxes make death have a strange sort of appeal in my opinion. Sad! When I finally got home, I was sicker and more exhausted than I realized. My husband dragged in from his job and took one look at me and asked, “You’re still sick?” to which I replied, “What do you think?” He then drove to the pharmacy to get the antibiotics that I had forgotten to pick up. It is good to have someone that is willing to help take care of you when you’re too sick to take care of yourself. When he got home with my antibiotics, I immediately took a double dose and intended to watch the debates. That did not happen. I woke up at midnight and realized that I had not only missed the Presidential debates, I had also fallen asleep on the sofa, and missed the deadline for the journal entry for the Long Distance Olympic Event. Unable to extract myself from my deathbed, I took another round of antibiotics and collapsed. I woke again at 4 am, and to my amazement I was feeling better. Thank God, antibiotics work. At 9 am I’ll take another dose, and with any luck at all by the time my 1:30 dentist appoint rolls around today I will be feeling even better. Dentists are a necessary evil. I think I am a reincarnated death camp survivor that was a victim of vicious dental experiments during Hitler’s attempted extermination of the Jews. Yes, I am a coward. The older I get it appears the bigger coward I become, as I realize that there is so much more to be afraid of. Living gets more difficult as a body gets older. Not only is there the struggle to maintain a youthful appearance, it is a much more difficult struggle to maintain the body’s healthy condition. I have come to realize that a person’s health is based on so many variables. Genetics plays a huge roll. Lifestyle is another factor. Let’s just say that I am not a lucky sort. |
| Tuesday, October 12th, 2004 I finished judging a contest; name of the contest omitted to protect the guilty. I was never so disappointed in my life. The contest was simple; just write a poem or short story using a picture as a prompt. The picture was on display in all its glory in the contest forum. At first I was alarmed at the number of entries, over 57. I was thinking that it was going to be an impossible task. Never in my wildest dreams did it occur to me that so many of the entries would be so… so bad. I have been called a “tactless twit” on these types of occasions when I speak my mind. So be it. I accept the fact that I can be a “tactless twit” if others will admit contestants should realize that it is expected that their entries in some way should appear to incorporate the contest prompt. It is just a very good thing that I don’t have to be the one to make a statement or comment about the entries. Some could have been quite good with just a little real effort. It will probably take me forty-eight hours to start recovering from reading so much dribble, and get over my complete and total frustration. Didn’t do any reviews today, just read and judged contest entries. I fulfilled the commitment that I made to be a judge. Tomorrow I have an 8:30 am doctor appointment and then I will come home and work the two current Olympic Decathlon events. I need to write a humorous letter as a fairytale character to another fairytale character, and I need to write a micro-fiction horror story. I wonder if I can figure out a Twilight Zone type horror story in 300 words or less about a contest judge. I am being ugly. I am happy to report that NONE of the contest entries were from Olympians! After today, I hope every Olympian has the same appreciation for anybody that volunteers to be a judge. I know I do. I participate in contests to test myself, to get out of my comfort zone, and to try to improve my writing skills. I try to show respect for readers by producing written work that does what it is intended to do, be it: entertain, inform, charm, educate, frighten, or caution. Words, rather written or spoken, have a purpose. I give more thought to my written words than I do to my spoken words; hence that is why when I write like I speak I am called names like, tactless twit, among others. Better I be a tactless twit, than one or more hapless people with a loaded keyboard continue to commit literary suicide. How embarrassing. And I wonder if editors’ submission desks across the country are littered with some of the same garbage? God help us all, especially the few of us who actually invest time and energy learning the craft. Looks like I am going to Houston this weekend. The whole purpose of the trip is just to meet Jessiebelle. I’ll make travel arrangements tomorrow. Yippee! |
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