Daily Life

Lynn is Home, Incidentally....

Lynn returned from New York on Sunday night.

Two Rings of Cars

Picking Lynn up at the airport was like becoming a worry bead, sliding along with the rest of the chain as someone nervously fingered them.

Facing the Weekend

It's the facing of the weekend without Lynn which weighs on my mind most these last hours.

Torture

There is no way to switch the channel.

Black Helicopter

A faint wasp-shape, the color of a bluebottle, passed maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred feet over my head.

Put up a Parking Lot

As soon as we got out of the truck, a fellow riding a taxi bike asked if we needed a ride to the entrance. I declined, thinking it odd that on this night we'd been transported into a Saigon without the mortar rounds and the shrapnel.

Microwave Servicing

The repairman arrived eleven minutes after The Call.

Lawnmower Men

Amputated stalks of dead grass litter the streets of the complex.

Windfall Profit

The plumber showed up punctualy, took out his finger-thin flashlight, and looked into the garbage disposal to see what had been jamming it up.

From the Container Garden

This year, I planted Freesia in a rainbow which produced the blooms you see at the right.

Decluttering

Damn, I felt evil.

Old Shoes

I leave my shoes in strange places.

Old Peanut Butter

It was stale, like eating an antique wooden desk.

The Sound and the Sense

When the machine shut down at noon, the noises of the world opened to my ears like a book to my eyes.

Boys and Fire

Boys tease fire like they tease wild animals.

Early Nightfalls

The light doesn't end with a thunderfall or begin with a bang. I just notice that it is gone when the world turns a little too blue for seeing clearly.

Orange Sun over The Orange

Enroute to Barnes and Noble for a writing discussion, a fire truck came out of the station on El Toro. The line of cars I was in froze. We all turned to look....

Seen at a Bookstore

The newest book by GE chairman Jack Welch says that he is "speaks from the gut".

Lights Out

I can forgive the electrical company, but when this computer of mine fails me, that's personal!

Inhabitant of B&N

When no fewer than three people asked me if I lived in the place tonight, I decided that enough was enough: I'm not showing until Wednesday.

Driving

The act, however, is simple, and I can do it sitting down.

Frostless at Midnight

The cop cars at John Wayne Orange County Airport reflected the bland orange mocha lamp shine. The burning metropolis jumped up and left its singe in the sky.

Bedtime
I started to leave the screen up so Lynn could read what I wrote in the morning. But she's in...

The Smell of Smoke

Under the arched live oaks of Trabuco Canyon Road, I caught the scent for a moment. Not sweet, not sour, not bitter. The odor of smoke.

Expectations of Unfolding

Though the heat declines in intensity and we're supposed to have rain, I still feel the soft-cratered spiritual morbidity in my temples and above my eyes.

Two Companions at the Desk

I'm sitting at the computer with two companions: Lynn's black leatherette Bible and a headache that fits over the top of my head like a helmet.

Aftershocks of the Full Moon

As the darkness grows more full, we will sleep better than we do now.

An Eclipse of Bread

Yesterday, after the power outage, we needed to restart the bread machine.

AC Man

When I saw him dragging himself up the stairs, his skin blown dry like the sandstone ridges that jut out of the hillsides around these parts, I offered him a cold Coke.

Bat in Belfry

Lynn nearly walked into it, a three inch long fur blimp with eight inch wings.

Darkness Visible

Small contest, prize is glory. Where does the title phrase come from?

The Battle of San Pietro

Of San Pietro, it seems, little is written because almost no one lived to tell about it.

Cell Phones

My cell phone has developed the naughty habit of turning itself on when I am moving about in the world and recording what I say.

State Terrorism

The word to George W. Bush and the Republican dominators is this: We're watching you back.

Snowballing

Whispery grunts and then I stammer "Lynn. We don't share those secrets, what we did before we married."

Who Was It?

Feral. Feral was the sound I made in response. A groan, a scream, a screech, and something with claws. Claws to defend and protect a soft place of secrecy and privilege, a burrow lined with rags torn from t-shirts where I kept truths untold, things she didn't need to know.

Sunburn

I burned myself out on the hike yesterday. My right arm more than my left which is odd because it was midday and both were equally naked.

Wedding Ring 4

Her hand came up and there was the wedding ring, pinched between two fingers.

Driving Lynn's Car

Pity that the truck gets worse gas mileage.

Red Saint Patrick's Day

Is Bush color-blind?

Wedding Ring 3

Cats just don't pick random things up in their mouths and move them off to a personal treasure chamber like that.

Out with Lynn's Car

Her car used to be my car. It still is my car, to the degree that if I decide to up and run off with it, it's all in my name.

Cable Guy

I've entered the age of cable modem!

Do Not Disturb

She bent her body into a question mark and Tracy made herself the period.

Wedding Ring 2

The search continues.

Lost Wedding Ring

Lynn lost her wedding ring.

Scarcity

Material for this blog is becoming scarce now that my body is excreting the last vestiges of mood-warping vicodin from my system.

From the Scarlet Hermitage

The main thing keeping me home isn't pain, but the fact that if I go charging around town, pumping my heart, the wound in my mouth is about to bust.

Columbia Disaster

We were on our way out of the Lawrence Welk Resort, this morning, when I caught the gold streak across the blue background and the headline "Columbia is Lost".

From Uplifted to Hyperactive to Jumpy

I was psyched after my court appearance. I did well.

Blockbuster Video

I missed the imperfections such as the walls breaking out in chipped baroque curls.

Shoes

"Thrilling stuff," I deadpanned to the guard. He stood behind a counter. I couldn't see his feet.

Only the Second Dimension

Denos has a superb voice. I do not contest this. But he chose to create this CD using a cheap microphone and his computer.

Mother is here

She's taken the opportunity to wander into my office several times to boss me around while I work on my web sites and generally go crazy as I keep trying to type around Tracy.

blu's curse

Uh-oh.

Facing the Invisible Mark

Nobody is saying "This is going to be your year, Joel. I can feel it" as they did last year.

A Visit from Mother

To save our sanity, we kept mentions of the season to a minimum....

Lynn's Job

We're willing to move almost anywhere in the United States or Canada if the company will cover moving expenses and a downpayment on a house.

The Week in Review

If it weren't for the sincere, struggling authors who know how to tell you that a sentence needs to be reworked without insisting that you give up part of your mind because "people are dumb" and "you won't sell your book writing like that", I'd forget about showing up.

The Bad News

It was a xanax moment.

Update: Scattered and Trivial

Nothing strikes so hard as the square-headed hammer of boredom.

For Kevin....

Kevin says that that mundane activities can be interesting.

Boringly Busy

I suppose I could liven it up for you by describing each cut and paste operation, but I know the excitement would just kill you.

Sighs and Tappings

Life just isn't terribly interesting these days. This is the kind of stuff that I skip over when writing fiction

No Man is an Island But....

Irvine Toyota doesn't keep spare parts for aging Tercels on hand, so Lynn has monopoly of the truck until Wednesday.

Digging A New City of the Silent

I don't know that many of the friends I have found through blogging know about the site, though now and again I meet a fan who has discovered that the creator of City of the Silent and the wacko who writes this blog are the same.

Adventure in the Rain

It wasn't just raining: we were dead center in the precipitating cloud.

A Waver of the Hand

God damn it, Democrats. Where was the get out the vote?

Drudgery and Mischance

As I rounded the bend where Interstate 15E becomes the Crosstown Freeway in San Bernardino, I regretted leaving my camera behind as a un-needed nuisance.

The Other Life

I thought a lot, read over some pieces by other writers for critique, and buried myself deep under the comforters while Ambrose purred into my ear.

Home from the Writers' Group

I glanced up into the branches, hoping for a glimpse of a Cheshire Cat.

A Cold

I woke up sneezing, convulsively.

A Phone Call

"I'm in Los Angeles."

"Oh, when are you coming back?"

"I live down here now."

"You live down there? How long has that been?"

Slovenian Invasion....

Just got email from Boris Horvat to the effect that a mutual friend from Ljubljana is in town.

A Gift of the Public Largess

[The] unintentional generosity of the system has given me the company of two books by Flannery O'Connor and The Annotated Huckleberry Finn for an additional five months if I desire it.

Guilt-Provoking

"Use Mapquest," I grunted and pulled the blanket up over my neck.

The Unknown American Mind

The only sound I hear is the crack and snap of the pages as they flip from the front page to the continuations and then on to the sports page.

"Where are the Bush Supporters?"

They live all around me, with "God Bless America" signs skewering the turf next to their doorways.

Record of the Day 9-11

I think the greatest respect for the dead that I could give on this day was simply to live. And that is what I did.

A 9-11 Sabbath

From midnight Pacific time until the following midnight, I shall watch no televised broadcasts, read no newspapers, listen to no radio broadcasts of any kind, read no mail (including email), chat with no one on IRC, and visit no websites.

Capillary Action

If I've cleaned up right, reading this account will be the first the Empress learns of our new calamity.