Chantepleure Reincarnated

I got a call from a woman at the Huron Valley Council for the Arts. She said she was calling about an author luncheon. Great! Who's the author? Well, you are. There were several more minutes of me questioning whether she had the right Linda Robinson. There is another Linda Robinson who has several books. No, she was pretty sure she wanted me and my book. I told her I could ask a couple of other real authors I know. Did you call because I'm a member of HVCA? Oh, are you? How nice! There may have been more but I'm embarrassed enough already. She named the book (pronounced it correctly) and told me what the word means. At the end of the call, I said sure, I'd be glad to participate. Then I waited for the call telling me their original choice was now back in town and said yes. Then the announcement showed up in my facebook feed, with my mug right in the center. Chantepleure was written during NaNoWriMo in 2007. 60,000 words thrown in a document. For the next year, the Sweetgrass Writers wrestled it into a story. We thought it was two books maybe. Perhaps it still is, but I'm not the dividing this after 10 years. We printed it, handed out chapters and segments to each other to edit, question, clarify and finish. Part of the ongoing endeavor was to figure out best way to get it into the hands of readers. I don't remember if it was submitted to traditional publishers: I doubt it. I'd gone through that years before with children's books I wrote and illustrated, only to find that traditional publishers don't want authors illustrating their books. They want their illustrators. Most authors don't ever meet the people who draw their stories. So, we self-published. Lulu for a printed book (very expensive still) and Smashwords later for an ebook. I filed the book with the Library of Congress, had our local librarian stick it on Ingram (where libraries can order) and then forgot about it. I wrote Chantepleure to bring to life a closed, boarded-up shop in our little town. The Artcraft Shop had lived as a bits and bobs arty store. I still have a couple of packages my mother bought there. The Artcraft Shop was in a series of decrepit storefronts that included the South Lyon Herald offices on one corner. The Herald moved out and Grande Trunke moved in. High end home decorating. Kathleen's was a nice clothing store on the opposite end, and then the whole block was bought and Kathleen was forced out by 200% increase in rent. That became a remodeling company. An auto paint store opened in the middle. Then The Artcraft Shop was rented, renovated and lives now as The Lemon Tree. I also wrote Chantepleure to gather my dead friends in one place, so I could visit with them again. This surprise reincarnation of Chantepleure fits beautifully with the restored Artcraft Shop. My friends are content.

Thank You for Waiting

NaNoWriMo, 20th anniversary. I wrenched a novel out of November in 2007, but despite 300,000+ words since then I haven't made the sprint to 50k words in the 30 days offered.

My process has been to create a cover first, and in some years not write one word. This year I made 4 covers, so I expect to not write 4 times as many words.

The ideas were intriguing. Still are. This year I chose a subject that has been in my brainpan for decades.

Waiting.

30 years ago, the title was Women Who Wait. Waiting is an activity we do well. We wait for the perfect partner, wait for promotions, raises. Wait to see the light, wait for dark. Wait for bruises to heal, wait for new ones. Wait for our loved ones to come home from war. Wait to heal, wait to die. Wait for the other shoe to drop. Wait on hold.

Noticing the messaging while on hold this month. Caregivers spend hours on hold. Doctors, pharmacies, health agencies, state handlers, county wranglers. In my case, when I get mad enough, wait for my legislators.

Doctor's office: 17 minutes on hold. Sales pitches for new mammogram technology, heart screening check (only $75!) and the ubiquitous messaging that you can do whatever you think you need to wait on hold to do on our website.

Pharmacy: 22 minutes on hold. Sales pitch op.

Kitchen cabinet place: "Thank you for continuing to hold. We are assisting other excited home remodelers." Sheesh.

The doctor's office is just down the street. I've checked the we are busy assisting other callers more than once. Drive down to the office - no one is on the phone.

Thank you for continuing to hold. We appreciate your patience.

Cheryl Ann Mull Moody

Purple Rose for Our Theatre Queen

Wild, funny, big-hearted, snarky, wonderful crazy woman. We met in high school backstage. One of the first things she did for me was wrangle a furious girlfriend who just found out the guy who'd started dating me had stopped dating her. Opening night, minutes before curtain up, that girl was going to deck me. The show must go on! Cheryl Ann did big deeds for people and spurned gratitude, but wow – cross her, and she'd take you out at the knees. She always loved her people wholeheartedly.

Many years later we were roomies in my Detroit house we called The House For Women on Their Way to Do Something Else. She would hear of a woman who could use a room, and in she'd move. Tennessee had a cousin Alabama, who just moved north. Come on in. Cheryl Ann had Tennessee roots her own self. Stinkin' Creek Road, if I remember correctly. We got introduced to peanuts in Coke.

Cheryl asked - soon after moving in - if she could use the oven. Sure! I said. She came back into the living room - did you know there are books in there? Oh, that's where those went! We both read the books she dragged out of the oven immediately. Forget dinner.

We all pitched in for household bills, and had a Chinese puzzle box on the coffee table for other stuff. Like psychics. And parties. And stuff. If you couldn't get the puzzle box open, you'd had enough stuff already.

She had pet names for all of us. She always called me Linda Ruth. She called my sister EA. I called her Cheryl Ann, with a hard CH and a twangy Tennessee accent.

Cheryl ran phone interference for everyone in the house. Is she here? I'll check. If she got a head shake no, she'd tell the person on the other end whatever story she thought up. If it was my mother, she just told her I wasn't in. She always knew what her friends needed.

I left the Christmas tree up until April one year. Cheryl Ann told people I wasn't going to take it down until the hostages came home. She always covered our foolishness.

So many wonderful memories. We laughed more than we did anything else. She loved to laugh, and did often and deep.

Among the pictures is a welcome home dinner she did for me. Fancy tablecloth, sign, apron et al. I had probably been gone 3 days. She did thoughtful things for people her whole life.

One of the men I was dating was older. Cheryl called him Dad. We'd take the roomies who were home on dinner dates. Cheryl would start a ruckus before we got down the driveway. "Are we there yet?" "Dad, she's poking me." "I have to go to the bathroom."

At one of the parties, 3 men I was dating all showed up. The house was big enough, and this party was on all 3 floors and in the back and front yards, so Cheryl would find me, warn me, head him(s) off, and I'd duck up down and around like a cartoon whodunit. She always had your back.

She saved me more than once, and with love and, when appropriate, a good scold.

We said when we were old ladies in the nursing home, we'd have a big couch. She would read on one end, and I would read on the other. She's now reading on the big couch in heaven, and one day, I'll take the other end.

I will always love her. Always.

RJ Spangler Trio with Larry Smith

The RJ Spangler Trio featuring Larry Smith performed the first of four concerts in a 2nd Sunday jazz series yesterday at our Salem-South Lyon District Library. The sessions are sponsored by the Jazz Foundation of America, and the Metro Detroit Book & Author Society 2016 James Dance Performance Grant. You'll have a chance to see them perform again in Dec., Feb., and April.

L to R: Oliver Nevels, guitar; Larry Smith, alto sax; Greg Cook on bass; RJ Spangler, drums. Listeners were treated to standards from the jazz book, beginning with Body and Soul, 1930 music by Johnny Green, lyrics by Edward Heyman, Robert Sour and Frank Eyton.

The audience asked for Take Five composed by Paul Desmond, debuted with the Dave Brubeck Quartet on their 1959 album, Time Out. Take Five had a piano lead for Brubeck - we heard a George Benson arrangement featuring Oliver Nevels on guitar.

Take the A Train, composed by Duke Ellington. RJ shared the backstory on this classic: Billy Strayhorn had been sending compositions, arrangements to Ellington. The Duke finally told him he probably needed to join the Ellington organization. How to get there? The rest is superb jazz music history.

We heard Larry Smith's long rich music background, told by RJ, and - just so we didn't think it was myth - confirmed by Downbeat magazine. Larry went to high school with Henry Mancini! In Pittsburgh, he played with a George Benson R&B group. Benson noticed Smith wasn't playing the R&B grooves. What do you call what you're playing? Smith took him to a place with a jukebox, put a dime in the slot and Benson asked "who we listening to?" Smith responded, "Bird." "What's a bird?" And once more, the rest is jazz music history. 

After the concert I asked Larry Smith what maker built his horn. Bundy Selmer. He told us how saxophones used to be made of a combination of silver, brass and gold; offering a rich tonal resonance he doesn't hear in the new brass horns. My Dad's tenor saxophone is a Herb Couf instrument, and it still breathes music in the hands of Tony Lustig in NYC. Larry also talked about always having that special reed on hand, along with backup.

The concert closed with Watch What Happens, composed by Michel leGrand; a song that gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. Known for his movie scores (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Thomas Crown Affair) leGrand wrote just as eloquently in jazz. Still composing, still musically strong, his 85 Concerts for My 85th Birthday World Tour is getting underway. Concert dates will be released by the end of this month 2016.

I'm missing one of the tunes because I got lost in hearing my Dad play his tenor in my mind, the background music to my whole life. When I was little, I went with him to rehearsals, usually in somebody's basement. I knew the words to Deep Purple, Little White Lie, and Darn That Dream before I was six. My father is second from the left, saxes. At the piano is Joe Fredal, our family's future dentist.

One of the days I was remembering yesterday afternoon. Dad on that gorgeous Herb Couf tenor, me on my Great Aunt Suoma's little organ. He's using a jazz mouthpiece! I didn't remember he even owned one of those. For my medicine bag when I was fighting cancer, I asked loved ones to contribute a powerful talisman to kick that mess. My father gave me a saxophone reed. One more beautiful example of the healing power of music, and the importance of always having that special reed on hand. And a backup.

 

Great Lakes Siphoning Begins With Waukesha, Wisconsin

Waukesha, Wisconsin has been granted permission to pull water from Lake Michigan. Waukesha wells are contaminated with radium, a radioactive element that occurs in aquifers. It is natural. As water demands exceed supply, wells go deeper, creating more opportunity for radium infusion. What is not natural is the Great Lakes Watershed Counsel voted to allow Waukesha to siphon water from Lake Michigan. Eight Great Lakes governors and Canadian provinces Quebec and Ontario voted to allow this redirect. Waukesha has promised to return the volume of water it siphons back to Lake Michigan, using wastewater treated at a facility in Racine. Nothing can go wrong with that.

In 2011 Ontario's Bruce Power applied to ship 16 one-ton nuclear contaminated containers through Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway to a recycle center in Sweden. I started making phone calls about that, including to the members of the Great Lakes Compact. One person didn't know there was a proposal on the table! The request was eventually denied, thanks to freshwater activism, and Senator Stabenow (D-MI). I don't know the status of the request to dig a mile-and-a-half deep geologic repository of nuclear waste on the shore of Lake Huron, but I'll start again on that right now. Because nothing can go wrong with that.

Eight Great Lakes governors voted to allow the Waukesha drain. Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. How many of these states have extensive fracking sites? How many of these states have excessive radium levels in the aquifers that may also take advantage of the fine print in the Great Lakes Compact? Flint, Michigan was poisoned. Government played with water sources. Nothing could go wrong with that.

Michigan governor Snyder, environmentally obtuse and negligent, just appointed a BP exec as MDEQ head. While she may have PR credentials (having helped cover asses over Deepwater Horizon), she is not an advocate for public health or environmental issues. May as well ask Dick Cheney to keep an eye on war profiteering. Nothing can go wrong with that.

Freshwater activists can keep an eye on their own state's environmental quality. Following is the list of DEQ(s).

Illinois
Indiana
Minnesota
New York
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin

Wisconsin doesn't have a department devoted to protecting the environment. Nothing can go wrong with that. 

2016 Michigan Notable Book Author in South Lyon

Doreen Hannon and Donna Olson

South Lyon, Michigan recently hosted a

Josie Kearns and Joe Matuzak

Pulitzer Prize-winning author for a talk and book signing. David Maraniss' newest book Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story is one of 20 Michigan Notable Books for 2016. Chosen by the Library of Michigan each year, this year's authors are visiting 50 libraries throughout Michigan during April, May, June.

I was in The Lyon Theatre, listening. How did this extraordinary event happen? A notable book author in South Lyon?

Dedicated people made this happen.

South Lyon has a 3-year-old Cultural Arts Commission and the commissioners are working to bring more arts and humanities to South Lyon. Pictured lower left is Josie Kearns, South Lyon Cultural Arts Commission.

Ten months ago Donna Olson joined staff as Adult Services Department Head. SSLDL became a Michigan Center for the Book (Library of Michigan) affiliate. You can meet Donna at SSLDL. Her enthusiasm is catchy and her smile is instantly recognizable (see pic top right.) Doreen Hannon, SSLDL Director (pictured top left) brought Donna to our library from Howell Carnegie District Library.

The Michigan Humanities Council has used surveys in the past after cultural events. In connection with SL CAC, Joe Matuzak, University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (pic bottom right) volunteered to help design a survey for before events. Not how did you enjoy what you just experienced, but what experiences would you like to create?

And David Maraniss came to the South Lyon Theatre for a free presentation. Thanks to all the entities mentioned in the Hometown Life news article. These encounters, free to the public, are brought to you by the Library of Michigan, Michigan Department of Education, Michigan Humanities Council, the Library of Michigan Foundation, Meijer and the Michigan Center for the Book. Kudos, all!

I have, and will continue to, personally thank Doreen Hannon, Josie Kearns, Donna Olson and Joe Matuzak. You can too, whenever you see these energetic and involved people in South Lyon.

Our library is a living member of the community. Arts and art events make it breathe, and the heart of our town, dedicated to bringing more memorable cultural events to South Lyon, is a marvelous working engine.

You can be involved in this endeavor, this cultural renaissance. What would South Lyon residents like to see more of in town? You can share your thoughts here through the end of June. You can participate in events scheduled as as each occurs by checking the South Lyon Cultural Arts Commission website, the City of South Lyon website, and the Salem South Lyon District Library site. I just created a South Lyon folder on my bookmark toolbar. I'm so proud of us!

Akka Women Warriors WisCon40

Akka is a Saami fertility goddess. Akka is also an open source toolkit for building applications on the JVM. Kinda cool in that I just named this figure yesterday from my backpack of Names To Use in Future, and found this technie stuff going on. Etymology: from the Greek word meaning to hide. Urban dictionary defines it the same as whinging. Going akka at the club. A Dravidian word with the same sense as mother. This searching stuff is what makes me happy. If you dig wide, you can find trivia that supports whatever premise you start conjuring. I like significant naming protocols for fiction. Especially if those parameters are just in my head. That's where story lives, yes?

I have constructed figures when I need to see what I'm writing or thinking about. I started doing this when I began to go akka about the absence of women in pop culture. This began when my niece was born. Try finding a diverse angel at the Hallmark store in 1992. Or books that feature all girls, or girls at all. Or calendars. Cards. Movies. I made my own. When I spotted history altered to credit men, I made a figure. One of the first was a kabuki dancer. Women created kabuki theatre. Until the Edo period, when women were banned from performing. Prestigious newspapers got it wrong covering the influence on Bowie. Rewritten history. When I get mad about women being stuffed in the back, I create a positive image.

Creating characters in real world transforms the women in story world. Akka was just a cool action figure I bought in a lot. She had green plastic molded hair and a green face. She's articulated everywhere, including some shoulder action that looks like armor. But she wanted to be softer, less martial. I razored off her plastic hair, and gave her gray curls. Her undertop is made from scraps of a pair of leather gloves that the same niece played with in the snow. The pants are from a pair of winter tights. The vest is a sale item I grabbed from Hazel Street Designz. The rawhide skirt is a scrap from a Gathering Society day of making canteens. The boots are suede with treaded soles. I bought those. Because wow. Her staff is a wood dowel wrapped with flax. I was given the flax from the collection of a dollmaker who is now in a nursing home. The flax smells wonderful.

I don't know yet which story this character will populate. She may be part of a group of deity/tech women who are hiding out on an obscure planet. And what would a goddess of fertility do on a moon that does not feature in utero reproduction? Sounds like AI to me. A detail to be expanded in the backstory development.

Akka will be joining her 12 sister warriors at the WisCon40 Art Show in Madison, Wisconsin during Memorial Day weekend. For those who won't be at WisCon, a 4x6 art print of Akka is available at my etsy shop.

Neighbor Teacher Friend

F. Marilyn Downey moved to her next celestial adventure February 28. She remains a generous and loving spirit, happy to help those in need, glittering the realm with her infectious laugh, her ongoing skill at finding the brightness wherever her eyes alight, with a steady and gracious demand that there is light in everyone and everything. "See the light, Linda," she'd remind me when I complained about some wrong. "See the light in him/her." It took years for me to learn this, and I'd confess that. "Okay, I saw his light. Teeny light. Dim." She lived next door, and I'd visit her bearing hot cake, a new recipe, a good story. In her home there was always peace and love. She had many crystals in her front window, and the light would dance in the sun. Rainbows bounced on the ceiling, walls, our skin. One day I'd come to loan her a book, and I looked up. On the ceiling was this angel (the image is a photograph of her.) We watched in awe. I had to figure out where it was coming from (angels aren't really on ceilings, right?) It was the light from a crystal bouncing from the plastic cover of the library book. Marilyn was an angel on earth. And now she's an angel in everyone's ceiling. I will not mourn her passing, because she will always be with me. And we have an arrangement to meet at the new galaxy forming in about 65,000,000 years. Nakemiin, dear friend.

My Next President

Imagine it's 2017. The president has been busy, vetting cabinet members, making new alliances and contacting old friends in Congress, firming up gubernatorial relationships state to state. Staff is putting out remaining fires from the campaign, paying bills, making new friends among staff in Congress, reaffirming commitments, bridging differences. Campaign workers are sending resumes for the next job. Newspapers are predicting whatever shiny new or stale old events their editorial board dictates. Life goes on. Politics goes on. Politicos move focus to the 2018 elections. Overseas news services ask what this new prez will do about all the hot spots on the globe. NGOs scribble grant proposals. What's your president doing? If my choice candidate is president, the issues that matter to me are being addressed already. Cabinet nominees are chosen and interviewed. Foreign government allies have been contacted, ambassadors in place or on their way to their new assignments. The first Cabinet positions have been sent to Congress for confirmation. Those posts will be the ones that are important in 2017. State, Education, Health and Human Services, Defense. Women's issues, children's issues will be on the mind and agenda of the President, and foreign policy initiatives are underway. Global governments that are not allies have been contacted as well, told emphatically what will remain the same, what will not. If a confirmation for State can be moved quickly, that Secretary will be on the road now, now, now. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once said it was a huge diplomatic advantage to land on an airfield and step out of Air Force One. I believe and will vote to help ensure that when Air Force One lands, the huge diplomatic advantage will be that President H. R. Clinton steps off that plane.

Flint Michigan Water Crisis Volunteers

Water is life. Clean water is healthy life. For millions on our planet, clean water is a luxury. For those of us who are blessed to have water right out of our tap, we don't think about how safe that water is. People in Flint, Michigan know their water is harmful, poisoned by bureaucrats that counted money instead of people. There is a Chain of Fools that orchestrated this disaster. Always when officials act inhumanly, there are good humans who offer help to clean up the mess. The people who are volunteering in Flint are heroes. Whether it is sending water, delivering water, helping residents fit filters to their taps, demonstrating to change the way democracy has been ripped out of Michigan, giving rides to people who cannot get to the fire stations for test kits or water, supporting other volunteers. These are everyday heroes. I celebrate and admire their courage, fortitude and grace.

Directed by Women Email to Michigan Film Office

September 1-15, 2015 will be a Directed by Women Global Viewing Party, celebrating the voluminous work of women directors from 1896 onward. We invite your organization to appreciate the contribution of women directors, the history of the gender to the development of film and to just have a bloomin' good time watching movies directed by women, and encouraging others to do the same.

http://directedbywomen.com/en/

You are welcome to quit reading here. But.

Imagine the opportunities. Since the tax incentives ending crimped the influx of film companies working in Michigan, there is a lost horizon in encouraging film directors to come to our pristine, eclectic, diverse and filmic state.

It's indie film world, kids, with no financial juice. Michigan will never be on the radar without the tax incentives, except for desolation-themed pseudo scifi in used-to-be Detroit for blockbusters released first overseas. Detroit has a lot more to offer. Indie films aren't interested in car crashes, city streets closed for filming when those streets are already closed to trash collection and special ed bus routes, desolation porn, or, consequently, the Townsend Hotel filled to capacity. Unless the film gets distribution. Without the blockbusters and the tax incentives and Clint Eastwood and Drew Barrymore, Michigan as a film location is toast. Unless it's the never-ending Transformers franchises. Which, as you know, has moved to Singapore. Disregard.

We want all hotels filled in every filming location in Michigan. Put Detroit in the spotlight for other than desolation, as it has done for itself in celebrating growth. Detroit is alive! Celebrate the indie film world of other sites in Michigan, its diversity of location - the glacial moraines, UP settings identical to Baltic Sea terrain, the pristine shorelines that can substitute for ocean in any weather anywhere (keep in mind that the criteria in filming for ocean is the farther shore can't be seen - Michigan's got that full stop on every coast.)

The grit of Flint, the struggles of Ocean County, the history of Idlewild, the artistic communities of Interlochen/Benzonia, the dunes of Lake Michigan, the historically welcoming gay communities in Douglas and Saugatuck, the quaint and the elegant of the east coast of Michigan, from the Huron estuary to the charm of Charlevoix, the industrial grit of Flint/Bay City/Saginaw, the Civil War quaintness of untouched cities like Three Rivers and Constantine, the storied racial dichotomy of Benton Harbor/St. Joseph and its healing, the isolation of our offshore islands on any coast, and the historical and geologic significance of Drummond Island. Our upper peninsula is shouldered on the Laurentian Shield - the bones of earth, the oldest bedrock on the freaking planet. Think scifi. Think future film. Think women directors this September. Promote the locations. Michigan is diverse. Michigan is singular in her multitudinous filming opportunity. Think real estate. Location, location, location.

Think women. Think women directors in September. The box is closed for blockbusters. Be creative. Women filmmakers are.

Think Anatomy of a Murder, and how long overdue a significant indie-pushed award-winning film done in Michigan is.

Get involved. Attract the business that is growing, engaged, vibrant and economically profound for Michigan.

There are 7,231 women directors listed on http://directedbywomen.com/en/

Look at @DirectedbyWomen on twitter and discover why this is a good place to focus attention.

Approach every woman on this list and you've got your Michigan Film Office campaign for the next 10 years.

Get involved. Again.

Moving

10 years 8 months in this house. The longest time I've been at any address. And the place I've most not wanted to be. My father and brother have lived here since 1992. My mother died in this house in 1998. I've struggled with learning about the father who was my mother's husband, and my brother's father. And with me. Saturday my sister-in-law and her daughter helped me with packing. We spent an afternoon in one closet, sorting the picture albums. All the pictures my parents moved from England, Finland and their last house. A long closet, with the top shelf stuffed to the ceiling with pictures covering over 100 years. Six generations. This picture is at one of my marital homes, with a big pool and time with the nieces and nephews and the happy memories. The little girl in the picture is the woman who helped with the pictures. My sister-in-law (who's been 40 years in the family) said "ah, look at this," at most albums, and I said, "take it, or pitch it." She's been my family for most of my adult life, and I love her most for her compassion. My niece took pictures of the cousins and put them on facebook, and held the garbage bags open. I took 20 garbage bags to the curb today, and they were heavy. The photos we ditched were 1) people we didn't know, 2) trips we didn't take, and 3) all my mother's church stuff. Both my wedding albums went in the trash, and they were my albums. Did my mother have a photo album of my weddings? No. Did my mother have any albums of any of our weddings? No. Me, two. John. Paul. David. Susan. No wedding pictures. Were there 10 garbage bags of church trips? Yes. There were photo albums of funerals - my great-grandmother and grandmother in coffins. Bizarre! I remember yelling at my mother at my grandmother's funeral as she snapped away. "What's wrong with you?" My sister-in-law remembered, too. So, all in the trash. 20 bags. I saved the albums of Aunt Suoma and her friends. Carefree, happy, kick-line beach bunny girlfriends in the 1920s in America. And the pictures of my grandmother Saima, strong, how I remembered her. And my niece was interested to hear. She shot meat, skinned it, caught fish, kick-sledded where she needed to go, didn't suffer fools lightly and loved me. Like I love my niece. Fierce. And proud. I saved pictures of my mother for me. Pictures of how I would have liked to know her. Strong. Not the strong that she made up as she went along, but truly strong. There's one picture in the box I saved that I will take to my grave. In this picture, the wind is in her hair. She smiles with the knowledge that she is invincible. That whatever life brings she will conquer. Before I knew her: before. We're moving. It is the last move for my father, who still can't sort out why his mother died when he was 13. It never changed for him. I wonder if women get over it? My brother, who may have lost what sense of the world he had when my grandmother died. He has Alzheimer's disease. And me. Is this my last house? Dad and Scott and me will move from the house where we lost. For a while, I hope it will be the house where we gain.

Three Story Life 2014

Another Caregiver Ninja week featuring ambulance, hospital stay, care coordination and a diminishing sense of who and where I am. Seems that each crisis is easier in the coordination of, and harder in the emotional aspect. That isn't what I mean: it feels like I'm untethered from Self and drifting farther away from help and safety. Think Gravity with better underwear. We had that talk about DNR with my father and maybe we're closer to discovering what he really thinks. Specifics were discussed. Yes, 911; no vasopressor and intubation. Disturbing to find out that regardless of what is on file at the destination hospital, staff will go through the steps one by one. My own end of life preferences get in the way. Dad takes a myriad of meds, has had surgeries and procedures and dozens of machine tests. My journey is different. Three stories of end of life emotions, tactics and the overwhelming experience of it all. I told Dad his job for the future is to appreciate. Each day, the color changes, good meals, a fine night's sleep, calming memories, warm socks, hot coffee, a returned phone call. I'm trying to take my own advice.

Bring Me The Head of Kyori Sato

I've coveted the Integrity Toys Fashion Royalty Urban Geisha Kyori Sato for years. I cannot explain it to myself. Nonetheless, I craved. I bought an Adele Makeda doll 6 years ago because she did not have the price point of Sato. I could justify that expense to myself. She's special, but Adele Makeda is not Kyori Sato. If I was feeling flush, I'd shop for the Urban Geisha, but mostly I'm never flush enough, can't justify the expense, chicken out. She is rare and expensive. I do not consider myself a doll collector. I did have all the Disney Great Villains dolls, which I sold this year. So maybe that's why I felt like I could finally get Kyori Sato. A deal showed up on ebay. I won the auction. I was thrilled to see the box arrive. She'd been described as taken out of the box, so I wasn't afraid to take her out myself. What I forgot was that early FR dolls are not fully articulated. I tried to turn Kyori's head. Her head came off. Not from the stem, her neck cracked raggedly, and I was staring at the decapitated body of my dream doll, her detached head still wobbling on the desktop. Stunned, I glanced up at the Adele Makeda doll on my dresser and, for a tiny moment, I thought she was smiling. In the complicated and entertaining backstory of Jason Wu's Fashion Royalty coterie, Kyori Sato and Adele Makeda are mortal enemies. I did not own Urban Geisha Kyori Sato for a full day before I killed her. For another full day I tried not to tip over into crazy. No, Adele Makeda did not cut off the head of Kyori Sato. Yes, the rigid plastic is a problem, and her neck knob was fused, and no, I did not subconsciously buy this doll so I could maim her. So what's the lesson? There are 1001 stories to write about this ersatz tragedy. A million universal truths to mediate upon, another million to discard. And one day I'll be brave enough to open the box again to glue her head back on her jagged neck.

Guybonics

An ex brother-in-law, a person who thought himself a real grown man, was my sister's husband when this word was born. We were sitting on the couch at a family dinner, and he was blathering about how his family meant everything in the world to him. How he only lives to take care of his wife and his baby girl, how he does without to provide for them. I was squirming mightily, too polite to guffaw. He continued building his own virtual statue in the town square until I did laugh out loud. What? he asked. What you just said, I laughed. He said that's ebonics. He thought I meant the phrase he used. I laughed harder. I know what ebonics is, I said. That was guybonics. This ex-brother-in-law is someone I will happily slap, should I have the misfortune to run into him, for the pain he's caused women I love. But he sure was the creator of some of my best words. Guybonics is mansplaining plus total detachment from any self-awareness, coupled to the belief that women are dumb as stumps. Guybonics is taking the facts, flipping those 180, and calling your bluff to your face. Guybonics is swearing you do without to provide for your baby girl while wearing a $2,000 Hugo Boss suit and some $1,200 skin shoes, and that baby girl is in an outfit her mother bought her. Saying I'm sorry if I hurt you, right after you just told him he did hurt you, is guybonics. Oh, well, I don't know when you explained something from certain knowledge, is guybonics. Saying this is not what it looks like when you discover him naked in the sack with someone not you. Guybonics. Every woman can add to the definition: we know it when we hear it. And it takes the sting away a little to know what the language is. One of an ex's favorite lines is from a chockablock doofus movie D. C. Cab. Some guy asks "what are women so pissed off about? They're got half the money and all the p***y." That is guybonics. That is also why the ex is an ex. He spoke guybonics fluently.

Like Me Fund Me

Talking with a filmmaker friend yesterday, we were enjoying the prospect of a new Alice Guy Blache documentary being produced. Be Natural: the Untold Story of Alice Guy Blache. Actually, it has been told, more than once; and brilliantly by Alison McMahan, but Madame Blache is not in the zeitgeist yet. There are players attached to the project - Robert Redford, ExP, Jodie Foster, narrator. And the researchers highlighted are topnotch. Well done backgrounding by PIC Agency codirectors. The film is a Kickstarter project. I'm an old bird-the crowdsourcing stuff was outside my range of vision. So, I educate myself a little more. The creators want $200,000 from you and me to complete the documentary. Robert Redford is Sundance, yes? Why do they need our money? Looking into project crowdsourcing this morning, I found this article from indiewire on the relative success (as can best be determined by squishy data) of indiegogo, Kickstarter, and newbie Seed & Spark. The big loot in filmmaking is focused on franchise film, overseas sales, and a dumb audience. Please no documentaries, dialogue, story or character. These stories are being left to us, the audience with little money, but a need to feed our brains and hearts. Will I give $$ to realize an Alice Guy Blache documentary? The big studio boys with the real money have zero interest in a story about the woman narrative film pioneer. Pull focus: do I want this film made? Yes. Will I change the dynamic of Hollywood financing by not helping this film be made? No. Do I have a big headache? Affirmative. Will logging in and clicking "confirm" cure it? Probably not, but I just did it. Ugh! Amazon! How much is that behemoth taking out of this? I'm wondering how far we are away from crowdsourcing all our creative - those projects in art, music, literature that keep us human. How far away are we from privatizing education and crowdsourcing teaching children? Log into Amazon, click confirm $K-12.

The Newsphere Changed My Brain

In a story I’m writing there is a character named Catalyst. Catalyst is an ambassador. Ambassadors negotiate peace and foment discord, as required by the political body they serve; specifically, the agenda of the power brokers who influence that political body.

Catalyst is a cynical character.

Are our news sources cynical as well? I don’t know. I do know that I became a cynical news consumer, and an aggravated commenter. Read the comments beneath any news piece on the internet and feel the itch to log in and rejoin. En garde! Claim your space, bash the other side. Anonymously. Because who wants to be attacked for an opinion?

To be clear, news is not opinion. Journalism is not opinion. What we read today is primarily not news. What we find is an endless loop of links to opinion pieces that conform to our gut take on a news story, and we choose what we consume based on confirmation bias. Guests on TV nonfiction (can't call these news) shows are well-known for which side they’re on. News has become a virus-its sole mission to replicate itself.

Why do I see weekly Rush Limbaugh video on MSNBC shows except Rachel Maddow’s and Chris Hayes’? Because MSNBC is confirming our political bias, while whining that Fox News does the same thing. Why does Dee Dee Myers wish the Anthony Weiner story would go away, while agreeing to discuss the Anthony Weiner story on a Sunday nonfiction show?

Famine, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, is a character in Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman’s book Good Omens. Famine in this modern dark comedy owns a chain of fast food restaurants. The more you eat, the sooner you die of malnutrition.

A friend had been attending a mindfulness class. I asked what mindfulness meant. She gave me an example: pain is pain. It happens and then it abates. When one revisits the pain, that is suffering. Suffering is memory of pain, rather than pain itself.

I was starving for news and could not stop consuming. The news was making me suffer. I was lucky to regain my mental health because of Dr. Christine Tracy and her book, The Newsphere.

News addiction, in an era when news is mixed with opinion like a drug masked in a cocktail, has to be cured by avoidance. Dr. Tracy calls it going on a news diet. She changed my brain. I read the sites and the columnists I had bookmarked, only as Dr. Tracy suggested, I listened to my gut reaction. Was I angry? Did the news story make me think or just make me triumphant because I agreed, or furious because I did not?

One by one I offloaded the bookmarks. Inch by column inch, I quit reading the loudest side-takers. Then the more subtle nudgers. Any news that made my insides holler I stopped reading. In the newsphere, I trained my brain to read those writers/observers who advance my knowledge base, point me willingly to the writers who are thoughtful and can debate the other side, and give me facts I crave. Real news, real reporters. There are rules in journalism, and our world has abandoned too many. Where and when the rules are abandoned, I abandon those sources.

News can instigate dialogue and action. We must be aware and active participants in our news consumption. When I comment today, I point out where the piece went awry in actually being news.

I commented on an inflammatory headline on a major news site, and the headline was changed that day. I commented on an NPR story headline that misrepresented the report of a medical paper, and NPR changed the tagline. Was it me? I don’t know. I feel neither triumph nor anger. I did the thing it was appropriate to do.

Participation in news - in keeping news honest and informative - is healing, not damaging, both to the news cycle and the person consuming. Not reacting when reaction is the goal is a gift. What I learned from The Newsphere applies to life as well. I am calm. And grateful.

Untraining Boot Camp

We need a Boot Camp to unlearn patriarchy. We need an intense 6 week course of untraining. For the first 3 weeks, we unwind the tape. You are a little girl. You do not learn by rote (and suggestion that this will be your work onward) to wash dishes, do laundry, set the table, curl your hair, iron, cross your ankles when seated. You learn that polite is what everyone needs to be; that nice needn't be your primary characteristic. You have never had to kneel on the floor in school to make sure your skirt touches the linoleum, planting permanently in your brain that what you wear is more important than what you learn. Or any other unnecessary female wardrobe tyranny. You are still called on for the correct answer after 9 years old. No teacher or professor has told you what girls can and cannot do. You have never had an adult shame you because you are female; or observed a boy do this and not be reprimanded. You are told regularly by those in authority that you are equal: if not that, you never hear that you are not equal. You have not been counseled to get an education for jobs like teaching or cosmetology that will provide for you if you never marry. You are never told that joy for us is rare, that you will not measure up, that you cannot have a job, a career, a skill or a dream because you are a girl. The second half of Untraining Boot Camp. We are adult women. For 3 weeks we watch movies, television, look at magazines, browse websites, social media sites, advertisements, listen to people who do not know we are listening and understand finally and forever that too much of what we view repeatedly every day of our lives is designed to make women feel inferior, commodified, diminished, and scared. And that what we experience in relationships and work is the result of the cumulative effect, and the implied entitlement to, and acceptance of, that bias. We hear women bear witness about sexual aggression on the street, at work, at home, on the battlefield. We testify in safety and begin to heal. When we graduate from Unlearning Boot Camp, we are qualified to teach others that women are every bit as capable, intelligent, and eager to succeed as any other gender out there. We will be a positive influence and stellar role model. We then can and will all move forward and kick patriarchy in the nards with our shiny new untraining boots.

Dress for Success

The suits I can no longer wear (or want to) came out of the closet. Finally. When I moved in 2004, I donated armloads of business suits to Secondhand Rose in Mt. Clemens, keeping the vintage designer suits. I took the remaining suits to the local resale shop last week. The young woman said the shop wasn't taking long-sleeved items. I didn't comment. Maybe I was wondering how many short-sleeved business suits are out there? If you keep quiet, people will fill in the empty space with something, because people don't like quiet. So while I thought about next steps, she offered, "And these are dated." I laughed. One person's dated is another's vintage coutiere. Asked around to find a local shop that will allow women reinventing their lives to choose outfits for free. Dress for Success in Catherine's House on the Saint Joseph Mercy Health System campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan does that. I talked with a woman (and lost the note with her name!) who started as a volunteer, and now does interview training for women job seekers. Dress for Success will take donations of business suits, accessories (not jewelry), make-up (new), shoes, handbags and briefcases. She said their success rate at getting women hired is about 85%. For those women who are clothed and trained in business schools, the job acquisition is in the 90th percentile. Dress for Success is a national organization, and one I am going to support wholeheartedly as best I can. Women helping women. What a divine concept! The website's tagline is Going Places. Going Strong. Yes, ma'am.

A Three Story Life Separate

I'm sitting here in the dungeon wondering if the pain in my chest is physical. If I don't finish this post, you'll know it was. Just had another quaky conversation with our father about Scott going to the grocery store. We disagree on whether Scott is comfortable going. My brother is Dad's legs. He claims it helps Scott to fetch things - keeps him alert. Perhaps. Dad offered as evidence that Scott hurries to carry out tasks assigned. My brother has speed issues. His awareness of where his body ends, and how fast it's traveling, is compromised by Alzheimer's. Scott said no to the store the other day. That's major involvement for him, and I'd like for his choices to be honored. Later I heard Dad tell Scott to get his coat on: they were going to the store. Tried to talk about it today because Dad's sitting upstairs waiting for Scott to come home from an outing and he'll take him to the store. I tried hard to be reasonable, thoughtful and respectful. I said I would go to the store. Dad said he himself wanted to go out. Fine, I said, I'll pick up most of it and you can go mosey later. Dodging and weaving around the issue. Dad was lulled into confessing that he is still focused on discipline. This is our primary difficulty in the house. While our father may mildly grasp the realities of Alzheimer's disease, he deeply believes that Scott's behaviors can, and should be, controlled. Curbed. That's the word he used. And my heart started aching again. I have no more strength for this situation. So discussions will commence with the rest of the family about alternatives. I cannot help either of them, and I cannot help myself from here.