summer has arrived in full blast, as it got warm and steamy here, school let out, and all of a sudden there were police incidents on at least half a dozen corners on my way to my son's house, where i go every night.

tonight i've gone already, glad to be home at only nine, glad to be off those streets on a friday which could only be worse than a thursday. though you never know, sometimes trouble comes in waves and it can be very quiet out there when you least expect it.

i've been mulling over using the power of writing to change a perceptual dynamic which could ruin us, between my wife and son; neither can see their way out of it. i can but am not sure i want to throw my writing in there like a firebomb where everyone talks about stuff i wrote indefinitely for a few years, i'm just not sure it's worth it to draw all that attention to the writing itself. it's kind of like here: i'm free to tell the brutal truth because very few people read it, and if they really started reading it i'd be challenged a lot more and would get into arguments. if the writing were to really solve the problem, or even unravel the strands of lifelong habits it would be worth it. but why would reading something i wrote make anyone change? for the most part they already know how i feel.

if then i back down on that project then i need to revive one of my other writing projects. almost have beasts entirely proofread and much to my chagrin there were more errors than i thought. most all of them typos but hey. have to get down in there and fix them as one of my top priorities.

but then there's memoir of a dmdd parent survivor or some such thing that is really almost written, maybe i should just finish and put it away, don't publish, don't share. send it to some people maybe. only as i'm ready.

then there's bluffs leveretts, a prize project but one that keeps getting stalled as i come up against the birth of my grandfather who after all i knew. for some reason that's a problem. i can't write about people i know because i'm afraid i'll say something they might not have approved of. so i'm suspended in time, at about 1900, when grandpa was five and was just about developing his own personality. i'm having trouble just moving forward: to the war, the roaring twenties, the depression, the meat of the book it could be although the late 1800s was already pretty intense.

i have a novel called sorry for late. it's about esl teaching in carbondale, and it too is at least half done. wouldn't be too hard to just finish that one up if i got inspired and just got on the horse and did it.

i heard my wife give the "page-a-day" lecture to our foster son who almost finished high school but who now is languishing; things happened; he didn't quite get there; now he has to ask their permission for him to just get that last half-a-class done. i think they'll let him finish - he's come this far! but i'm sure also that they're sick of this kind of last minute graduate-me event. enough! he lazed around all semester, couldn't get in there at 8 30, or 9, or even 10 half the time. we're wondering if he'll ever make it.

my point being, that "page-a-day" advice really should be applied to me, as i am having trouble tacking progress on any of the above projects. here are a few yet more.

vowels, my lifetime project. its whole name is actually vowels on an elevator. it's pure language theory and i'm not sure i can do it under such stress.

rewrite of one woman's voice, turns out to be one of my better sellers, i'm enjoying marketing it and i can easily keep it in the one-millions range as i can usually find someone to read it.

wallace book - intended to cover the whole range from back in scotland, 1500-1600, their coming over ~1798, the new castle / beaver county years, three or four generations in western pennsylvania; grandpa's epic trip to iowa; finally uncle bones and whatever my cousin might say about him, yet to be determined.

lots on my plate, and i sit here languishing. i have trouble when my family is under huge stress and there's nothing i can do about it. that's why i came up with that writing project - in hopes that maybe it was doing something about it. it's not. believe me it's sitting in this computer having nothing done on it.

family seems to be doing ok, growing up and out for the most part except for #8, subject of that book. #9 got a job, #10 already had one; both will have apartments or rooms or something before long. and will be paying for it themselves.

i kind of feel like watching the front street, but i have closed off the front windows to keep the searing afternoon sun out of my room where it will really heat up the front part of it, especially right here where i like to sit and write. so these quilts are now hanging here and it does help keep the sunlight off me and off the space around me. but there was a value to the open windows: i liked to cast my eyes down to the bricks of the b-road (we live on broad), and watch as cars zoom by. i'm barely even hearing them these days. much as i like not hearing them, i miss them too at the same time.

then with summer comes itchy eyes, sweat that makes me feel like i stink as i sit here, snd scratchy legs where i walked around and they came up against some weeds. the weeds will drop their little sticky things on you if they think you'll carry them up the yard a little. they mostly just itch me 'til i take a shower.

got one son who's driving straight west out of atlanta tonight, fixin to go across alabam, mississipp, louisiana(?) and texas, as far as he can go in an evening. i'm tired already though, and not going to keep him company, by text or call, beyond a certain point.

here are a couple of memorial day stories. memorial day had a rocky start, because half the country didn't care for the union soldiers, and even had their own day to memorialize their own. there was a movement to make memorial days, and "keep" them, but it was different in different places and they even picked different days until they could all settle on the one we have now.

i lived in a small town in southern illinois that claimed to have the first one, but apparently there are a lot of towns like that, and its memorial day was clouded by the fact that there were lots of southern sympathizers in the area and people felt like john a logan was trying to lead them in a direction they didn't feel unified in going. he held his ceremony in this one cemetery practically doowntown. today there are one-way streets on either side of it and it's kind of lost in modern-world traffic. but that there, we used to say, was where they had the first memorial day service.

i had a great grandmother who was big on keeping memorial day. they wouldn't let her speak at her college (hillsdale college) because she was a woman, but she wanted to be a public speaker, so she made a living reciting civil war poetry at veterans' encampments. it helped that she was quite beautiful, but she would recite this poetry and all the drunk veterans would start hooting and hollering like crazy. she became attached to the veterans and when she needed a serious topic to expound on she would start in on keeping memorial day. we should always remember what we fought and died for, she would say, and in this case it was equality and freedom for everyone. she'd get wound up but would always have perfect elocution.

her biggest performance was one night in minneapolis where she recited without a mic in a crowded venue, and stole the show. she wss good at public speaking and knew how to get a crowd wound up. she commanded respect and spoke strongly but plainly. the fact that she was beautiful, and the veterans were generally a little drunk, usually worked in her favor. when it didn't she knew how to handle it.

one thing about civil war veteran encampments was that because a huge number of people had died, they always took time to remember some of those. we didn't have too many big wars for about fifty years, but in world war one (the great war) everyone went, and again lots of them died. now it was the whole country. now when they wanted to remember those who died, everyone was behind it, and they had no trouble making it a national holiday. everyone had long ago forgotten those services where. they tried to remember the civil war vets, way back when the country was just trying to forget the whole thing.

Beasts of Ayutthaya

Beasts of Ayutthaya

Three retellings of Beauty and the Beast

On Amazon:
$10.59 in Paperback
$2.99 on Kindle
free on kindle unlimited

A beautiful young woman falls in love with a beast - what could possibly go wrong? These three tales explore that question, in the light of Disney's classic animation and the original 1740 tale, along with a few other variations. It seems it's more common than you think. Beasts can be charming, handsome in their own way, intelligent, loyal, fiercely protective....yet they can kill without hesitation or guilt. They may of course turn into a prince - but is that so great? Visit 18th century Siam (Thailand) for these variations. Be Our Guest, White Elephant, and The Halberd give you some idea of the importance of elephants and tigers in ancient Thai culture, and tell tales that are worth comparing to the tales we know.

nice, fine thunder-boomer out there, with bright lightning, big huge thunder that makes the dogs bark, flooding roads, the whole works. driving out to my son's, in a town about two miles away, i almost got out of it, since it was kind of centered in our town, and there was still a kind of eerie daylight on the edges of it for a while. but back in town, in my own house, it really let loose, and the puppies got nervous.

i've been watching for it and actually doing some gardening, and that's very gratifying since it seems to be a built-in instinct to do gardening right before the rain, whether you will actually get any banefit from said gardening or what. you get out there, you pull weeds, the rain pours on everything you didn't pull, and lots of it is very happy that you got rid of all that competition, and it's ready to come up on its own now.

gardening of course leaves me a little stiff and a little dirty, but all that will wash off in the evening shower.

a big day on the blogs, as you might know, this is the main one, over 4800 visited last month alone, welcome to all the visitors, and since you're rolling in, and maybe even reading this, let me just say, i'm a writer with lots of books on amazon, i get writer's block frequently as i've got now, i always seem to be able to ramble on, here, so i do, and finally, i use all small letters to emphasize that it's not pored over, perfected, fact-checked, or any of that, it's just rambling. because i do it more or less entirely for my own purposes that's why it's survived so long, look at that template, there's all kinds of stuff on here. not the least of which is pics of my family carefully concealed so if someone swipes the picture, they won't swipe the name with it. i am very jealously protective of my family but at the same time couldn't live if i didn't have some kind of personal place where i could put their pictures, so this is it.

it's linked on to about 38 blogs that could be considered my system, many of them personal like this one with pictures and me rambling, some of them more on the professonal side. as i become a writer i try to make them more commercial, or possibly better at leading people to my books, but i'm incredibly bad at blatant commercialism and it's taken me years to get even close. nevertheless you can find many of my books here and many of my blogs are so aligned with the books themselves that of course you will find something to lead you to the books if you are looking for them.

all my friends and family seem to be going over to substack, it's the hot thing. if you have something really intelligent to say that's obviously the place. these days i don't have much intelligent to say except "buy my books!" and even that is just commercial yelling, sure to get drowned out in the marketplace. the closest i could get to substack is on my professional blog, which has been going on as long as this one, which also had over 4000 visitors last month, and which has all kinds of esl-related, language-related, interesting things. i however am retired so all i'm really saying these days is to curse the present regime and "buy my books" which is not as intelligent as I'd like. if i can say it, i'll put it over there.

for example i have this little thing about cursive. i have a great-great grandfather who made a very excellent cursive and made enough of it that i could easily put it in a book. i'm sitting here on "the story of my life" which is his rant about how the leaders of hillsdale college screwed him for nothing more than jealously hanging onto its endowment when times were tough; he was the treasurer and as such had sympathy for the rebuilding efforts after the great fire but still didn't believe the endowment should be used to rebuild. hillsdale at that time was not like the conservative place it is today, or rather, it had some common features but wasn't the same hillsdale we know now. anyway his cursive is gorgeous and i'm just sitting on it. time to make a book of cursive. rather, time to fix the printer with the good scanner.

more later, enough damage for one night.

thunder makes the puppy push up against my tummy as he hides in my lap; he doesn't like it. it's a fairly normal storm passing through i think, no tornados yet, and it's really good for a garden i just planted. i like to remember something i heard about rainwater being much better than hose water because of the electrolytes or whatever, i forget the details, but in that case i had pretty good timing because it rained right after i put in the first half, and it's raining now, now that i finished putting everything in. i still have to construct some kind of fence and maybe go get a couple of tomato rings, but then i can just watch it all summer and pick out the onion shoots.

in spite of the rain we were able to get two young girls, nine and ten, off to school like normal children, and i was surprised how normal the whole thing was. we lined up behind the other cars; when we got to the front of the line, i said, 'make like usain and bolt,' and they did, and off they went reasonably happy and optimistic for a new week of school. both have had their trials with school. but it seems that as they get more stable in their home and like the routine and the care that we have, things have actually calmed down a little.

ok here's my little political rant. how hard would it be for an unscrupulous administration to stage a shooting at the correspondent's dinner? here you take this gun. you shoot it right at the bullet-proof vest, you won't kill anyone. it'll make noise and there'll be a big fuss and you'll be arrested and the witness protection program will take care of you forever, and pay you handsomely. the world will forget about you. the president and his men will be heroes, actively saved by a careful secret service and they will get a popularity bump from sympathy for the victims of a ruthless attack by liberal academics. it doesn't hurt, of course, that the guy was an academic and voted dem at least once. perfect! the most important thing, he needs a million bucks and a new life.

the answer is, not so hard.

a big thunder came through. poor puppy, he's alarmed. everything else, though, is going back to normal.

happy birthday!









april rocks!

tradition

a kind of frantic morning leaves me totally exhausted, hobbling up the stairs with another cup of coffee. it's the day before my birthday and things are kind of heating up even though the weather is cold, clear, crisp and the grass is growing like crazy.

two problems were taking feather to get a haircut and taking a 17-year-old to school - he cuts most of the time but there was supposed to be a meeting today which we got wrong (it's tomorrow) so we pressured him and he texted, ready to be picked up out at this projects-like place out on the edge of town. i don't like driving all the way out there just to take him to school but we really really want him to finish school so we'll do just about anything if he's willing to go there. the place has geese and a little creek so it's a nice setting but someone just got their car window broken and tire slashed right where i park so that's a little unsettling.

decided to take feather first, but the vet has three doors, and the first two were very uneventful, very confusing. little feather was shivering hard and it was already cold. he will come out with nice short hair just in time for the warm weather and for our birthday, tomorrow. i miss him already though.

got back to find the younger girl in a huge fight with my wife over a bathing suit which she was unable to find. all this is for swimming later in the day. actually i kind of liked her hauling out and yelling, fighting back, because she's a strong woman who is well-loved and capable of fighting for her rights even if she's totally misguided and wrong. no problem. poor girls had their twin in a car accident yesterday so there's stress all around. the older one, usually far more combative, was somewhat quiet maybe feeling the responsibility of being the oldest of the three and worrying about the younger twin who, after all, is not here but at some other foster home recovering from a traumatic experience.

got them to school with the usual "make like usain and bolt!" as they were whispering conspiratorially in the back seat, in such a way that i couldn't hear whatever their complaints were against my wife. they kind of know that i'll either take my wife's side, or say nothing, anyway, so there's not much point in getting me involved. they don't seem to carry over whatever grudge they have against her, onto me, i'm only the driver.

this doesn't even cover two others we are responsible for, who are no doubt still asleep, as it's only 9 30. but it's enough and the cold ground seems to send its chill right up through my worn out sandals, i wear socks and sandals in a kind of quaker uniform but mostly because my big shoes, which probably have the only decent support, are just such a hassle when it's muddy. which is most of the time.

i'm sitting here stressed out, in my chair, with the afternoon sun streaming in facing me. i somehow find this easier than being in it, with it right on back, heating me up, so i move away from it, and face it, and now it only bugs my eyes. it will be this way all summer, with it streaming in, afternoons, from the west over broad street. the little dust bunnies that i need to clean up kind of glow in it.

puppy is stressed out because now he's gone maybe seven months without a haircut, and his fur is too long. time for a cut. he has this condition where this iron-colored something comes down and marks up his face; it's natural, but when his hair is too long it's worse. poor puppy.

sometimes i think it's just because i have too many kids, and i worry about them all. the two right smack in our lives, nine- and ten-year-old foster girls, had a huge fight at after-school, and the guy came right up to me when i picked them up. i guess you could say in his own way he was pleading to me to discipline them. i'm too tired. if they screamed at him from the minute they got there, which i believe, it was likely, then most likely they had a reason, and of course when we get home it's always all his fault. because he's a jerk. well yes but i'm a teacher, so kind of secretly, i'm on his side. i took away their screens but that was just a reward, for me, to be outside, watch them play in the mud and sticks in the breezy spring afternoon. a puppy was out there too. i had nothing special for them to do; i'm not thinking that far ahead - but i thought i'd better do something. when their mom got home maybe she gave them screens back. i think mom thinks maybe this guy is just a jerk.

then another son quit a job in california and is moving to chicago. i should be excited. instead i'm full of trepidation. the (truck driving) job in chicago pays better, and will allow him to support his new famiy. but he's had trouble with chicago before. and chicago has a winter, unlike l.a....having him drive on those frozen roads, well, trepidation city. but that one is not for five or six months. by that time maybe he'll have time to get used to backing, and will be able to talk to people about how to handle it. of all the truckers up here in illinois, the survivors have all learned how to duck out during the worst of it, and not let the icy roads throw their trucks into a ditch.

one turned twenty-one and is still dependent. i had to throw his friend out this morning, take him to school. his mom was threatening to call the police. i don't want the police going out to that son, and asking why he's harboring a fugitive minor. he somehow feels he's just a victim. the guy walked in while he was asleep. he didn't kick him out, no, but he can't do that i guess. it's a friend, an old friend. i'm not sure the kid actually went to the school after i dropped him off, but i at least took him there. if he wants to go out to my son's trailer, he'll have to walk three more miles. maybe he'll get tired of walking.

that's actually enough to be stressed out about, but there's more. sometimes i take the time between rides and just hide out in my room working on family hiatory. it's really interesting to me how they got through the world war, the. roaring twenties, the crash, the depression, another world war, well that's where it ends pretty much. smack in the forties, and i'll be done, because i'm already writing about people i know, and that actually makes it harder, not easier. makes it more stressful.

i'm invariably interrupted and asked to drive somewhere, like to pick up the girls at after-school, or to take the dependent kid something to eat or drink. more later...

time to celebrate a birthday, a few of them actually. april rocks, i like to say, and the season has already begun. the first was a-d, a foster child who turned nine on the second. she had lots of cake and a big splash especially at school, but it was already pretty much over by tonight with but a few scraps of cake left sitting around.

the second however was CBN, who turned twenty-one, and this i felt was due a huge celebration if only internally, in my mind, where i've been waiting years for him to just become an adult and gain some independence. we rented him a car to go down to quincy to pick up his friends, but he appeared to be having so much fun with friends here in town that he might not even make it down there. no problem, or at least, not a problem with us. there were a bunch of kids here, all older teens, and we got them a pizza and an ice cream cake, but they ate the pizza only and left the cake. the remarkable thing was that they all got along. it was calm and there was no anger about unmet expectations or some kid being treated differently from some other. mind you, there is some anger about that issue in general, but it being his birthday, everyone was being pretty nice.

and the heck of it is, we never found out whether he was still going to quincy. if he left immediately after he left here, he'd get back around midnight which is already too late for me and which bothers me like any car full of black kids might bother a bored policeman on a tuesday night in rural illinois. but i'm sure he knows this and will drive carefully if he does anything at all. and he'll have friends with him who will surely keep him awake.

here's my surprise: i'm writing a book about it. how we treated a special kid, how we reacted to his dmdd, how it broke apart our family but still somehow we managed. i'm not sure if i can actually show this book to everyone, or whether one should make such things public, but it sure feels good writing it. it's like i've been waiting all along to tell my story. and also, it's my way of celebrating. i'm not going off to drink a bottle, or smoke a joint, but i'm coming up here enjoying my victory spilling it out like i'm doing here. let the world know how proud i am that he's twenty-one, and neither of us is dead or in jail.

last thing i did, is to take that little piece of cake and eat it. the ice cream cake - that stays untouched, waiting for him to come back, tonight or tomorrow. the girls' cake, i can have that, because that's what dads do.

it was a cold, grim day, windy, about freezing, reminded me of the day we went up to get him, in chicago, when he was born twenty-one years ago. april can be right cold in illinois and it was then as it was today. another son and i saw a baseball game that april and that was cold too. when the family went to pick him up it was later, like two weeks later, but it was cold, windy, gray, seemed actually kind of hostile. we bundled the baby up and kept him warm on the long trip. carbondale unlike galesburg is about six from chicago (galesburg being only three) so we may have taken two days. he was tiny.

today, he's somewhat adrift, trying to come to terms with disability. i think he could still do something with his life, and probably will, but even at twenty-one isn't ready. at least he's staying out of trouble. and has friends. and is still alive, and not in jail.

The Halberd

The Halberd A retelling of Beauty and the Beast

On Kindle $2.99
In paperback $6.99 + shipping

The Halberd is the third in a series of retellings of Beauty and the Beast; along with Be Our Guest and White Elephant, it is part of Beasts of Ayutthaya: Three retellings of Beauty and the Beast. Phang is in love with an elephant, Naresuan, in 18th century Thailand. She is a mahout, an elephant trainer, while he is a white or albino elephant, the most royal of the royal. It is a turbulent time in Thailand, with King Taksin the Great reuniting the Siamese yet losing his mental stability. Enemies conspire to keep them apart. In modern Ayutthaya, a young boy finds a halberd, an ancient weapon used by people who fought on elephants. Relics of the ancient capital stir up everyone's imagination.