Sort of a quick diary entry of our day, with our usual adventures with photography.
Allergy shot today (only 28 more to go. LOL)
Afterward, we had a joyful visit to Barnes & Noble (a rare treat 
these days) and got some goodies.
Melissa bought me a pen-cup I loved, and we of course bought some books too. Tesla: The Life & Times of an Electric Messiah, Pocket Birds of North America, Speeches That Changed the World, The Total Outdoorsman (read: outdoorswoman–sexist bastards.) and a fabulous journal.
On the way home, we saw a fox with an injured paw. Followed it, got 
some video and some stills.
Melissa called Game and Fish to see if someone could come 
capture the poor thing and maybe nurse him or her back to health.
Just before we turned into the driveway, we saw a turkey vulture feeding on an armadillo carcass. eek. I’ll spare you the picture of that one.
We had dinner and started watching a video (Senate committee “question and hear testimony from the Honorable Sally Yates, Former Acting Attorney General and the Honorable James Clapper, Former Director of National Intelligence on Russian Interference in our elections”–which I strongly advise any concerned American to watch! It’s at the end of this post).
We paused.
Rustling noises in the wooded lot next door. Hackles up on Poppet at the window, and Noodle growling. We go outside with our headlamps and cameras to see what little critter is in the woods. At first i thought it was a possum, but it was an armadillo.
Night photography without that set up is challenging, but i managed to photoshop enough to see some of the shots.
Just thought it was cool. Enjoy.
Russian Interference in the 2016 United States Election
Watch LIVE as Senate Dems question and hear testimony from the Honorable Sally Yates, Former Acting Attorney General and the Honorable James Clapper, Former Director of National Intelligence on Russian Interference in our elections:
Posted by U.S. Senate Democrats on Monday, May 8, 2017
Today I had a revelation. I had forgotten to address a very big problem that had recently applied elsewhere. One I had addressed already in the obvious places, but overlooked for a while.
has allowed me to avoid what is a very real and possibly devastating event: being accused of that aforementioned copyright infringement.
cover and every promo sign for them in my catalog (and I have 51 books!) This meant updating all of them by reuploading the new covers to KDP and Createspace (where i publish the print versions), and tracking down the old covers here and there and deleting them. It took a long time and it was time-consuming, meticulous work. I also removed the images on my website where they appear on the books’ pages; and also removed them from social media accounts. I can now say that everything is updated, and all possibilities of infringement avoided. It was a tough mountain to climb, but i got it done.
the entire Adobe suite of programs so I can do everything properly. Aside from Adobe, I use only Pexels and Pixabay for free use stock images; they have the terms right there on each picture, just to be clear. Still, when I use one of those, I take a screenshot of the page I got it from so I can prove, if necessary, I acted on the clear legal statements found on those sites.
And since I wasn’t a professional photographer, and since the cost of stock photography is notoriously and prohibitively expensive, I decided to offer them for one-time use, at only two bucks a pop. Thus, my new website, 2 Dollar Shots was born. I am still hard at work on it, and I hope to have it live within the next month or two. It will be constantly updated, as my wife and I embark upon our new lifestyle, touring around the country in a travel trailer before setting up our homestead. So our photos will get used and appreciated, and those who can’t afford the cost of high quality photos get their problem solved, and I make a new (if small) income stream. It’s a win-win.
Today, I had a dentist appointment, to get a tooth pulled and cavities filled. That’s what I get for avoiding dentists for–what? 15 years? I’ve been fortunate, since I have always enjoyed healthy teeth, but I should have gone to a few of those appointments along the way. I accept the mantel of shame in that regard.
After the photo shoot, the hygienist came in with her mask over her mouth, but not her nose, and explained all she was going to do and how she’d be calling out numbers to the assistant who would record them as she checked everything. Numbers 1 through 3 were good or okay, and anything above that was not so good. While she pierced my gums on either side of each tooth, front and back and called out numbers, I heard something like, “Two, four, five, six, five, four, three, two, four, five, six…” Uh-oh. That does not bode well. But I couldn’t comment on it because she had her fingers and a sharp needle-instrument in my mouth. After all this, the dentist came in next, and he did his exam and then told me I had moved 
past gingivitis and into periodontal disease. Fantastic. Now I really felt terrible about letting my dental health go while I had been busy dealing with Adrenal Exhaustion, menopause, hormonal imbalances, a cold, tonsillitis, bronchitis, severe allergies and allergy shots, weight gain, blood pressure issues, nerve pains in my back, fibroids, biopsies, and the looming hysterectomy. Yes, it seems all my pressing and new health issues seem to be converging at once. I try to think of it as getting it all over with so I can begin my new lifestyle with my wife, footloose and fancy free.
itself. First, these test results, then the plan for what will be done, which i believe at my age, needs to be a full hysterectomy so i won’t have to worry about future issues. Then the waiting for the surgery. Then the surgery itself (I’ve never had surgery, never been under anesthetic. Never been in the hospital.) Then the worries about post-op–not the pain or the recovery time, but the complications. If something wasn’t done properly, an instrument was left in my guts, or i don’t wake up from the anesthesia, or something else unexpected happens. SCARY SCARY SCARY.
those fibroids are embedded in. Uterus. Ovaries. Farewell to those organs that never served any other damn purpose in my life. Seriously. None.
to another pair of organs. As much as surgery is on my Top Five Biggest Fears, it should be done, and if I am to have the life and health I desire, it must be done. But that infamous Second-Biggest Fear is being dealt with by largely ignoring it entirely for as long as possible. No sense being stressed and panicked until I absolutely have to be. I’m sure there will be plenty of fear to go around the day of the…the…medical procedure. That’s the other thing I do. It freaks me out to call it SURGERY. So whenever I refer to it, verbally or in my mind, I say it’s the simple-procedure-which-i-get-to-sleep-through….
travel trailer. I think if the procedure is scheduled too far into the future, we should not hang around, twiddling thumbs and feeling trapped, but will instead stay on our original schedule, and leave anyway. Get the new trailer as planned, store what we want to keep here, and head north, make camp. Visit Melissa’s family, a few friends all along the way, enjoy a few photography excursions, then, when the procedure draws nigh, we can hook up and head back down to an RV park near Washington Regional in Fayetteville, have the procedure, go back to the camp site to recover for a few days, and then we can head back north, and decide what the next plan is.
that if we were going to make a round trip to the Oregon coast, we might as well plot a course to see all 48 states. At our leisure. We’ll be saving money toward buying our homesteading land anyway, and we’ll be able to travel, regardless, since our expenses will be so much less. So while we’re saving for our dream,we get to live another one, and see this beautiful country of ours, and record the adventure in memoir and on our Operation Homestead YouTube channel and on my under-construction photo stock page, 2 Dollar Shots…
not as ominous as I might feel it is in my fragile moments. I have a chief of surgery doing it; a highly credentialed man with 25-some-odd years of experience, and a five-star rating for both his skills and his bedside manner. I take comfort in these facts, and spend a good deal of energy deflecting irrational responses that curl up into my brain and try to take root. It seems the scariest things in life are always mired in the unknown. What we don’t know or understand, we fear. It’s a primitive response; one which I wish I could conquer once and for all.
Just down the road on Highway 23, we stopped to take photos of a tree full of turkey vultures. Creepy and wonderful. 
This was balanced by a precious little bluebird Melissa captured nearby. But not a turkey bluebird.
large bird along the woodline ahead. I slowed the truck to a crawl and finally stopped, as Melissa said there! I took a couple of blind shots, as the sun was in my eyes and on the viewing screen, and my glasses were in just the wrong position to see it. She informed me it crossed the road, even though i didn’t see it. Luckily, one of my quick shots actually caught it as it crossed the road. A very large turkey, ironically enough, since we’d already seen turkey vultures. I was tempted to make that our lunch, but again, not unless we were stranded in the wilderness and it was absolutely necessary. But apparently, just like chickens, turkeys also cross the road just to get to the other side.
Either way, white animals are just not commonly seen in the woods. I started snapping pictures in that general direction, just like I always do, in case I miss the good shot, I’ll at least maybe capture something I can enlarge later. It happened with the turkey earlier, so, hey.
Our stomachs gurgling amid our complaints, we continued out to Highway 23 toward Eureka-proper, and decided we’d stop at the first open restaurant. That happened to be the bright yellow building just inside the outskirts of town by the train station, called Ice Cream Delights. A charming, retro ice cream 
parlor. We had delicious barbecue sandwiches.
backstory.
and that, and at one point he shared a story from one of his colleagues, a National Geographic Explorer named Andres Ruzo, who discovered a “boiling river” in the Amazon. Ruzo spoke of how he was told by an indigenous tribe member to walk barefoot in the area, and the explorer, in a very un-explorer type way, didn’t feel okay about that. He should have listened, because the ground melted his shoe to his foot. Seems if you go barefoot in that region, you know where to walk 
because your feet will sense the heat, and tell you where to go safely. But with shoes on, not so much. Sometimes the counter-intuitive is actually the right thing to do. Ruzo did a 
, was delicious. We had a meat-lover’s pizza, because that’s the traditional meal for a first wedding anniversary (right?).
imagine it was because the cave was dark. Imagine, a cave being dark. How inconvenient.
Most of my adult life, I’ve wanted a full-sized female mannequin posted in my foyer. Not just for comedic value. For practicality. I’m very utilitarian. I figured I could use her to hold the stuff I need by the door. She could wear my hat, hold my keys, my bag, my jacket– either wearing it or draped over one stiff arm. Or I imagined I could just put her in the house somewhere and dress her up in different outfits.
I laughed. “Who cares?”
Melissa suggested Peaches CocoaPudding. But my considered opinion was that Melissa’s name suggestion would relegate her to Lady of the Evening status, and we want our blow up doll to have some class, goddammit.
I’ve done it several times over, and not only with names. As long ago as my early twenties, I began referring to myself and introducing myself to others by another name. Eventually, it led me to legally change it. Psychologically, that was one of the best decisions I ever made for my health. I maintain that the name-change wasn’t running AWAY from something, but running TO. Seeking identity. I wanted to feel like my name was an accurate representation of myself. Like those comfortable clothes or shoes you wear that bring a sense of well-being and satisfaction.
it will be a lovely adventure, we also know it will be full of change and challenge. We are still rather in the harbor, deciding what to put on the boat, and indeed, still finalizing the ownership of that boat– but this voyage is very much about identity. Who we are and what we want our lives to be.
In general terms, water seeks its own level. Refer to Pascal’s Principle, for the scientific explanation, but basically, it means that when you pour a glass of water, it doesn’t just fill up on one side. It fills the whole glass uniformly. Metaphorically, what we do in our immediate space affects everything around us, and also often has effects far beyond our awareness or comprehension. Personally, this level-seeking water has reached a saturation point, and my wife and I feel compelled and completely convinced that we are pointed in the right direction.
As a writer, the concept of revision takes on a deeper meaning in this context.
For example, on a personal level, where I live; I made a set of decisions about where I wanted to go, based on a set of circumstances at the time. I had been in a highly stressful situation for almost three years, inundated with the unfamiliar, feeling helpless and trapped and invisible and lonely. When I left that situation and landed in the place I live now, it seemed idyllic, and indeed, served its purpose.
Critics and naysayers might say that changing locations, jobs, partners, and whatnot, is a sign of instability. Somehow changing things makes you undependable. Wishy-washy. Even unstable, yourself. Certainly, there are those who can’t commit, can’t be relied upon. There are those who lack the discernment and self-awareness to make good decisions; those who flail about, seeking answers in change, when the answers are to be found within. That’s not what I’m suggesting we be.
Happiness and contentment and joy are things we should aspire to, even if it means trying and failing to achieve it, repeatedly. If we are self-actualized; if we seek to know ourselves well enough,
And then there’s Melissa, with her budding writer-self–she has already put out her first episode in 
trade in the Avalanche for a 3/4 ton truck, just to be safe. I’m afraid we’d put too much strain on the Ava. So although we think of this truck as one of our pets (LOL. I know), we’re going to have to let her go soon. Sniff sniff. We have to let go of things to embrace others, right? We want to do things the right way, and so it’s a process.
hair, or a cat’s tail, or Noodle’s whiskers.
I have missed sitting down with a physical book and reading. My recent decision to take a sabbatical and just allow myself to be creative and deadline-free, had me standing in front of my fiction bookshelf, seeking something new. Something enjoyable.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Now, for the first time in the United States, comes the book that started the career of the author that the Irish Examiner calls “one of the best and original of the new generation of Irish writers.”
dulled palate of modern readers. My career has depended upon genre fiction, and there are certain tropes and expectations that must be met in order to maintain that readership. While I always try to defy those expectations in a fresh way that will still keep the reader interested, it’s a precarious balance, and I struggle with the idea that American readers suffer from a sort of dumbing-down. This concept bleeds into our everyday lives, perhaps most notably, in our politics. I never want to contribute to that, but as I pointed out, I also don’t want to become another hack who doesn’t take the craft seriously. So I try to read above my skill-level.
Message in a bottle… After almost two years of struggle with the vicissitudes of Indie writing and publishing, I have, I believe, come up with a solution to all that has been vexing me, and keeping me from reaching the goals I have been working so hard to achieve, and all that has annihilated the joy to be found in the journey.
began to enjoy bestseller status, I had to work even harder to maintain that position. But more importantly, I ceased to enjoy every minute of it, as I had before. I 
had lost the joy, the satisfaction. Writing had become a means to an end, rather than a self-contained delight that began and ended with the creative process. Now, I suffer from anhedonia–exacerbated by the machinations of menopause, and the need to rebuild that broken life I found myself in after my almost three years in New Zealand, and the fallout from an ill-fated love.
it unfolded, in favor of the life I believed was on the horizon. Always just out of reach. Out there, somewhere. John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans.” And that’s exactly the quagmire I found myself in. With everything that has happened in my recent past, and with my health, and our presidential election season, and how much it sucked out of me, and the potential for devastation that is likely to occur, I had lost my way.
TO MY READERS–A QUESTION: As authors, we want to please everyone, but that’s just not possible. For instance, on my newest novella, Saturation Point, I have 4 and 5 star reviews and personal messages and emails that tell me how much they enjoyed the introspective nature of this book, and the characters, but on one review, the reviewer was bored because there wasn’t dialogue on every page, and they didn’t like one of the characters. And so it goes. I still continue to try to strike a balance, but more than that, I always try to tell a story in a new way. I never want my writing to get stale or predictable. That’s another reason why I started the Cross-Pollination Series where I combine popular characters from my books into one storyline.
unfortunately, the idealized view of my work has to be tempered by the practicalities of it also being my JOB…Thus, those of us in the creative arts, if we are to ask for payment for our creations, are under a certain kind of umbrella. I chose to do this professionally. It is not a hobby. Therefore, I MUST be concerned about the readers and what they want to see. I don’t believe i have to compromise my integrity to do that. I still honor the creative aspects and i still tell only the stories i want to tell, in the way I want to tell them. I could do nothing less and still be who I am. While inspiration is a creative expression, and storytelling is also, the implementation and BUSINESS of that creativity is a great deal of work and does also demand judicious things. Novelwriting is a WHOLE BRAIN activity. So is the publishing business. The more I understand about my readers and what they need, the better I can provide what they want, within the parameters of my free creative expression. Thank you for your insight. It’s always appreciated.
Last night a reader contacted me and told me I saved her life. That my books saved her from despondency and suicide. She said she started reading one of my books, and kept reading, and kept reading, moving through my body of work. And she was able to keep going. Moments like that serve to remind me that my work is not just entertainment or escapism, but also a method of inspiring strength, or bringing light to darkness, of revealing the beauty of the human spirit. I always try to depict my characters in a way that inspires others to move forward, even when pitted against seemingly insurmountable odds. I always SHOW, without myth or tilting at windmills, how it’s possible to rise above, and survive when bad people do bad things. I will continue to do that, because it is the core of who I am. And because the world needs that, more than I need a pat on the head, or a paycheck. But the paycheck must be considered. I just choose to find ways to honor myself and my readers, while also honoring the realities of the business, and the limits of sharing creative expressions with the public.
choices that speak to integrity and character, and those lofty ideals should never be dismissed, and indeed, we find ourselves in the environment we do because too many have chosen a career or paycheck over those principles. If good cops begin to mobilize and speak out, then police departments nationwide would move in the direction we need to go. In this case, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. It would take time and dedication, but the end result would place us back in a position of peace and trust between police and the communities they serve. There is no other way. The tumors of racism and self-serving authorities have to be cut out and discarded if we have any hope of reaching those better angels of our nature.
also have no business obtaining guns as easily as they do. The Second Amendment–let’s be clear–was intended as a way for citizens to defend the state, not themselves or their property. It was written during a time when the country was young, and the arms they had the right to bear were muskets, not AK-47’s. They were not anarchists, set on fighting their own government.
aberration of both law and what this country was founded upon. Who needs an automatic weapon in the grocery store? What are they afraid of? Marauding melons? A bathmat blitzkrieg? And how are other members of our citizenry to feel safe when any person with one of those guns, feels he has a right to start shooting, as he sees fit? As such, i am not a proponent of open-carry, as if we are living in the Wild Wild West. And yes, there will always be those who carry firearms concealed, but at least they know they have to hide it and are less likely to use the gun, if they know it’s against the law. That acts as a deterrent for cavalier treatment of a weapon that can take a human life. And proper legislation further protects us from so many of those guns falling into the wrong hands. Once it’s accepted for everyone to walk around with guns strapped to their person, it’s that much easier to think that using that gun is also acceptable.
merely a motorist whose car had broken down. That’s when police should have rendered assistance, not fired a bullet. Protect and serve. PROTECT AND SERVE. What’s so hard about that concept these days, that officers have forgotten what their job is? A badge should never afford you a free pass when taking the life of another human being. While I was gratified that the officer in question was arrested for manslaughter, I have little faith that she will be found guilty and made to pay for her crime, as officers in these cases seldom are.
cling to the hope that at some point, those with power will step up and say no. No more. Until then, more innocent people will die, and more corrupt authorities will enjoy their positions of power.
I have had the strangest developments, lately, with my health. After recovering around 75% of my adrenal health after a year and a half of intensive work on my adrenal exhaustion, and after going into and now being in full-fledged menopause, i now have a mystery on my hands.
along with the headaches, but here’s the weird part. While this relief of allergy symptoms came on the heels of increasingly recovering adrenals, it also happened after missing quite a few doses of my thyroid medication (T4). I found an article that said there was a direct connection with allergies and synthroid/levothyroxine, and that patients with this reaction should switch to one of several other types of T4 replacement meds. So i wondered if maybe my allergies had been caused by the synthroid/levothyroxine. Just to test this, i took my T4 and the allergies reappeared. I stopped taking it a few days and the allergies disappeared. So i stopped taking it for 5 days, allergies went away. Started it again, allergies came back. Stopped taking it 7 days, same thing. So this testing, though anecdotal, does seem to indicate there’s something to the allergy/T4 connection.I know this is anecdotal, on my part, but still. It’s significant. That’s not even the weird part, yet.
adrenals i took a wide range of supplements to strengthen them, and then worried that since there were grasses in the shake i was drinking, it was affecting my allergies, so i stopped taking the shakes, and felt better all the way across the board, so guessed my adrenals didn’t need all that anymore, and/or some of what i was taking might have conflicted with something else i was taking–who knows? But now, i am just getting regular exercise, continuing to eat as much organic as possible, staying away from sugar and alcohol and processed food, drinking lots of distilled water, along with a bottle of water once or twice a day with pink Himalayan sea salt (for adrenal function).
The door had been left open to let in an Atlantic breeze. Welcomed, in the bar that had no air conditioning.
Even with the stern, slightly pissed-off expression on her face, she was beautiful. I’m not usually attracted to older women. And didn’t usually go for redheads. I was not a fan of freckles. But this one. She was like a fine wine. Just like the burgundy color of the tresses falling about her shoulders.
“Kelsi Belmar.” I extended my hand, and she looked down at, took it almost begrudgingly. A quick shake, but firm; not limp like a fish, the way most women shake hands. Businesslike. The Siamese reached down and tried to bat my hand away.
Woo hoo! Pooly Fall is now a #1 bestseller in its category on Amazon!