Danny Gets Official IT guy title

Tonight is out first agility class with Ginny. Danny will be the one primarily working with her which is good since I had a rare virtually sleepless night and all of a sudden fatigue has hit me like a Mack truck. I'm trying not to take a nap which will put me back in the 'I'm not sleepy zone' later tonight.

Newsflash: Danny got the IT job he wanted at UCF! It's Monday-Friday 8 to 5 so he won't be spending the same amount of time with me as we grew used to when he was a Personal Trainer and/or going to school full time at VCC. No more late nights and late mornings for him or going to theme parks during the week . In fact, on school nights, I won't see him from early morning till ten at night. Wow. We'll be back to phone calls and text messages. Just like 'normal' folks. While I will miss hangin' with the Dano, I am very excited for him. A real IT job is part of what he's been going to school for these past several years, and the fact that it is at UCF where he's going to be finishing his degree come September is way way cool...and convenient. Bravo Danny.

Postscript: Ginny did very well at her first agility class. She worked hard and tried to please. Her group worked on obedience commands for the first half and on the tunnel and jump for the second. She, like all the other untrained beginner dogs was a bit confused. She whimpered for the first twenty minutes of obedience--all the while doing pretty good sit stays and downs and weaving around the other seated dogs in the ring. At one point she slipped her collar and came running to me and tried to climb up on my lap. But once she got to the agility part, she had fun. She didn't object to familiarity from the other dogs but got a little scared by one of the trainers when the woman suddenly moved in too close to Ginny's face for her comfort. Ginny went straight up in the air and backwards like shot from a cannon. But she whizzed over the 'baby' jumps. 'Hoolas don't consider anything under four feet as a jumping challenge with five or six preferred! We're looking forwards to next week. Chow.

On Spiderwick and Some Writing Advice

Danny and I went to see the film, The Spiderwick Chronicles tonight. As most folks know, it is based on the wildly popular children's fantasy books. It was a good story, told well and well acted with pretty good CGI special effects and beautiful cinematography. Maybe a bit too scary for really little kids in a spot or two, depending on the kid. We like Sci Fi and fantasy films and we enjoyed this one. Unlike the recent Golden Compass, it actually had an ending. Best of all from my own personal viewpoint, it didn't have any actual spiders in it either. Danny liked the way the movie story line kept moving at a very brisk pace with no lags and that it was made using the Linux computer system--which is his particular favorite--and the one we both work with most of the time. Plot-wise, I really like the angle that the children had to tackle the mystery and the monsters pretty much on their own and work together to save the day. No polar bear warriors or talking lion kings or fairy queen warriors to fight their battles with the little kids as sidekicks. Just using their own brains and cleverness.

This next part is for you writers and would be writers out there who are interested. The rest of you go look at my Flickr pictures or something.

Earlier today I had some questions from a writing friend who wanted to know about my reactions to presenting my material to various writing groups for critique. How did I feel when other people either didn't like something I wrote or might have been offended by something perceived as being politically incorrect. Or dismissed it by saying that they just didn't get it? What about a short part of a longer piece being read and studied without benefit of the readers being able to place the material in the context of the whole story or book? How did negative criticism make me feel, my friend wanted to know.

Well, when I first started doing writing groups a half dozen or more years back, I admit I was pretty sensitive. Just ask Danny. He'll groan and nod in affirmation. I didn't know then or know now any new writers who weren't (aren't). New writers want to be and hope that they are talented creatures and that their precious words--the outpouring of their hearts and soul and intellect-- are perfect just as downloaded onto the virgin page the very first time.

You know, offer it to the world the way you download and glory will follow. This never happens. Not even to the famous guys. In the film, Finding Forrester (which was about writers and writing), Sean Connery as Forrester said that the first draft of your book is for you and all the others are for everybody else. Editing is...well...everything. Oscar Wilde once remarked that he spent five minutes putting a comma in a piece in the morning and the entire afternoon taking it out. You'll agree, Oscar knew of what he spoke.

I hate reading messy rough drafts that the writer obviously never looked at a second time so I never offer a really rough draft to a group for critique. It's always edited at least three or four times and neatly typed, checked for tense agreement and grammar errors. If a writer is going to to send a piece out for hopeful publication he or she should know that an editor will not even read a sloppy download with tense and subject verb agreement errors, spelling no nos, etc, its a good habit to learn the writing rules and always do things professionally from the get go.

I try to offer a complete chapter that fits into the group length guidelines since I really don't see the value to me of having them read anything less complete. People don't always like everything they read. This doesn't bother me anymore...but it did six years ago when I was a "newbee" too. Now, I can listen to and read their comments and often find value in the things they say. Sometimes (often) I make some plot or dialogue changes as a result of the readers comments that makes the piece much better. Sometimes I get ideas that take me in a whole new direction I like better. I love the comments, positive and negative.

I had to get to this place of serenity by writing a lot and working hard to improve in areas I was weak in. In the early days, my tender feelings would be bruised in critique. I'd struggle not to defend my stuff verbally and then go home and alternately think, I'm terrible, I'll never be any good, I should just give up...followed by some angry feelings towards the negative commentators. Then, that day or the next, I'd sit at my computer for hours banging on the keyboard until I pretty much fell over from fatigue and eyestrain rewriting the damn piece. And guess what? After all my hard content editing, it was always better. Since in the beginning folks often picked at my description and dialogue, I worked on exercizes to improve both areas almost exclusively for a year. Now, it both amuses and pleases me that the most frequent comments I get from critiques is that my dialogue rings true and my description is right on!

Sometimes, I use phrases or words that some people don't know because they are not common usage. I shrug inwardly when folks complain that they don't understand a German word or Pennsylvania Dutch term or SciFi term and leave it in the story. When I read, if I don't know a word, I look it up. Generally a reader can infer the meaning from the context of the piece. If not, let them look it up or leave it. If the word contributes to the authenticity of the characters or setting it should stay. The same goes with politically incorrect dialogue or dialect. That's the writer's choice in any case and with the general dumbing down of our culture I make it a point to offer new bits and bytes of information even if trivial. Anyway, there's always instant referencing on Wikipedia for the readers. No excuses anymore.

So here's the advice to new writers. Don't turn in something you downloaded from your head onto paper thirty minutes before you make copies of it for the group. Not fair to you or them. Take some time to polish the piece a little. Try to remember that nothing is perfect the first ten go rounds though and that your piece can't be everything to all readers. Try to remember that there's always room for improvement. Accept fair criticism on your work. Sleep on it and rework your piece later. Don't let adverse reactions shut you down. And if perchance you run into some smart alecky condescending know it all who makes the criticism unprofessionally personal...well, theres' always itching powder, thumb tacks, and voodoo dolls.....just kidding. Really.

So, its not the destination grasshopper, its the journey...wait a minute...the destination can be pretty good too...it can be Paris or the Pulitzer or the National Book Award. Oh crap, what do I know? It's tomorrow already. Time for a bedtime snack and a few pages of the mystery book I'm currently reading and...bed. Live long and prosper. Write on.

Puppy Poem and Pix

Tonight's photos are dogs currently adoptable from Catahoula United Rescue Society (Curs). If you are looking for true love and devotion and are willing to give up satin bedspreads and oriental rugs, check out their site or Google your favorite dog breed. Most have rescue groups. Adopting a dog from a rescue group saves not only that dog's life but also enables rescue folks to pull another dog from a kill shelter. Most of the dogs end up in shelters for really stupid reasons. Owners abandon them when they move. They say the dogs won't come when called, or have fleas, or jump on their kids, or bark. Apparently, most of those folks are too lazy or self indulgent to get a dog training book or sign up for a training class or apply flea prevention products. But lucky me, that's how I got my Ginny and Abby.

Note to single folks who like dogs. Dog parks are full of other single people with dogs.

Here's a puppy poem from my upcoming book, Between The Lines (working title)

NEW PUPPY

By Nancy Wayman Deutsch

Busy buddy,
rapscallion
in constant motion.
Searching, finding
hidden treasure:
a discarded bit of tissue,
carried proudly off,
scavenged from my office trashcan.
Or one of my socks,
escaped from my walking shoe.

You ate my white summer sandal,
while I drifted somewhere in sleep.
Only one before I awoke
although I needed a shoe for each foot.
Or so I believed, before we met.

My Waterford vase must find a new home.
It’s silken flowers, bent over
several missing, now.
Why must you walk across the sofa table,
when the floor is nearer your paws?

You pounced on a lizard,
there in the grass
who left his tail behind
when he shimmied up the screen.
You didn’t notice his escape,
nose already calling you away
to some new smell-vision adventure.

Unrolling the toilet paper,
you ran from the bath,
because I caught you that time.
On the kitchen counter,
the meatballs sang a drool song
but, I heard them, too.

Why do you remember to bark at six o’clock,
for a puppy’s breakfast,
though you can’t remember to go outside,
when you need to pee.
I walk you for an hour.
Somehow, you wait,
keeping everything you’ve got inside
until we get home.

Your favorite toy
a fuzzy yellow duck,
which still quacks,
despite his missing foot.
Second to that lopsided duck
anything that our other dog already has
between her paws.

When we rescued you,
I thought you had lost your joy.
Though I know dogs,
this time, I was wrong.
Joy was there, hiding
behind your mismatched eyes,
waiting to be set free.

Live long and prosper.

The art of napping, week end update, and a duck

There is an art to napping. I've always though so. These pictures prove it, don't you think?


Hidy Ho Bloggers,

I dunno where the week end went...or for that matter where February has gone to so fast. I seem to have very little to show for my time these days. Okay, I did make a path to the washer and dryer and did a veritable mountain of clothes this week end. I even put them all away. That is to say, stuff is re-jammed into all my dresser drawers and squeezed into my closet. Remember this maxim. It is very useful to the organizational challenged like yours truly: If it's out of sight, it must be right. Thank God in Heaven above for closet doors.

I spent quite a few hours formatting and editing my poetry book manuscript. I read about a hundred pages of Charles Frasier's book, Thirteen Moons. Watched a very funny episode of the BBC/HBO show, Extras as well as the film Idiocracy and the Oscar telecast. Had dinner at PF Chang's with Danny my daughter Laura, and her friend. Made cookies for the theater students at Rollins College. Went shopping for new chocolate brown sheets and comforter (my concession to sleeping with dogs), checked out what's new at Borders and Books A Million, ate some of the cookies I made for the Rollins theater students, and went to Universal Studios Islands of Adventures theme park and Ikea superstore.

Okay, so I was busy. But I didn't cure the heartbreak of Psoriasis, discover a new planetary body, come up with a viable plan for global warming or even conquer my ice cream addiction. Or get Chili to quit attacking the dog training clicker for that matter. Oh well. Maybe I should just take a cue from Baby Alex, Danny, Abby, Ginny, and Chili: Don't worry, be nappy.

Here's a brief poem from my write side:

THE DUCK
The duck is not a graceful bird,
mystique he's surely lacking
no singer of melodic song
he makes incessant quacking.

His gait on land is awkward
as he waddles to and fro
unlike the eagle he won't soar
above the earth below.

He flaps content above his pond
he has no yen to roam
with bugs, a crust of bread or two
he's happy right at home.

He glides across the water
serene upon the surface
yet underneath the waterline,
webbed feet, kick with a purpose.

The droplets fall right off his back
his worries seem so few
he just keeps swimming back and forth,
with nothing else to do.

Rejecting all complexity
avoiding care and strife
a man might emulate the duck,
and lead a simpler life.

Live long and prosper.

Danny has been trying to talk me into watching this movie, called Idiocracy, for months. I said, it sounded dumb. (Get it?!) Finally, tonight being Saturday night, with the usual lack of anything watchable on TV, I agreed. The film, a very broad satire on the dumbing down of America (although it is set five hundred years into what I sincerely hope won't be our future) has become a cult favorite since it's release last year. It is absolutely hysterical. The movie starts out with a very funny comparison between a a couple with IQs of 138 and 141 who have no offspring and a man called Cletus who makes Larry the cable Guy look really brainy and who constantly reproduces with any number of women who have never heard of birth control and couldn't spell the words without help. The film narrator talks about how many decendents Cletus has and the trends in America towards...well less intelligent people being more fertile. Then, we jump to the main plot.

Imagine a very ordinary "Average Joe"(Luke Wilson) who has made it his mantra when superiors say, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way", to always get out of the way. Hapless Joe is frozen by the military in an experiment gone awry with a prostitute (who Joe thinks is an artist) who has been tagged as the most ordinary and expendable woman in America and wakes up into a nightmare society of the future where an IQ of 80 would be genius. The citizens of this America speak a language mix of black street slang, Hispanic gang talk, and Valley Speak. Poor Joe, renamed by a Computer as Not Sure, only wants to find a Time machine to send him home, but on an IQ test he answers this question correctly when those around him can't: If you have a bottle with two gallons of liquid in it and a bottle with five gallons in it, how many bottles do you have?

Eventually, Not Sure finds himself in the President's cabinet as minister of the interior and...well, I'm not going to tell you the rest of the story. It really is funny though. I hooted and hollered.

Afterwards I was glad it was just a movie...but then I saw a comment by a real woman posted on the internet that stopped me in my tracks. The woman, nameless here, said that she likes to shop in the dollar stores," because I don't have to get all dressed up like when I go to the Wall mart." Was she kidding? What about the people Jay Leno interviews? They seem real enough, too. I won't even mention Washington DC. Maybe we should be afraid. Very afraid.

Writing Out of My Head, again

Here's a couple more Baby Alex pictures. In the first one he kinda looks like Eminem after a hard night partying. But seriously, I can hardly wait until he's old enough for me to read Dr Seuss books to him. Maybe write a few Seussy style poems myself. By the way, those are not my legs in the picture.

Well, Bloggers, it's Thursday already, actually technically only thirty five minutes until its officially Friday. Good, I guess. I'm so tired of Thursday that my eyes are almost crossing. 'Course, that may be from all the hours writing at my computer.

I spent an inordinate part of the day (since it was crappy rainy) working on re-formating a manuscript. I've had a basic manuscript of my collected poetry done (working title, Out of My Head) for the worst part of a year...or I thought I had, but then I decided several days ago that the order of most of the poems was all wrong and rather than constantly scrolling through back and forth and cutting and pasting 120 plus different pieces here and there, I would just do a new revised order Contents page and pull the poems out of my general poetry folder on my desktop and make a new manuscript. Make that a revised manuscript. It would be much faster that way, I reasoned. Well, it was. It was working out great, my fingers were flying and I managed to format over a hundred pages when I think I clicked cut rather than paste and managed to completely delete two poems from my computer. When I opened a poem that should have been Spider On The Wall, it was Skunk. Game of Love was Musing On Feminine Endings. I still had the real Skunk and Musing poems, but the contents of the two others was gone, baby, gone... even if their file names were there. I'm still not entirely sure how that happened.

But, never fear, all was not lost. I have a back up file somewhere but the way I stash things I probably couldn't find it in this decade. While I work primarily on my desktop in Open Office (Linux Ubuntu), I do keep duplicates of all my writing stuff on my Mac Laptop in Word. I also put most of it on my jump drive, so it was easy to replace the poems. I also found a half dozen poems in my file that I completely forgot I wrote. Bonanza! With a little edits they'll fit in fine...if I'm careful what keys I hit.

I'm going to try to be more careful and quit working when I get tired. I have an unfortunate tendency when writing and editing my stuff to work for anywhere from two to six hours at a time or more. Without moving from my chair. Until the dogs bother me about one or another of their meals or demand a walk. Thank goodness for dogs.

Tonight, I stopped writing and burned the pasta.

Somebody asked recently, what jump starts you to write? Interesting question since I don't do it for the money I'm not making. I seem to have an emotional need to download all the stuff that's constantly in my head onto a screen and/or paper. I write because I can't not. Yeah, I know that's grammatically incorrect. I majored in English. Even if I'm spelling challenged.

Maybe one day my computer savy will be up to my creative output. Just gotta watch those delete keys.

Other news: We missed our dog agility class tonight due to the dratted rain. We were really looking forward to starting Ginny. The first classes are such a hoot with the dogs being totally clueless and the owners almost as much. Total chaos.

I actually did get an offer on Mother's house after only eight days on the market. Almost unheard of during these nasty economic times. It wasn't an acceptable offer as written. I countered. They have two days to counter mine or walk. Meantime, three more people want to see the house tomorrow and there's another Open House this week end. My Realtor is terrific.

Those of you who followed my all too frequent tales of woe when I was hoping to sell my own house a year ago know how passionately I wanted and needed to get an offer and move back then. It didn't happen. I was really disappointed. My life situation changed and fortunately I no longer need to move, since my house wouldn't sell then or probably not now even after doing the updates I've done that I couldn't afford to do when it was for sale. Only the most expensive and median priced homes move at all, if they move, albeit slowly. My house doesn't fit into either category and its 44 years old.

Now, when I am not all that worried whether the other house I'm marketing sells quickly or not and am not stressed about monthly bills, I get an offer on it almost right away. Life is ironic isn't it? Sometimes, as Danny says, its hard to see 'the big picture.'

Ah well, it's now officially Friday. That's Mexican food day. Ole. Live long and prosper.

Doggeral, Real Estate Update and Playing Wilde

Picture: Jack and Algernon being 'Ernest' in Oscar Wilde's play during original London run in the 1890s.


Heel, I mean hello, Bloggers. Sorry, I was looking at one of my dogs. One of the dastardly pack that trashed my kitchen with garbage and ate my giant Valentine cookie on Saturday last. The self same pack that broke into one of the kitchen cabinets on Sunday afternoon while Danny and I were at a production of Oscar Wilde's play, The Importance of Being Ernest at Rollins College.

Now, being Ernest was certainly important to the character of Jack Worthing who earnestly sought the hand of his fair lady Gwendolyn on stage. Little did we know that while we were laughing at Oscar Wilde's clever and witty lines and puns as enacted by the Rollins Players and guest star Dana Ivey of Broadway and Hollywood fame, Chili and Ginny earnestly sought another rascally thing to do to entertain themselves and since stealing food is always entertaining to dogs, they gave it their best shot. Yes, boys and girls, they raided the cabinet that housed their large bag of dry dog kibble. Formerly housed it, that is.

When we stopped home to feed them after the play before going out for dinner, we discovered the tell tail evidence of their deed. They'd fed themselves, like frat boys at a hot dog eating contest. The cabinet door was open, the large bag of Purina lay open on its side, and Ginny was so swollen that she resembled a canine Hindenburg.

I know it was Chili who opened the door since I've caught her opening cabinet doors with her paw before. I'm sure Abby and Chili partook of their ill gotten impromptu dinner as much as Ginny did. Unfortunately for them, they are real dogs who live in the moment not super smart literary or cinema dogs like Lassie who would have not only eaten all the spilled kibble (erasing all trace of the caper) but who would have pushed the bag back into the cabinet and shut the door again. That's why Lassie had her own book and became a film star while Ginny and Chili were only fat and gassy.

Fortunately, nobody got really sick for gorging kibble. Chili had another really bad epileptic seizure though and fell off the couch onto the hardwood floor. That's three so far since February 2nd. Not good.

Better news: the Realtor had an Open House at my mother's while we were at Oscar's play and my dogs were playing in kibble. She had thirteen groups come through the house at the open house as well as seven Realtors show the house during the first five days on the market. Which is phenomenal in this crappy market. Even more remarkably, one couple has toured the house three times already and the Realtor expects a contract offer tonight or tomorrow morning.

Which is not to say the offer will come. Or that it will be an acceptable offer. Still, it is very encouraging. Maybe I learned something about staging and pricing a property while enduring seven months of unsuccessfully trying to sell my own house last year. Hope so. Selling Mom's house will enable me to pay off my mortgage, which after all, was my reason for wanting to sell my own house. I'm happy to stay put and continue updating. I'll be happier without a big monthly payment.

Today I was one of a lucky couple dozen folks to join ( Rollins theater alum and sorority sister) actress Dana Ivey for lunch at Rollins President's house. Aside from the beautiful lakeside setting, the dandy lunch, and the privilege of dining in the presence of a Tony winning actress, I got to sit with other Rollins alums and friends who I've worked with on the Art festival board. Also present was the alumni advisor of my sorority (Phi Mu) in college, a lovely lady from my old Orlando book club, a handful of folks from my time working for Orlando Opera, the Civic Theater and the Annie Russell Guild. Even a retired ambassador who was a neighbor in my kid-hood days in Pittsburgh! Almost, but not quite, makes me want to get re-involved in volunteering in the arts community again. I used to meet so many interesting people that way. But, these days, I seem to want to write and redo the house.

Ta ta for now, bloggers. The television calls me to slothful behavior unless the dogs bark me into a walk.