One arrow, one life

Summary of my 2010 NaNoWriMo Novel, "Consider the Lilies"

So you need to picture this being read aloud by that "movie announcer guy," Don LaFontaine, who parodied himself in this Geico ad:

http://www.youtube.com/v/ZJMGS7l0wT8

if you are a fan as I am of Mr LaFontaine, who is no longer with us, see also:

http://www.youtube.com/v/EBG7dgamWLw

Consider the Lilies: A Novel

"In a world gone mad, as the planet hurtles over the tipping point, and the terrors of extreme climate change ravage the globe... four women stand alone against rising sea levels, volcanic eruptions, and glowing green radioactive phytoplankton...

"Cat, a sheep farmer in the highlands of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, accompanied by her lovable blue heelers Empress and Fly, must somehow deal with an influx of refugees from the coastal communities, including monks and nuns from nearby Gampo Abbey...

"Libby, an engineer at a geothermal plant on the Salton Sea, accompanied by her lovable Brittany Spaniel Reg, must content with gun nuts and religious crazies at Slab City, where they have all retreated from the Sea of Cortez, which has roared up the Imperial Valley to merge with the Salton Sea, and are now being inundated with ash from the newly active Pinacate Volcanic Region...

"Eileen, an organic vegetable gardener on the Big Island of Hawaii, accompanied by her lovable mastiff Keeper, must fend off the vigilantes who are trying to take over the island following the innundation of Hilo, while dealing with fresh lava flows from Kiluaea...

"...and Jean, a climatologist, accompanied by her lovable airedale Nobs, must flee her research station in Iceland along with her research crew when the rising sea levels innundate Reykjavik... their freighter in the north atlantic is attacked by the radioactive glowing green plankton that have spent the last three million years locked in the Greenland ice sheet, now released into the sea by the melting of the ice.

"Lovely and svelte novelist Margrit McIntosh has unleashed upon the world a novel of breathtaking bogosity and ineluctable inanity... Lacking an imagination of her own, she has created highly derivative situations induced by obsessive, Netflix-fueled bingeing on episodes of "Lost" ... Sure to set a new standard of extreme suckage in the world of american literature..."

Borderline

Here's the "Three Minute Fiction" story I submitted to the NPR contest today. The rules were, no more than 600 words, and you had to incorporate four words: plant, button, trick, fly. It was fun to write.

Borderline

"Is there a problem, officer?" Shanna asked. ("shit shit shit shit shit" went the voice inside her head.) She did not glance at Joellen. The Border Patrol agent leaned in a bit, sunlight flashing off a button on his uniform. "Both of you US citizens?" he asked. For the hundredth time today, Shanna squelched the urge to glance in the rear-view mirror. Of course it was almost impossible to see out the back anyway because of the camper shell. That and the bundle of sleeping bags, under which the very-pregnant Juanita was, she hoped, lying quite still.

The officer could barely keep his eyes open he was so bored. They had crossed the border many times and it was always the same. Two gray-haired women driving a modest well-maintained truck did not fit the profile. No one had ever so much as glanced in the back of the truck.

For some reason, this had always incensed Shanna. "They never even *look*!" she had exclaimed, as they sat under the palapa at their favorite tacqueria in Rocky Point. "We could have anything back there!" Juanita, so pregnant that she couldn't get very close to the table, was trying to clear their dishes. They gathered them up and handed them to her. "Well, what do you expect?" Joellen answered. "It's all done by profiling. That and the sniffer dogs. We ought to learn how to train those dogs -- we could make a bundle. Gracias, senora," she added to Juanita, who was hovering there, her arms full of dishes.

After paying their bill they headed for the truck and got in. But here came Juanita waddling toward them. "Yes, what is it?" "Senoras... senoras, please take me with you." "Take you where?" Shanna asked, baffled. "You were saying... they never look... my baby..." Shanna and Joellen looked at each other, aghast. "Please. My father, he is very angry about the baby... I am afraid... Please!" Shanna saw that her knees were shaking. "Get in," she ordered curtly. "We'll talk about it while we drive." "What are you -- nuts??" Joellen hissed. "What if it's a trick? You know how those border police work -- they have someone in town sell you drugs, then they catch you at the border. She's a plant!" Shanna ignored her. "Get in," she repeated.

"Please pull over," the agent waved a big flabby hand. "You've been randomly selected for intensive inspection." For a moment Shanna froze, as she pictured herself flooring it and peeling out. No, that would never fly. Not glancing at Joellen, she drove slowly over to the side slot where three more agents were waiting. "Please step out of the vehicle," one of them barked. Shanna felt her guts loosening. She very much hoped she would not actually crap her pants.

They heard a backfire. Then another. No, idiot, Shanna thought, not backfires, some kind of gun. The men were already pounding away toward the main checkpoint. There was a lot of wrestling and loud yelling. More gunshots. Shanna and Joellen ducked and glanced at each other. Ever so slowly, crouched low over the steering wheel, Shanna eased the truck out of their slot, up the lane, and back on to the highway.

Thirty seconds down the road, terrible groans began emerging from the back of the truck. "Madre de Dios!" Juanita shrieked. "Please, I need a doctor!" Shanna and Joellen glanced at each other. "UMC?" "TMC." Phoenix was too far. They weren't going to make it scott free after all.

practice practice practice

At an orienteering meet today, I got to practice some habits that are difficult for me.

This was one of those meets where things went very wrong from the beginning. Although I knew the first leg was relatively long, and although I tried to stay on the map, I ended up way off, and it took me one and a half hours to find the first control. I didn't end up at Carnegie Hall but I might as well have, so far was I off.

As everyone knows, this is a sure-fire recipe for ruining your day. A major screw-up on an O-course often leads to a bad mood, but when it's the very first control, and you know you have no chance of finishing the course, well, it's a major bummer.

I almost went all the way back to the start to DNF and whine to everyone about how I'm too old to do Green. But I didn't, and I managed to turn my mood around. More importantly, although it took a lot of time, I figured out a way to get back on the map without going back to the start, and I did finally find the first control.

In addition to getting myself calmed down when I'm upset, which is not easy for me to do, I practiced another skill: perseverance.

I'm not very good at persevering. I'm good at giving up. Very, very good. I'm good at bailing. I'm good at checking out, zoning out, distracting myself with a new toy, saying "I don't care said Pierre," and "sour grapes," and go watch tv or read a fantasy novel. I'm good at "it never would have worked anyway." I'm good at "I'm not suited to this." In fact, I like to give up at the first sign of trouble. If I'm not good at something right away, or almost right away, I can't be bothered. I don't like to strive. I like to excel. I gravitate toward things that come easily to me. And what comes the most easily to me of all, is giving up.

It's nice to know I can persist at least a little bit. And still enjoy myself.

Soothing clouds

Where I'm living now, there is nothing quite so delicious as a cloudy sky. It feels like putting a really rich soothing moisturizer on your skin. Especially when it is that high, but gradually lowering, overcast, that heralds an incoming low-pressure system -- one that might bring rain!

Unending sunny clear skies get wearing. The variety of clouds, learning about the different kinds, seeing the red light of a partly cloudy sunrise paint the tops of the Tucson Mountains as I walk to work -- it feeds my soul.

No archery today, just massive gardening effort to get Plot 2 underway. It's amazing how much energy I have now versus during the summer. Heard the Cooper's Hawk and a Raven, but didn't see them. Also heard what was probably a warbler in the cypress, but couldn't get a good look at it. The lilac is shedding its leaves for winter... and flowering. I think this is the year that the wheels come off the climate systerm.

begin again

Shot my bow for the first time in about nine months. Intrepid riser, 30lb limbs. Only shot three arrows, as I am understandably out of shape. But I know exactly how to get back into shape. It just takes time, and focused effort. The trick will be keeping my insane job from sucking up all of my mental energy. And time. No more "Incident Command Team" stuff, or I'll be hunting for a new job.

Also am almost ready to plant the second garden plot. And I started a chart for keeping track of the birds I see here at the house. Saw some sparrows in the front yard that I could not identify -- very frustrating, this winter plumage business.

Haunted by Starvation

There's an article in this week's NY Times magazine, by a writer whose grandmother survived starvation in eastern europe in the war. I haven't finished it yet, but it reminded me of Mom. When people would do "fasts for peace" she would decline, declaring that she had already had a lot of fasting in her life, all of it involuntary. Somehow it left a slight residue in me. When I signed up for Weight Watchers years ago, back when they were telling you exactly what to eat for the first week or two, I lasted exactly 24 hours. The anxiety was unbearable, it was some of the worst anxiety I've ever experienced, worrying that I wouldn't get enough to eat. I remember a bit of the same thing at the end of a big 8-week tour of Europe the summer after I graduated college, and my traveling friend and I started to run out of money towards the end of the trip. Back then there was no ATM and we didn't have credit cards, just traveler's checks. We had enough money, it lasted to the end of the trip, but the anxiety was really striking. Recently there was talk of food shortages, and costco was rationing bags of rice. It drove me right up the wall. I begged The Partner to promise me that she would never let me starve. It was... unusual. Today I cooked a batch of green beans, a nice package of Blue Lakes from Trader Joes. I got really depressed and anxious thinking about how I could never grow that many beans in my garden in six months, let alone that many beans each week. I didn't start gardeining intending to become self-sufficient, but it is dismaying to realize how incapable we are of feeding ourselves. We are completely at the mercy of the food-mass-production-and-delivery system.

Haunted by fears for Obama

What if he never lives up to his potential. What if he gets cynical and burned out. Or tired and discouraged. What if he gives up. What if the congress never works with him to get stuff done. What if he stakes it all on middle east peace, as so many have before, and completely fails, as so many have before. What if he never closes Guantanamo. What if he never gets rid of Dont Ask Dont Tell. What if something bad happens to his family. What if Bo bites someone. What if one of the girls runs away from home. (A little early for that, to be sure.)

I want him to be happy. I want him to be successful. I wish I could let him know how much good his just getting elected has done me. And the world.

I worry that he will be assassinated.

Haunted by my less creditable proclivities

I like disaster shows, movies, articles, anything. I don't like the idea of people being harmed or traumatized or wiped out. I just like the idea of something really big happening. Something that shakes you out of the numbness of your everyday life.

Haunted by web site projects that will never end

Working on two large websites at the moment (700+ pages each), and in each case the client alternates between deciding to launch, then deciding to delay launch because it needs more polishing. The thing is, by the time you polish page 700, pages 1-50 are already out of date.