Smokey Mountain Breakdown

I drove off the mountain into town today to do a few errands. It's funny, I seem to feel the isolation more when the snow and ice keep me from traveling. I can go for quite long periods without seeing anyone or feeling any need to do more than drive to the mailbox, but I do get stir-crazy if, for some reason, I can't actually leave.

Now, in case you think I'm a huge wuss about the driving in snow/ice (and I absolutely will agree that I am), it's not so much the ice and snow as it's the vertical slog up Thrust Road that has me so trapped. The bridges have been out and they routed us over a treacherous one lane gravel road. And we have to keep calling the highway department to have fresh gravel put down. Yes, the same highway department swimming in Maker's Mark, and boy, are they cranky during work hours (I myself, have been cranky following an evening that involved bourbon and sympathize). Anyway, Thrust Road is underlaid with mud, so the gravel just sinks into it. My jeep hasn't been out of 4WD this winter.

But I digress. You may not know this about me but I have a mouth like a sailor. Not sure how I got it--I remember having it from about age 12. Not sure where I picked it up since profanity wasn't spoken around my home. Perhaps it's just my love of all things word, but I like salty language. I like that it's language uttered with emotion. You spit it out sometimes as a challenge, as a curse. It's a vocalization of pain and frustration and passion. It's rarely whispered. There's nothing subtle about it. I have cleaned my act up since coming here. Such language is frowned upon in Cocke County.

So, I'm in Walmart getting some groceries. The problem with Walmart is that for some unknown reason, every single piece of shelving, every shopping cart, every surface in the store produces a severe static shock. I feel my pants clinging to my knees in fear the moment I walk in. I try to keep the F-bombs to a minimum and my voice down, but it's really hard when you are getting the shit shocked out of you every four feet. Also, I start doing this thing where I stab my finger back and forth before touching anything. It's not like it actually helps--I still get jolted--but I feel compelled to engage in this spastic behavior for some reason.

Everyone stares at me like I'm a candidate for demonic possession. And I can't blame them as I jerk, spit, roll and jump through the aisles. Really, they are fortunate I didn't just shuck all my clothes off and go running, screaming through the store. Some crap like this always happens to me in Walmart. Last time, I had one of my legendary nosebleeds in the magazine racks and had to run to automotive for paper towels.

Maybe it's not me. Maybe the store is possessed. I just wish the little children would stop averting their eyes.

I have to see a woman about a sheep tomorrow.

...inconvenient.

This was the view from my bedroom when I woke up at the crack of noon today. I went to bed early--around 2 a.m. so got up earlier than usual. The snow that fell most of yesterday that then turned to freezing rain and froze overnight made everything sparkle. I doubt I'll even make it to the mailbox to check mail today.

There's a slick little stretch of winding road not far from the house that keeps everyone locked up here when it ices. Not sure why--it may have a wet spring that drains onto it, but when the weather is like this it's a solid sheet of ice. It's our own little luge for 4WD vehicles--'cause even that won't do you no good there. So we are trapped here.

But I love the cleanness of everything when it's frozen. So stark. The switch grass in the pasture, feathering ghosts of this past summer, bend heads to the ground, curving tortuously. The wind has whipped them into that position and the ice has bound them. They wait for me--or someone--to come and free them with blades or fire.

But I didn't want to wake up this morning. I feel better after a shower. The dogs are inside. The sun is shining, melting what it can. 36 degrees.

It’s finally here! Diet Soap #3 is now available for purchase or download.

Diet Soap issue #3 features fiction, non-fiction, poetry and art by Doug Lain, William Peacock, Genevieve Valentine, Brian Brown, Rosanne Griffeth, Howard Waldrop, Steven Utley, Patricia Russo, Joshua Siegal, Heather Bell, James Maxwell, Gord Sellar, Brandon Chan-Yung, Louise Norlie, the Against Sleep and Nightmare collective, and Tara Bush.

The story I have in this issue is "They Made Us Walk to Eat." It's a bit of an experimental piece. A fat camp story. 'Cause, you know I write very authoritative fat camp stories. Here's a little taste:

Even if it rained, they made us walk to eat. Even if you were sick, you had to walk to eat. We walked to eat food that tasted of dust and tears and lemon juice. We walked to eat because it was all they offered and if you refused to walk, they made you.

You can purchase the issue in print or for download in .pdf format HERE.

I have a lovely Appalachian fairy tale that will be available online soon for you--so that's something to look forward to as well.

Oh. I think I’m going to get in trouble for this post. But sometimes, things just seem to burst forth and I can’t stop myself.

M’kay, Newport Plain Talk Pie Hole. I’ve been pretty gentle with them and genuinely admiring of the Police and Sheriff’s Department reportage. But the gloves sort of came off based on their head-up-their-asses non-coverage of the presidential election. You know. The little thing where we elected the U.S.’s first African American president and they decided it merited 400 words—not just below the fold but at the bottom of the page. They will never live that down, even if they make every day Black History Month.

So, the paper has been losing its integrity with a string of unpopular and sometimes nonsensical decisions, most notably ceasing printing the Sunday funny papers because the ink costs too much. (huh?) Then they changed the format to a long, skinny Barbie’s Dreamhouse size newspaper. I know what’s going on. The Pie Hole, like all newspapers around the nation is fighting for its life. But it being Newport and all, the panicked decisions just result in alienating more customers.

My alternate theory has to do with dementia.

This past Sunday’s paper was a hot tub of irony worth lolling in for a while. See, they arrested the Cocke County Superintendent of Highways in the Exxon station parking lot, drunk as a lord on Maker’s Mark. Good to know our tax dollars provide county employees a better class of whiskey. I’d have been offended if they’d found him drinking Old Granddad. It’s his second arrest involving the combination alcohol and highways. It’s widely known that job drives people over the edge. Something bad happened with the previous superintendent as well if I remember correctly.

I get to the editorial pages and find that they’ve given a column (and I use that term loosely since most of their “columns” are longer than my fiction--brevity isn't something they do well or maybe they are padding) complete with byline to some guy handing out really long Ted Kaczynski rants. The sort of thing we usually find on shady militia Internet web sites or the label of a Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap All-One. An absolutely nonsensical, Looney Tunes, cuckoo-for-cocoa pops manifesto. All on gun control. Now, I love things that go boom as much as the next red-blooded American girl. I like guns because sometimes, you know, a girl needs to kill something or someone. Guns are real good at that. And I’m quite sure there are cogent, articulate arguments to be made in favor of the 2nd Amendment. THIS WAS NOT ONE OF THEM. In fact, a more eloquent argument for removing guns from the hands of the obviously addled could not have been made.

He’s going to inflict a “Darwinian Evolution” (Yeah, he wrote that just like the church lady! Swear to God!) rant on us next time. I can’t wait read about that—and how we’uns are going to hell if we don’t follow K-K-Kreashunism.

Am I canceling my subscription?

No. Hell, no. Not because I want to support the Pie Hole, but because I love a good train wreck.

So the snow starts falling about 2:30 a.m. last night/morning. Great whopping chunks of it and continued most of today. Pretty, but the roads are a mess. Not that I’ve been out in them. I just don’t drive when it gets like that. So, I’ve not been doing much today. Watched some Japanese feudal drama. Gonna check out the pretty people at the Oscars on TV tonight.

But Issue #3 of Pank is out and I have a story in it. They’ve also just started putting some stories online so you can read the experimental, bug inspired short I have up. My bug pieces are always popular. It’s called “Because Magicicadas Have No Mouths.”

Cicadas were such a big part of my childhood. Something magical about leaving your skin behind. My Mom and I used to scream and squeal when they'd fly into our hair. Though Mom had it worse because she wore these big, backcombed hairdos with lots of hairspray. Little known fact--hair lacquer, the good, old kind, is made from crushed bugs, just like the shellac you get at the hardware. And it's so humid in Bluffton, that the hairspray was always a little on the tacky side. So bugs flying into it stuck real good. We have these giant flying cockroaches too. Swear to God.

Anyway...

And if you live in Chicago, you can pick up your very own copy at Quimby’s Bookstore.
Or you can order a Pank subscription online, HERE.

I've been thinking about how one approaches something precious. Valuable. Cherished. Desired.

How do you do that?

Do you roll in like the approaching storm? Do you bend down and sweep it up--gallop away with it? Do you gobble it up with both hands? Do you carpe diem it into your jacket pocket, steal it, grab it, take it? Overpower it with your needs? Is force your style?

Or do you approach it like a wild animal that needs taming? Sidle up to it, showing your teeth in a friendly way? Do you speak softly, pleasantly and soothingly? Do you throw cookies on the ground and avert your eyes?

Not that either one is wrong. I'm definitely more of the second type. Reverential. Calm. Forcefulness can be nice later. But things have a way of flying away when startled. Sliding out of your hands when handled roughly. And because my style is the second, it's also how I like being approached.

I spook easily. And once you've handled a creature roughly--it's gone forever.

Yes, I have come out of hiding to indulge in a bit of shameless self promotion. I just came out of an exhausting writing jag--toward the end of which I was falling into bed at 6:00 a.m. Had to up my prednisone to keep my eyes from exploding. Anyway, spent all day yesterday in bed after having discovered afresh the joys of bathing. Damn. I wish I drank. All of this would seem so much more glamorous if there were drugs or alcohol involved. As it is, it just sounds like me being a slob and failing to pull myself away from my work.

Anyhow. Back to me and a whole bunch of great articles and stories on the theme of "The Fabric of Appalachia." Now & Then is published by the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services at East Tennessee State University. The publication has serious legs and is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. This issue includes an article by Georgia Bonesteel on "Appalachian Quilting," Michael Joslin visits Apple Hill Farm in Watauga County, N.C. for "A New Face in the Fields: Alpacas in Appalachia," and Jeff Mann contributes "Here and Queer."
In short, all the Appalachian goodness you guys look for here--is in Now & Then.

So of course, I require you to BUY IT! At 15 bucks a subscription, it's a steal! And it's not just the high-brow literary pubs I usually appear in--this is real Appalachian stuff! And I'm just thrilled to have one of my Appalachian pieces in a real Appalachian pub. I've had good luck placing them in mainstream literary journals, but it's always great to be recognized on the home front.

A! Magazine for the Arts has a nice write-up HERE.

So off you goes! Get Now & Then or Yang, the literary karma goat, will come and pee on all your shoes.

Winter Fucking Wonderland Already! Jesus Marimba, I am weary of walking around with tampons up my nose.

Gee Rosie, is that a tampon in your nose?

Yes, actually, it is. See, my bleeding thing means that nosebleeds last for one to three hours. Much blood is lost. I have to hold my nose for 30 to 45 minutes before even checking to to see if it's stopped--and going into the ER is no longer an option since September. And ever since I looked up on the internet what the ER idiots did for nosebleeds and found out they stuck tampons up your nose...

So yeah. I stick tampons up my nose. What of it? You want to start somethin' about it? Fuck you! Yes, I'm sure it is a mental picture you'd rather be without. And yes, it is pretty much as amusing as all that.

So. This weather means my nose bleeds more often. And tampons leave my hands free. So there.

But Friend Scott called last night and we had a good long talk. Scott's just TMI all the time and I so miss that about him. Did I ever tell you guys the ball sack itch story? Anyway. Suffice it to say he gets way more sex with straight people that most straight people do. A regular Frank-N-Furter.

Anyway, there is a story for you to read. I'm a bit peeved with them because they screwed up the formatting. Pretty much everyone who asked for .txt screws up the formatting. I asked them to fix it and they still haven't. So I'll probably ask them to withdraw it and remove the journal from my sub rotation. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to remove obviously extraneous hard returns and if they don't care how their journal looks I'm not interested in having my work appear there. It's HERE if you want to read it before I demand it be removed.

You guys have been really sweet about my lack of acceptances. But I'm actually sort of SMBD about my rejections--enjoy them really. It means I'm doing my job. And they are always very nice to me and very definitely ask me to submit again. They even send me the "nice" version of their form rejections. The one they send to writers who aren't psychopaths with editor parts wrapped in butcher paper in their basement freezer. So that's good? Don't worry--I'm cool--totally down with the rejections. They come in waves, you know.

Please sir! May I have another?

I got three rejections today and spent the better part of the day swimming in the frosty pool of my own shortcomings. I don't find this to be a particularly bad thing to do. In my twenties, it ranked right up there as a suicidal tendency, but I need to look at myself that way now and again. Take the cover off the mirror. Pull out the windex. Embrace my freakishness. My monsterhood.

It's easy in my isolation to see myself as normal. To think there is even such a thing. I go about my day. I function just fine. No one stares at me except the dogs and what they are saying is clearly transparent. So I give them each a biscuit. Good dog.

But I am different. I am apart. Up here on my mountain, I look out into the mist. Look out into the rain that drizzles like it did on Glastonbury Tor that day long ago. I'd climbed to the top of the Tor and stood on the remnants of the thirteenth century belltower--the only remaining structure from an earthquake in 1275 that shuddered beneath that limestone dragon's back. Curious thing--in that belltower, the wind cut through the center at 45 mph, trying to rip it from the nipple of that hill. I was sick then. Sick as I am now. Different as I am now.

I didn't let the wind knock me down.

It's hard to look at my shortcomings. But I sort of need to now and then. So the wind doesn't knock me down.

Well, the sentence came down today for Popcorn Sutton's trial in the Federal Court. The news said everyone gasped in the courtroom. They are sending him for 18 months in federal prison for the weapons moonshine charge with 2 years supervised probation after that. I'm sure the Newport Pie Hole Plain Talk, will have some of the details in tomorrow's paper. I'm not actually too worried about him. I think he'll be a rock star in jail. Still, I understand he's taken this all pretty hard. Bottom line though--he's not going to stop doing what he does and the courts know that now.



If you want to know more about what Popcorn Sutton does, there's a documentary running of the Documentary Channel called The Last One. The director, Neal Hutchinson, sent me a copy and it's a really wonderful documentary on the traditional way moonshine used to be made up here in the hills.

Filmed in the mountains of North Carolina, The Last One is a journey deep into Southern Appalachia, and Appalachian culture, as seen through the lens of a mason jar. Lifelong moonshiner Popcorn Sutton returns to the southern highlands in his treasured A-Model Ford to seek a suitable location to run one final batch of traditional bootleg whiskey. Through the laborious process of clearing a site, building a furnace, brewing corn mash and distilling high proof moonshine, Sutton reveals the craft of traditional distillation as practiced by his forbears and reveals a lifetime of memories in the trade.

Now, I've seen photos of Popcorn's more current installations and know they don't resemble anything like this...The Last One is more about the way 'shine was made back in the day. And Popcorn has a dying swan tendency to proclaim he's making a "last" run, but as his court sentence proves, it's his inability to stop making illegal liquor that's the problem.

You can pick up a copy of The Last One at Neal Hutchinson's Sucker Punch Pictures. It's a good historical A to Zed of setting a still up and the music is really good too.

Happy Inauguration Day!

Am I ready for a handsome, articulate man who oozes intelligence to take office?

Hell, yeah, beeotches! Let's make some history!



**************



The snow has been falling for two days now and we've got a nice blanket of white all over everything. The frogs woke up on January 8th this year, so I'm guessing they had to go back down in the mud.

I've not been a-blogging in a while. Basically I've got a bunch of stories coming out in print and the web this month and the next so I've been story wrangling.

The biggest thing of mine out now is the Mslexia story, "48 Years". This was an important story for me personally. It meant much when I wrote it and I'm really happy such an important publication as Mslexia recognized it as being of worth. I'm not sure there is a more important literary journal specializing in women writers and their craft. I'm really proud to be included.

I've already been getting congratulatory emails from my friends in the UK who have seen the issue and loved the story.

My issue has yet to arrive since it has to travel from the UK, and I'm jumping out of my skin waiting for it. Perhaps it will be here today! You really should subscribe to Mslexia. Or at least buy the issue I'm in so you can read "48 Years". Do it now. Or I'll send goats to your house.

Lavinia Greenlaw chose the selections for The Four Elements theme of the New Writing in this issue, of which I am part. She wrote a really smart introduction and had this to say about my story:

Other forms of disturbance include those of memory and recognition, finely illustrated in Rosanne Griffeth’s story ‘48 Years’ in which the global effects of agricultural policies are played out in parallel to a more local and intimate series of consequences.

So, yeah. I'm a happy camper. Snow falling. Story in Mslexia. Barack Obama in office. Life is good.

Thunder fog! We have thunder fog! Wonder what that means?

Happy New Year, peeps. I've been battling the mother of all insomnia flares. I haven't been to bed since day before yesterday. I'm getting into that sleep deprived zone where inanimate objects discuss politics with you in a purely rational way. And there's very little that is rational about that, now is there. I start feeling the confines of my filters slipping away.

Have you ever not said anything stupid or confrontational, but knew you were pretty much doomed to do so? It's a foreshadowing of shame that shows up in the gut, twisting and recoiling. Begging you to stay off the computer, not speak to anyone or write anything, because you are bound to put your foot in your mouth and offend. I've been feeling like that. My filters are wafer thin. I might say or do anything, beeeotch!

I've been having a really uncontrollable urge to mock the local paper. Though Caleb Abramson is still makes my heart go pitter-pat with his punsterliciousness. Those other dudes, though--they're fair game.

I have a new Appalachian word, I'd not heard before. As I may have mentioned, when women get together here the conversation invariably turns to women's health issues and the graphic details thereof--the more graphiccy the better. And this is definitely a women's word.

The Weed. The Weed is what the old folks called mastitis--or probably any ailment of the breast associated with lactating. I don't have much experience with this so I'm not sure what other ailments that might be. A story was related to me concerning a patent medicine everyone took--I'm guessing back in the 50's. I can't remember the name but I'd be dimes to billy goats it was chock full of alcohol, paragoric and other things of tonicy goodness. Medicinal. Anyway, there was this old guy who used to go on and on about how it sure helped his "weed" out--which all the women thought was hilarious.

I'll stop now before I say something dangerous.

Oh Noes! I've discovered the Blackadder Quote Generator at the BBC. It has ensorcelled me.

Flashheart: If word gets out that I'm missing, 500 girls will kill themselves and I wouldn't want them on my conscience - not when they ought to be on my face!

- Private Plane

...here's another:

Blackadder: Baldrick, does it have to be this way? Our valued friendship ending with me cutting you up into strips and telling the prince that you walked over a very sharp cattle grid in an extremely heavy hat?

- Duel and Duality

...and another:

George: My head... oh, my head... feels like the time I was initiated into the Silly Buggers Society at Cambridge. I misheard the rules and tried to push a whole aubergine up my earhole.

- Corporal Punishment

Anyway, I'm okay. This is the sort of thing I've been doing instead of posting in my blog like I aught to. And reading novels. Lots of novels. Bad ones with no redeeming features.

Happy Holidays everyone. Well, I know you are all wondering what sort of things you'll be saying about me tomorrow and Christmas Day in my absence. Never fear, Rumor Control is here with the best maybe true, maybe false fun fax about Rosie Griffeth. If this is your first time coming across a Rumor Control post, you'll want to bring yourself up to speed with Rumor Control and Rumor Control, Too. Feel free to scroll down to the good parts if you are in a hurry.

Complicated explanation in a nutshell, this is my random post in which I give you a dozen rumors to spread around about yours truly. Some are true. Some are false. Some are half-true, half-false.

The Rumor Control Dozen:

1. As you all know, I was born with a tail. While I now think of it as that "special", "fun" part of me, believe it or not, I did have my awkward moments as a teenager. Kids can be so cruel. Anyway, there was this boy I had a big crush on--I had a crush on his sister too, which in hindsight was typically bent for me--but anyway, he asked me out on a date and I was so thrilled. I must have spent an hour with the Tooth Pik shining my braces up. I found out later he only went out with me on a dare to find out if it was true. The tail thing. He got his answer while we parked at the beach that night. He never called me again, but his sister sure was interested in me after that.

2. I cut down a Christmas tree with a chainsaw. Indoors. A fully decorated Christmas tree. With lights. I wore my big boots. And I stomped on all the glass balls making a shiny carpet of green, red and gold slivers of glass. I was about to take my boots off and walk through the shards when I was interrupted.

3. One of my lovers was a bisexual surgical assistant with a name like Christmas. Noel. Every thing about him smelled like Betadyne. He either wore green scrubs or black leather and rode a motorcycle. He kidnapped me one day, took me out in a boat and sabotaged the engine. I had to lie, promising I'd see him again, to get him to fix the boat and take me back to shore. I got a really bad sunburn that day. There were sharks.

4. I played rugby. I was a prop. Rugby players eat their dead. I liked mine with a bit of salsa.

5. Nobody knows I'm a heterosexual.

6. This is really private and embarrassing. Anyway, you know I had this really bad series of surgeries back in 1997. It was really grim and I was in the hospital for six months. They removed my sternum. Obviously, it makes a mess of your chest when they do this--everything gets cut up and--well--it took some pretty radical plastic surgery to put me back together and make me look normal, with clothes on anyway. Well, somehow, all of my nerve endings to my nipples got reversed. Basically, everything that touches my left--I feel on the right and vice versa. Like I said, it's really private and embarrassing--but sort of cool and fun too. My extra two nipples aren't a problem--just the main ones.

7. I've eaten balut before. It's a bit soupy and eggy. Mmmmm, balut. Hot sauce.

8. I've had reams of bad lesbian love poetry aimed at me, which explains my aversion to poetry. One called me an "omnipotent angle".

9. My best friends and I ended up in a strip bar/brothel in a port city. It was chock full of Greek sailors. We were afraid to leave because we thought it would be impolite to do so without first having a beer or something. Anyway, we were really looking for a gay bar for our gay friend who was with us and sort of appalled by all the exotically clad women who kept approaching him. I guess they thought we wanted to watch or something. We asked the sailors if they knew where a gay bar was. And you know what? They knew exactly where one was. Who would have thought a bunch of rough and ready, macho sailors would know where a gay bar was? We were so surprised.

10. I singlehandedly caused 3 pub brawls while I lived in the UK and was banned from the pub. Permanently.

11. Nobody knows I'm extraspecialomnisexualexpyaladocious. But isn't it great they have words to describe everything these days?

12. Okay, this is really embarrassing too. But it's not like something I remember or anything. Just one of those little physical abnormalities they correct in infancy you never remember. Perhaps it's because of the tail, but I was born with another really rare medical condition called vagina dentata. Yeah, it's pretty much like it sounds. But they were just baby teeth and they pulled them shortly after I was born. This boyfriend of mine had a friend who had this fear of women with my condition. We explained to him that the teeth were removed and I was for all practical purposes vagina no dentata, but he'd just run screaming from the room every time he saw me. It was awkward. But the cool thing is, my mom saved the teeth. I had them made into a necklace and earrings and they are quite the conversation piece. People are always asking me what they are and boy are they surprised when I tell them they are vagina teeth.

It was really cold today and I drove into town. So cold I started the jeep up so it could idle and the frost could melt. I love cold as long as I don't have to do much in it. Chopping wood is okay as long as my ears are covered. But the frog pond is frozen and the cow pond across from the little church is covered in ice. I'm still having to skitter up Greene Mountain to get to the road. Those bridges will be like that for a while I guess. Everyone is enjoying wearing their Carhardts.

I've been listening to a lot of The Arcade Fire recently. Wonder if I'll ever grow out of listening to moody emo-esque music that makes me cry. Will I? I'm just asking. As I approach the entire "change" thing--I have to wonder if maybe there's a way my emotions could be a little less accessible--'cause I've never had particularly good control. I'm just sayin'.

I'm watching Yimou Zhang's Curse of the Golden Flower tonight. Chow Yun-Fat and the gorgeous Li Gong star. I'm quite sure I won't know what to do with myself. Costumes, beautiful Asian people, martial arts and wire-fu--what's not to absolutely love? I'm going to eat sushi, watch the movie then I'm going to bake cookies. At least that's the plan.

I got an unexpected acceptance today. At least I think it's an acceptance. They just sent me the contract and W-4 stuff for my honorarium, so I assume they are not giving me money just to be nice about it. I'm guessing they are actually using my story. It's just the first time I didn't get a letter saying, "We really liked blah-blah-blah and want to use it in our X issue."

Welcome to my sleepy, disjointed Sunday posting. AKA--I Gots Nothin'.

I've been thinking of sense memory, particularly of smell. My sister-in-law once pointed out how potatoes baking in the oven smell like brownies at a certain point. She's right and for some reason a story is gurgling up inside of me using that as a jumping off point. One of my unhappily domestic stories probably. Every time I start a story indoors it becomes funny and unhappy at the same time. I'm not sure why that is. Okay, maybe I do, but I don't want to talk about it. Senses are funny that way.

I haven't wailed on my arch nemesis Newport Utilities in a while. Last night we had one of our frequent power outages. Went off at 1:30 a.m., right in the middle of my anime night. I do so hate having my "stories" interrupted. It shuddered back on around 3:30, but by that time I was in full insomnia mode and didn't get to sleep until 5:30 this morning.

Wondering what Friend Scott is up to--must give him a call and see.

Great police blotter title in the Newport Pie Hole Plain Talk last Sunday.

Mullet-man makes off with purse

Self-explanatory really. Mulleted man makes off with purse, but I now have:

Have you seen the mullet-man, the mullet-man, the mullet man.... running through my head. Oh, Caleb Abramson--you witty devil, you. Thanks for the ear worms.

Happy Sunday

And it's beautiful! And thanks to the magic of alphabetization--I'm across the fold from Kathy Fish!

It's a gorgeous big glossy magazine color thing. My handwriting is some of the worst there--except maybe Blake Butler's or Dennis Mahagin's (whose writing is also crazy creative as you would expect from those two), but everyone's stories and poems are so wonderful! It's neat to see a little of everyone's process. Handwriting always says so much about a person. Mine, for instance, says I can't pass a sobriety test when I'm stone cold sober.

Order Keyhole #5-- The Handwritten Issue

I've got some other stuff coming out this month and the next and on into June 2009. It's getting hard to keep up with them all. I've got a pieces upcoming in Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, Pank, Diet Soap, MsLexia, Southern Fried Weirdness, Pocket Change, The Potomac, The Dogs: Wet & Dry Anthology and Weave Magazine. So, yeah--I guess life is nice in publishment land.

I do need to catch up on my subs. I have this one piece I think is brilliant I'm having a hard time getting to stick anywhere. I am very excited about "Kurosawa's Rain" getting picked up by the Potomac and my head is still really swollen over MsLexia running "48 Years" next month.

I'm included in the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature's Holiday Homecoming Issue! There are some very fine writers sharing space with me there...all with wonderful Southern stories. I always wanted my work to appear in The Dead Mule--it's a perfect place for much of my fiction.

The Scent of Peaches, while a summer story, is very much about homecoming. I'm sure you will enjoy it.

While you are reading it, you might want to go back and read the Peek-a-bo Peach Brandy post--one of the most visited posts on The Smokey Mountain Breakdown. The Christmas season was when Mother would pull that brown paper bag from under the wash stand the TV sat atop. The brandy was served in little liqueur glasses and we'd pour the brandied peaches over vanilla ice cream.

Peaches will always stir strong feelings of home. I must have dozens of stories where they pop up.

When I woke up today, the sky and the air smelled of snow. The gravid clouds hung in the pink sky like men with big bellies. Those clouds weren't going anywhere soon. They needed a nap. The odd thing about when the weather changes to cold in the South is the strangely warm day that precedes the drop in temperatures. Today was that day.

It's not a day where you become happy and rush outside to do things because the weather is so nice. No, this day threatens. The warm wind in ominous, dry with the promise of hurt. Bad things seem to be promised on such days. Bad things sometimes happen on the oddly warm day before the snow and ice and hail.

Today, Rose Goat fell from the 300 foot cliff, breaking her hip. The local farm boys shot her for me. I couldn't get to where she was across the creek, but they were kind enough to come tell me. Yang, her boy, is home now. I don't think he'll stray. Rose was the one with wanderlust. I'm philosophical about it. I can't get too worked up--the little bitch never would stay where she was supposed to. But who would have thought something as sure footed as a goat would fall? It may have been the bobcat after her--he lives up there somewhere.

So, I'm in the Walmart today and saw the most outrageous mother/daughter pair--each with extreeeeeme two-tone mullets. Mom had clipper cut the front half of her head and peroxided it and left the permed caramel colored back hang down her back. Then, the daughter's had grown out a bit and she had the opposite color scheme--dark brown front and bleached perm down the back.

Well, I was like, Holy Crap! Get a load of those mullets! There was something almost Pictish about these hair cuts--the line bisecting their skulls was behind the ear so there was a sort of domed forehead effect. Like the Bene Gesserit nuns in Lynch's version of Dune--but sort of hillbilly. Suddenly, I looked around me and noticed how many other mullets surrounded me in Newport, TN.

Mullets aren't just Appalachia--they are a below the Mason-Dixon sensation--a true Southern classic. Mullets have successfully migrated from the South to the midwest to the Pacific Northwest. Hell, they are as Southern as KFC and you can't spit in Asia without hitting one of those. Yep, we are going for world mullet domination.

They are what happens when you grow out a nice head of hair and become conflicted about cutting it. The other way it happens is when you try to cut your own hair, but--you know--you can only really reach the front part. Then you walk around pretending you meant for that to happen. Before you know it, all your friends are doing it. Once it's done and you realize it looks sort of funny---the really long part next to the really short part--you run out in a panic to get a cheap perm because for some reason, you think curly hair will look less weird next to the short stuff.

It made me a bit nostalgic for my rattail. Yeah--I had an asymetrical 80's do with a foot plus long rattail hanging from the right rear. It was splendiferous. Sometimes, I think I feel it--Phantom Rattail Syndrome. I sort of cried when we cut it off.

Okay, so, I snuck off late yesterday afternoon, went to Morristown and saw Twilight, the Movie. Cuz...as I mentioned before, Robert Pattinson is really pretty. And I do like pretty things. Really. I do.

Every time I take myself into a public place like that I wonder anew if I'm even capable of living amongst people again. I walked up and down a mall for the first time in probably eighteen months--maybe even two years. I can't remember the last time I was in such a crowded place. There were so many people and I do love seeing east Tennessee's interpretation of "cool" and "hip". Young people, no matter how off base they are in rendering modern trends (which I know only in theory, but am reasonably confident in my own interpretation), are so vital and beautiful. They are really adorable. I love their hair roots and food coloring hair dye. It's never as they originally intended and by the time I see it--it looks like someone spilled coolaide in their two-tone hair. They are parading up and down the mall. Adorable.

I am accosted by a cosmetics booth temp during my stroll.

"I have something to show you!" she says, bright and chirpy, stopping just short of physically grabbing me.

"No. No, really. I live alone with goats," I say.

I don't think she really registered what I said. She has a frantic cast to her eyes.

"Well, then I really have something for you!"

I hurry along as much as I am capable, using my cane as an oar to push myself off--paddle my way through the throngs of people. I can't see myself as an aging hipster anymore with the stick and my gimpiness--though I know that's indeed what I am. I've just lost all of the physical attributes that come with that designation. As long as I remain unseen, a hand on a keyboard, I can hold onto that. It's part of why staying hidden is so important to me--it allows me to maintain who I am. Who I am really. Not what I look like. Because what I look like and who I am are at odds, and they always have been.

She chases after me with a jar of cream. Perhaps I shouldn't have ignored her. Perhaps I could rub that on my hands and be transformed into someone who looks more like what they really are.

So, I went into the movie theater and sat near the front where my eyes could be filled with the screen. My favorite review thus far--and the one I like most with is on Lainey Gossip. Read it after you've seen the film if you plan to see it. It's catty, funny, balanced and I wish I'd been with these two when I saw it.

I think the chemistry between the director and Pattinson is obviously--well--not there. Which is a shame since the chemistry between him and Kristen Stewart is there in spades, so it's a glaring missed opportunity--well, as much a missed opportunity as it could be considering the source material.

There's this one scene that I imagine the direction to Pattinson went something like this:

Director: Okay, Rob--You are nauseated. Really, really sick. About to blow chunks in a big way. Imagine sushi. Bad sushi. Sea urchin with visible parasites. It's in front of you and it's so gross, projectile vomiting is called for--Camera....run speed....aaaaand--ACTION!

There was never a sense of this kid being given what he needed for this role. Never a sense that he was given real thoughts to think about or that possibly--less might be more. He's a pretty, pretty boy and I think it would have been a better call to let him be pretty for this one. Leave the acting calisthenics up to guys like Cam Gigandet-who pretty much steals every scene he's in. And you believe him.

But there are lots of pretty young people in the movie in a pretty place--so what it lacks in substance, acting, scripting, believability, directing--it makes up for in terms of eye candy.

I've decided this is the reason I, embarrassingly, find myself drawn to the movie theater to see Twilight. Or perhaps some sort of former professional interest in the makeup--which does look very interesting--model perfection in the pouring rain and cold. God, I'm glad I didn't work on this one. I think I would have been in tears the entire time. It would have been Coniston Water all over again. There are few things more miserable than following actors in the driving rain making sure they don't muss themselves. Because they have a rare talent for that--mussing themselves.

Anyway, not sure I'll be able to see this today as we woke up to a snowy day. Nothing much sticking but it's cold and miserable. And, of course, the movie isn't playing at Newport's cinema. Guess it wasn't churchy or killy enough for them. Those are the two entertainment draws. What they think is wholesome and body counts. They are so going to be sorry since this thing is showing serious momentum. Guess they didn't know they were Mormon vampires. (Not really, but the author is Mormon and some of that does come through in her work.) So, I'll have to haul myself to Waynesville or Sevierville or Morristown. Arrgh.

I've read the book and I think it's going to be a better film since the book was heavy by at least 200 pages. Totally needed the cuts. And I'm thinking--as much as I razz on the vampire book writers--I probably could do it so much better. I know I could. But here's the thing. I wouldn't want to use my own name--cuz I'm like, a serious litrary writer. Srsly.

So far, my Zoe friends have come up with "Lustine" (Thanks, Gerry!) and Lecroix (Thanks, Tim). Lustine Lecroix. Think you can do better? Go ahead. Make my day--rename me.

I'm driving home from Newport today after buying groceries when I saw it. Got more stuff to do the amazing sweet potato dish and a 20 pound turkey. It's been a while since I cooked a turkey and I always enjoy watching the cockers while the thing is in the oven. They guard the stove like somebody is going to come and steal the turkey. Or maybe break in and make off with the entire stove--like it's a turkey safe or something. You need opposable thumbs to get into it.

Anyway, I took the long way home rather than cross Green Mountain--where we all have to detour until the bridges are finished. Off 25 is a whorehouse they painted and converted into a church. 25 is famous as the old red light district of Cocke County. We think they have it cleaned up now, but every once in a while the prostitution thing will resurface. Anyway, I remember when they busted this little whorehouse, so it hasn't been that long ago--2005? Anyway, it's a church now. I'm not sure what sort of special sanctification rites must be performed to switch a whorehouse to a church, but I'm sure we Episcopalians or Catholics have something already written up for such occasions.

Outside, the sign reads, "Walmart isn't the only Savings-Place, Come on in!"

Thought that might give you a giggle.

I'm so sorry I seem to have turned my blog into my personal PR firm. All I ever do anymore is announce where my stories are being accepted, blah, blah, blah. Just one more though! And this is huge--it's like one of those benchmark acceptances. I'm both thrilled and a bit shocked. One of my beloved stories--stories I like too much for their own good--"48 Years", has been picked up by MsLexia! It's a big deal for me. I mean, important people read MsLexia. More important than me, anyway.

So, I've been wandering around trying to adjust my surroundings to accommodate my enormous head which keeps knocking over the furniture. They had me fill out a questionnaire thingy even. I'm getting stuff in the mail from England. Whoo-weee! They'll be talking about me almost as much as they did with my Japanese admirer.

I had to go into Newport today to get an MRI of my back. Not that they'll be able to do anything if they see something. I told them that. But I think it will make them feel better if they do find something. But I was in at the crack of dawn to be pushed through the thwunk-thwunk machine. I don't know why those damn things are so loud. It's like they are crashing cars or something inside there. And the stupid tubes. They must construct those tubes in some country where people are much smaller than we are. I felt sausagey. Polska Kielbasa-ey.

So, I took the laptop with me because I knew I was going to be in town all day. I'm getting therapy for the PTSD I've been suffering from the September asshattery of Newport Baptist Hospital's ER. Anyway--the appointment was late in the day. Spent part of the day at the library--would have spent the entire time there if not for their no laptops policy--I know--nuts, considering the tech they are afraid of is on every cell phone and blackberry now.

So I end up at Bojangles working on the novel. Most places, you'd end up at an internet cafe or some trendy spot. I'd die of self-consciousness in one of those places. Somebody is always working on a damn novel and they can't wait for you to ask what they are doing so they can say, "I'm working on my novel. It's about...." Argh! In the Newport, TN Bojangles Chicken and Biscuits, there's absolutely no danger of that happening. None, whatsoever. I was a bit embarrassed the laptop was so dirty. I gave it a good cleaning when I got home.

Weave Magazine picked up one of my stories for their second issue. I really like the look of this new journal. They are out of Pittsburgh--where I narrowly missed settling. Had I decided to go to CMU for my MFA, I might be there now. Instead of wondering what my next starring role in Appalachian Emergency Room might be.

If you were planning to send a story in, the deadline is December 1--so get writing. There's a partial list of contributors on the Dogs: Wet and Dry site. You can also follow how the anthology is shaping up on the Dogs: Wet and Dry blog.

I'm really excited since the dog thing has always been a big, big part of my life. The story I've got in there is called Lulu and Jules, about a teenage boy and his seizure alert/service dog. All breeds and everything in between will be represented given the wide range of really amazing writers contributing to this book. It's going to be great! This is definitely a book you are going to want. I'll let you know when it is coming out so you can pre-order a copy.

The chapbook is sort of done. It's longer than most chapbooks at 11,600 words--which means I'll need to cut it down to enter it in contests. But I don't know if I really want to do that. I've been having a bit of difficulty with the name--so far I've been playing with Exile to Shaconage and The Exiles of Shaconage. Yes? No? Shaconage is the Cherokee word for the Smokies that means "land of blue smoke".

One of my favorite stories I've written this past year, Where Saturniides Fall Into the Sky, went live on Night Train this morning. Please read it! I'm very proud of it--it's one of my insect inspired stories--and has a nice dose of Southern Gothic for a soupçon of creepy.

I loves Keyhole Magazine!

Again--I find myself in the company of some of the most amazing literary talent out there. When Peter Cole asked me to contribute, I warned him I had dreadful handwriting. But I was a pretty good doodler. I totally didn't know it was going to be in color, though!

Anyway, I have a little drabble in this issue called, "Spell Shop".

Go ahead and preorder your copy HERE!

It was the year my grandfather died, I was in a school bus accident and I got a rare case of stress related stomach ulcers--rare because I was ten. Parochial school will do that to you. The windows of the second floor school building looked out onto a side street that was most often blocked off and one of those creaking, gently decaying Savannah mansions--abandoned during those days. I remember day dreaming, looking at that old house. My mother told stories of how that house had been quarantined one summer. Big posters warned everyone away. My grandmother became obsessive about literally laundering money--washing all the money that came in to remove the polio cooties. It was a polio summer and no one could go swimming.

While I lazily thought about this--ignoring the mysteries of prepositions which had thus far eluded me--inviting the nun to cuff me on the back of the head (ergo the stomach ulcers), Margaret sat behind me unplaiting and plaiting my hair. She'd get it just so--then undo it and start all over again. We had these old fashioned desks that were connected and had actual ink wells in them. The ghosts of miserable students past clung to those old desks and when I lifted my desk to gather my notebooks, I could smell the fear so much like my own mixed with beeswax. Evil Irish nuns smelled of altars, incense and bitter potpourri. Poor little Anthony, the tiniest boy in class, but also the most chatty, had knuckles like a bare fisted fighter that entire year.

Margaret was black in the way I miss so much here in Tennessee where skin is usually coffee and cream or burnished red. I miss the Lowcountry and the lush darkness, the shiny, tactile glow of West African roots. She and I were just kids--bright kids--and I fancied her my best friend. Her nervous handling of my long, white girl hair, spread out on her desktop, calmed her as much as it calmed me, I think.

I asked if I could bring Margaret home for the weekend for a sleepover. Permission was denied when my parents found out Margaret was black.

"Why?"

"It's just not done."

I pressed the matter as far as I dared but lost that battle. Margaret and I drifted apart through the years. She was always so much smarter than I was, but argumentative and on the debate team--in my heart's dreamscape I imagine her as a lawyer. I don't really know what happened to her after high school--but I think she would be a judge or someone very important by now. Definitely someone more important and accomplished than me.

The truth is racism exists in the South much like the stain of original sin. All of us, of a certain age have it. To deny that we don't is just stupid. Some of us are unrepentant, some of us deny we are racists and some, like me, are always wondering how things could be different and examining our selves for the hidden stain. We know it's there. We become hyper-aware of it, but at the same time, know we are completely clueless as to what it means to be a person of color in this country. It's very sad to me that the most profound advance I've achieved in my own quest to eradicate racism in my self--is the ability to say, "You know, you're right. I have absolutely zero point of reference for what it must be like to wear your beautiful skin--to exist in your culture."

I've seen how this played out in the election on Tuesday. Of course, the South went red. And there is absolutely no way to know how much of that was issue based and how much was driven by racism. Things are very snarled in that respect. I'm sure there were quite a few of my fellow Dems who voted McCain because they had problems with Obama's skin color. I'm pretty sure they would deny that, too.

I think what has excited me the most was how the vote broke down by ages. The younger generations are indeed making headway. All this ugliness we white Southerners have been toting around with us is fading. That's so exciting to me. To think that a South where people could stop lugging around the chains of hatred is in our grasp in a few generations. And I have this crazy elated hope that the Obama presidency will jumpstart that--that it will serve as the river baptism that will sweep all of that ugliness downstream.

Oh...yesterday's Newport Plain Talk--after the most historic election in anyone's lifetime placed the article about Obama's landslide victory below the fold at the very very bottom of the page in a teeny tiny article you had to turn to page 3 to finish reading. Under an article about how Cocke County overwhelmingly voted for McCain--but Eddie Yokley of course won his seat, despite being a Dem. Cause he's a damn nice guy and shows up.

But that doesn't have anything to do with racism, because today I saw a bumper sticker that said "TN is for Jesus, Not Obama." And Jesus was another fine, upstanding man of color--so, if He was running, TN definitely would have elected Jesus--dark skin or no.

Okay, so I've been not very good about updating my blog. Exactly a week ago I sat down to write and my back has been stuck there ever since--in not a good way. So--back problems. But just normal debilitating back problems like everyone else seems to get, have surgery for and pain management. Not my hugely more serious problem with the bleeding and the screaming that the east Tennessee medical community takes such great pleasure in observing and doing nothing about (yes, I'm still bitter, angry and litigious.).

Gorgeous East Tennessee--Where the kid you knew who pulled the wings off flies, blew up ants with magnifying glasses, set fire to kitten's tails, then ended up killing the neighbor's pets while playing "doctor", but nonetheless grew up to be a physician comes to practice medicine. Because watching people suffer intractable pain is just so damn fun and isn't it jolly when they blow their brains out?

Yeah. You can expect me to trash talk the medical community until I either get out of here or monkeys fly out of my butt or something.

Anyway, I'm back to not being able to sit for long periods of time and am unable to lift things or rise from a sitting position. This is a problem because I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. This is where 125,000 people all over the world get together and individually write 50,000 words--or a novel. I didn't get my outline done so I just started into a spec piece I had floating around. You'd like it. It's an Appalachian speculative fiction piece--sort of like one of the stories I did last October. But better, of course, because I'm writing so much leaner these days. I'm already behind on my word counts--only 3000 give or take. But I think many people are just cranking out words as fast they can, and because I've been writing flash, I'm very sparing with my words.

Friend Scott calls last night and breaks my heart spewing nonsense contrary to all of my careful indoctrination of him in the Democratic Party. I'm hoping he doesn't go all Bradley Effect on me today. Scott starts talking about how if all the people who own horses at the barn where he works for eight dollars an hour (shoveling horse poop, taking care of the horses, driving trailers of the horses to horse shows, managing the barn, sleeping with the horses--basically doing all of the labor they'd usually hire six illegal aliens to do) get their taxes raised that he'll lose his job. I mean, does he honestly think any of those rich people will give a moment's thought to exchanging "Scott the Horse Poop Shoveler" for "Juan the Horse Poop Shoveler"? In the same breath, he tells me about seeing this old guy in his late 70's working as a groom and how the guy said he'd have to work until he dropped dead because they'd never taken any SS out for him so he couldn't ever afford to retire and at least he had Medicaid now. Scott doesn't want to be that person, he says. I don't want Scott to be that person, either.

Anyway, it's just one thing that never made sense to me. I didn't fall for the whole reasoning of why oil and prices where rising and their justification for their profits being through the roof. I never fell for the reasons we supposedly went to Iraq. I don't believe the so-called "bailout" is going to do a lick of good. And I certainly, have never fallen for the concept of "trickle down" economics. It sounds like being peed upon--which is exactly what it is. Scott's too good for that--we all are. We need our middle class back.

But I'm getting ready to grab my cane and head out to vote now. I expect all of you to do so as well. Get out there and be a citizen!

I have a micro short up on Tuesday Shorts called The Watchmaker's Lover. It's 50 words. It's very very short. Read The Man Whose Home is a Bench by Eva Eliav and Farm Wars by Nathan Key while you are there. I'm particularly charmed by Farm Wars because there's a goat in it.

I love Tuesday Shorts because it's so playful. It features only stories 100 words and under. They took my drabble, Gracie's Mom, so this is the second piece they've graciously accepted from me.

The ladybugs swarmed today. There's something like this that happens in the spring--little airborne motes swirl in the air. There's something lazily magical about both of these days of the year. The light is golden and the touch of the wind--which surely must be there from all of the air movement--is invisible, unfelt. While this dance goes on all day, it is particularly in those fifteen minutes before light is completely lost that the impact is most forceful, most beautiful. During that fifteen minutes, the longing to fly with them is so strong, it takes your breath away. The ladybugs swarmed today and I watched. But I watched from indoors because having them all over you isn't that fun. They have a really funky smell, you know?

You know what strikes me oddly? The fact that the newspaper runs announcements of when and where the state highway patrol is setting up and conducting roadblocks. They'll be on Big Creek Road next week. Am I the only one who finds this counterproductive? It would seem to me the highway patrol would call the paper and say, "Hey, dudes...cut us a break here while we are trying to catch the bad guys." And it would seem the paper would say, "Oh...we get it. Our bad."

At any rate, if you are planning to drive drunk or use your suspended license ix nay on driving on Big Creek next week. It was in the paper. M'kay?

Remember I was telling you about that amazing sweet potato dish I had at the Hall Reunion? Someone asked me to try to put it together and I did just that--but made a few changes. The idea is the same but I made it into a pie with a caramel oat nut crunch crust. I don't have a name for it. It's a Coconut-Pecan Sweet Potato Pie--we'll just call it that for now. I made it all just using the food processor--though I'm sure if I tried I could dirty up many more dishes.


Here's how I made it:

1. On the night before making, bake 6 medium to medium-large sweet potatoes. Choose the sort with more orange-red color.

2. In your food processor, mix 1 stick of unsalted butter, 2 cups of quick oatmeal, 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of plain sugar with a pinch of salt. Use 2/3rds of this mixture to press into the pie pan for the sugar crust. Set the other 1/3 aside.

3. Puree/Mix in the food processor 2 eggs, sweet potatoes, juice of 2 lemons, 1/2 cup brown sugar, white sugar to taste. (Mixture should be sweet--if you have a preferred sweet potato pie filling recipe--feel free to use that. There will be some left-over) Spread into pie pan, almost but not quite to the top--leave about a half to 3/8ths of an inch.

4. Pour the contents of 1 can of Duncan Hines Coconut-Pecan frosting/cake filling into a small bowl. (If you can't find this, it is the filling used in German Chocolate cake for the layers--you can find recipes for it and make it fairly simply. Getting the ready to use makes this an easy recipe, though) Mix into this 1 and a half cups of sweetened angelflake coconut. Then spread on top of the sweet potato mixture very gently.

5. Sprinkle with the remaining oat buttercrunch mixture. Dot generously with butter and bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.

Give this a try and I'll bet you'll want to use it for your Thanksgiving table. I'm sure it will freeze well so you can make this way ahead of time. This is a very rich dessert and it might help to serve it with some whipped cream. You may also garnish it with pecan halves for a festive look.

My house smells of brown sugar and vinegar, spices and fruit. It's an old smell that belongs with crocheted antimacassars, mahogany furniture blackened with tung oil and the back of my great aunt's washstand. It belongs on a table covered in linen--the damask kind with a sheen like oil on water, ghost colors rising to the surface of starched white. It belongs with a silver dish and a uselessly ornate silver server that strains the liquid from mysterious fruit, no longer recognizable.

My house smells of chutney--winter rice dishes, ploughmen's lunches and a colonial past.

I'll need to get some sharp cheese.

I'm a writing fool for the next five days doing a Zoetrope mini flashathon. Only five days, but hey! I need pushes like that now and again. I seem to write my best material under duress. I wrote a creepy cat lady story called The Ears of the Dead today.

I meant to write last night but found myself tired, drifting off, so I set the alarm for early this morning to get up and write. However, I woke up to the mother of all nosebleeds. I think I lost a pint of blood through my nose over three hours. Called the hematologist who told me I'd need to apply pressure for freaking 20 to 30 minutes rather than five or ten. And if that didn't work then call the PCP and go in to have balloons or something stupid put up there. Anyway--ended up going to see the PCP thinking, crap, now I'm gonna waste the entire day catering to the stupid clotting disorder--but it stopped right as I got into town. Of course, if I hadn't called and gone in--it still would be bleeding. But I had to go in anyway because...

I'm making chutney and needed ingredients. Now that I've got my story out of the way, I can peel my apples and pears and prepare my spices. I'll leave it to cook on the warmer overnight. I may also work on recreating the amazing sweet potato thing I had at the Hall reunion. I've already got some ideas about changing it while keeping that yummy combination of sweet potato, coconut pecan icing and butternut crust. I'm thinking about combining the crumbly bottom and top of the wedding/date bar cookie with it. Make sort of a layered sweet potato bar thing. Be a good T-day sweets recipe.

And guess what!!! A guinea was in the yard today!!! So they weren't bobcat bait, just wandering as guineas do.

Just checking in. Haven't posted most of the week.

I've been having what I guess is a sort of post-traumatic stress reaction from last month's health crisis. I can't get it out of my head how brutal my doctors were. I have trouble sleeping because it keeps running over and over in my head. I have flashbacks of lying there in the living room by myself, screaming and bleeding. I feel like I should sue Newport Baptist Hospital for what they did to me. I can't seem to put it behind me and I'm, at the very least, going to have to write a nasty letter to the BOD and their parent company. It's taking large doses of amytriptiline to knock me out at night. I've got headaches from stopping my Plavix--the drug I was taking to protect my eyesight and prevent arterial clots but am now too terrified to take because I think it has something to do with those attacks. I'd rather go blind than have that happen again. I'm terrified since I was told I couldn't go to the emergency room anymore and that podunk hospital is the only place I can go to be stabilized--and they said they wouldn't treat me. The great irony being they call themselves "Mercy" partners--or something like that. Mercy being the furthest concern any of them. I can't trust anyone in the medical profession here. Everything that happened in 1997 is happening again and I'm afraid I won't be able to get out of here in time.

I remember how long it took me to stop being afraid the vacuum in my chest would fail again. Once you have that happen, you never forget it. This is just as bad. I'm walking around afraid all the time, because I know there isn't a soul who will help me in east Tennessee. I know it sounds crazy, but I think the doctors think I'm too much trouble and should just go ahead and die. I really think that sometimes--it's the logical thing to think. I really would like to stop being so angry about this, but it took 140 excellent doctors to get me past what they did to me in Columbia, SC at Richland Memorial Hospital. I now seem to be in the same cycle of crazy.

But...the writing is going really well. If I can survive the not so tender ministrations of east Tennessee's health industry, there's a good chance I'll have a novel published eventually. People really like my work and that is gratifying. I spend as much time as I can concentrating on that so I don't concentrate on the other thing.

I'm really excited about the elections coming up. Sad that my Republican friends are so angry and inaccessible right now--but you can't say anything without them jumping these days. It's as though I'm not entitled to my opinion without someone jumping all over me. Not that I'm the sort who goes around crowing about it--but I should be able to make an offhand statement without people getting their panties so twisted. But I do like Obama--so there. He's presidential. And I'm not asking for comments here.

The place is jumping with wildlife this fall. Perhaps it's because the place has grown up so much now that I can't keep as many goats. I'm not sure, but yesterday I chased three big fat wild turkey hens down the mountain on the backside of the property. Then this morning, there were two whitetail does right in the driveway, just bold as brass. Mutton and Chops were leering at them like a couple of blinged up romeos on the make.

And just now, as I was typing away at a review, something slinked across the backyard. It was bigger or as big as Max. A bobcat--bold as brass. I went out on the back porch and she looked at me with that lynxy shorthair face--but bigger--their heads are really big. Anyway, she wasn't afraid of me at all. I left the camera in the car, unfortunately. But I guess that answers what happened to my guineas.

You have to register to comment here now. I've been getting visitors from Dumbfuckistan.

I've got a story for you today. Up the Staircase, an excellent new journal that is simply stunning visually, just released their fall issue and my story, Collectors, is included. I first spotted Up the Staircase over on EditRed when they published two emerging writers I had been following in their inaugural issue. Their second issue featured my old stomping grounds, Savannah, Georgia and the family cemetery, Bonaventure--so I couldn't resist sending them something.

I'm just about as impressed as I can be by their layout, photography and content. I'm sharing space with some fine writers so Collectors is in good company. I especially enjoyed Ashley McAtee's The Cashier--another flash fiction that had me in stitches. But read them all--they are all very fine stories and the featured poet, Rachel Custer, is fascinated by fainting goats and therefor must have excellent taste.

I'm sure you will love Collectors --a story dealing with a childhood lesson in larceny.

One of my rare political posts.

So, this place where I live is redder than the ass of an overly "friendly" baboon. Really. I'm not the sort that needs to live in a liberal ghetto--it would be nice--but I like to mix it up a bit and can't afford to live in most liberal ghettos. The grocery bill alone at The Fresh Market would be prohibitive. I figured out that Republicans could be really nice people even if they think odd things and feel very strongly about those odd things. I'm sure they think the same thing about me.

Our State Representative, Eddie Yokley, is a heck of a nice guy. He's up for re-election this year. Eddie shows up for everything--even when he's not campaigning fast and hard. He's always there and does a really fine job for his constituents. I will certainly be voting for him. But Eddie's got a dirty little secret. He's a Democrat.

His phone minions called my house. Not subtle at all, asking me if I would be voting for Eddie or the other guy. I can't remember exactly the question, but it wasn't veiled at all.

"Eddie's a Democrat, right?" I asked.

Dead silence. Then, "Ummm....well. Yeah."

"Well, sure--I'm a yella dog, so of course I'll be voting for Eddie."

They perked up considerably after this and asked if I'd be willing to put a sign out on my property. I told them, sure, but weren't much but bears and deer could see it.

I shook his hand once at the Ramps Festival and mentioned I was a Democrat and I remember a certain furtiveness to the exchange.

I defy you to find a statement in his campaign literature or his website or even his Wikipedia entry as to the fact he is a Democrat. Even his flyers are all done in red rather than the proud blue we Dems usually fly on our literature--there is, after all, a reason they are called red or blue states. And his blurbs are Republican-y too.

The reason he wins here is because everyone knows him, likes him and he does his job well. Obviously, some slick campaign management people have decided he should at least look like he's Republican and never, under any circumstances, say the "D" word. Or write it. I just think it's pretty funny. They are like that here about gay people too. As long as no one admits to it or says anything about it--everything is hunky-dorey.

I'm not going to link to him since I've never been one to out people. It's just rude. Mum's the word, m'kay? But I think it would be awesome if Eddie would emerge out of a giant cake wearing a racy Democrat outfit when the world turns on its axis after these elections. I'm just sayin'.

I'm so sorry I've missed so many days. I've just not been in the mood--I spend so much time writing stories now that I sort of blow my writing mojo on the stories. They are getting to you--but they are getting to you on a delay as they are accepted. Sorry about that. Things were so much simpler when I was just writing the stories here on the blog. Unfortunately--I can't get some of those published, excellent though they may be because I did develop them here.

Anyway, there's a wonderful new Appalachiastana/rural literature blogazine run by Rusty Barnes of Night Train fame. Who knew? Super literati uber-editor extraordinaire Rusty Barnes grew up in the sooty back hills of Pennsylvania. I have a piece up there now called Sister Hayes Takes Up a Serpent.

Sister Hayes is an ekphrasis flash--which is a piece of writing about another work of art or literature. The piece was inspired by Pastor Jimmy's Sister Hayes painting--one of his most striking works. Most over-edjumacated people recognize the kinship between Sister Hayes and St. Theresa of Avila, or at least Bernini's sculpture, The Ecstasy of St. Theresa. St. Therese, a mystic deeply involved in ecstatic religious states would have felt right at home in a signs-following service. My story is an exploration of the phenomenon called "the anointing".

Rusty is looking for new content for Fried Chicken and Coffee so if you have something along these lines:

Send me rural, funky, dirty stories about churchgoing women who never sin. I'd like to read that. What about the story I lived, the one where the kid moves away and goes to college and becomes a writer, and until he's thirty, his male relatives hitch their drawers and ask him when he's going to be out of school? Except don't write about writing. I don't care much, since I live it. I would love to see more stories about women, though. Get to the grit, get to the love, show me the scars, and take Harry Crews to heart: "Blood, bone, and nerve, that's fiction. Show me the stuff that cuts to the quick."

...send it on in--after reading the guidelines 'natchurly.

I think this bailout plan is especially hard for Appalachian folk to accept and wrap their heads around. The farmers can probably understand it, because they depend on credit--though the farmers I know are pretty pissed. But your average folks live hand to mouth for the most part in the Appalachians. They have very creative ways of making money here. I recently wrote a story called The Moss Gatherers that features the wildcrafting culture. Entire families make their living from gathering moss, trillium bulbs, gensing, ramps--anything they can find in the woods. They even go around buying boxwood clippings. It's really why the Park has such strict rules about picking plants. They aren't worried about you nabbing a few leaves to press--they are after the gatherers poaching entire stands of gensing or ramps. Stripping the forest of mosses and trilliums. All that craft moss has to come from somewhere and it usually comes from this mountain range.

So. People who make their living this way, only buying things when they have money, living in a purely cash economy, are mighty pissed off about the bailout. Because they don't connect that the grocer needs credit to buy food--our entire economy runs off of it. The world runs off of it.

It seems weird to me, too. I've never been particularly credit worthy having spent the majority of my life in the arts. It's why I try to convince young people going into the arts to do something else for a living. Keep the arts as your bliss, because once you try to make a living from it, it ruins it.

So, people are already calling it The Great Depression of 2008. We all may be out there gathering moss.

Have two stories that came out today for you. Both of these are a bit different in their own way from stories I’ve done before. Both stories involve gender bending. I didn’t know they would both come out on the same day—that was entirely serendipitous.

Mr. Black Takes a Sunbath on Insolent Rudder


The first is on Insolent Rudder and is entitled Mr. Black Takes a Sun Bath.

Judy's got her arms outstretched atop Wonder the Rocking Spring Horse saying "Look at me, look at me!" The springs groan and squeak.

I glare from beneath my bangs. She's bouncing too hard and she's too heavy for Wonder anyway. I'd wanted to name him Silver, but she won because it said Wonder right on the box.

This story is set in the south during the 1960's and has cultural references very specific to that period in time.
I know you will enjoy Mr. Black.

Queerer than Me on Thieves Jargon


The second one of these on Thieves Jargon has racy/salty language, adult situations and involves a subculture some might find distasteful. Not surprising it was accepted since Thieves Jargon looks for work that is “… edgy and impulsive and not necessarily informed by experience. We're interested in stories about drifters and dreamers finding beauty in things they never thought they would.”

What I’m trying to say is, don’t read this story if you are easily offended and don’t think your beloved Rosie would ever use a cuss word. I can write badass. Absolutely. I have unplumbed depths, dammit. My writing has range.

Now that I’ve warned you, I’m sure the most timid of you will now rush over to Thieves Jargon to be thoroughly scandalized. You may console yourself by calling me a fiction writer and believing I couldn't possibly know people like that. Right?

Queerer than Me.

In other news...I got a personal package from Japan yesterday. Bet you're dying to know what was in it.