Two of my major. . .

. . .commitments for spring/early summer have been dealt with.  The Oz contest and the Yellow Brick Run are things of the past.  So now I hope to have more time for blogging and writing in general.

         Tonight's ARTHUR rehearsal should be fun.  For the first, we are going to rehearse in CrossRoads Church community center, the space which will eventually host the production. Our first task is to set up the borrowed band risers to create some raised seating.  If your scenery is going to be flat on the floor, you must raise your seats or people after the second row will only see the actors from the waist up.  We'll also tape off the walls for the scenery and get used to the amount of space, which will be available for the action.

         It can be fun to go back to writings you started and perhaps completed in the past.  I mentioned in an earlier blog, the fact that the first writing of my retirement was a young adult mystery, which I eventually put aside because I thought it came out kind of Nancy Drewish.  I meant no offense to the NANCY DREW or HARDY BOYS mysteries*, which I loved when I was a kid, but I thought the method of story telling might be a bit dated.

          So last week I reread, from cover to cover, the mystery I wrote back in 2003, and which I eventually titled SANDRA'S AUGUST.  You know, I really enjoyed it.  I had forgotten what was going to happen, so the events as they appeared were surprises to me.  Of course, maybe I liked the story because I was the one who made it up.  But reading it was fun anyway.

          On a sort of similar note, I have about completed my office cleanup, and some really old pieces of writing were sent off for recycling.  They were some stories it was time to let go.

*Did you know that Carolyn Keene and Franklin W. Dixon, the authors of NANCY DREW and the HARDY BOYS weren't real people.  A bunch of different authors were hired, cheaply I might add, to turn out the dozens of mysteries that sold millions of copies.

Today is a stay in the house, . . .

. . .settle near the air-conditioning, and, ideally, get some organizing and some writing done. My office is kind of messy.  There's too much stuff for the room I have, what with an exercise ball, two guitars, a tv, a turntable on top a table, an easy chair, a good size desk, office chair, tons of books and scattered papers, I am overwhelmed with stuff at the moment.  Last week, I bought 4 dozen file folders to reorganize the scattered papers.  They have been sitting on the floor.  Today, I will try to actually use those folders.

               I am opting for the zen approach to the problems of SUMMERPLAY.  A little meditation, a momentary chant, a smile, then fix them.

                We have two great chairs to add to the lobby of the Avalon Inn.  From where did they come?  Linda, Lucy, and I were heading to Panera's this morning, when, just down our street, we saw these excellent wicker porch chairs sitting by the road, waiting to be picked up by the garbage men.  What to do?  Become a garbage picker?  Immediately, I decided yes, and Linda agreed, although she buried her head, lest someone see us at this.  I hung a U-turn, leaped from the car, tossed the chairs in the back seat, which alarmed Lucy who was already sitting there, hopped back, drove back to our house, and secreted them in the garage.  (That is se'creted as in put them somewhere in secret, not secrete'd as in what a gland does with a hormone.  I don't know how to secrete a chair.)  The chairs are fabulous, although they appear to be shedding dry paint.  I plan on hosing and vacuuming that problem away.  With some bright cushions, they will be the bomb!  In fact, don't tell her I told you, but I believe Linda is planning on keeping our roadside treasure after ARTHUR REDUX is over.  She'll probably claim she found them in some trendy next-to-new shop.  You ought to see the $125 shabby chic shelf that is on our porch already.  Now that's the bomb!

                 "Secret" and "secrete" reminded me of another interesting English rule, this one a spelling rule, which I will share with my friend Scott and others who might be interested.  Let's title this rule, "Why 'Counselor' Should be Spelled with Only One L not Two."  When adding an ending to multiple syllable verbs that end in consonants like "counsel" or "travel or "secret."  Or like "occur" or "compel" or "control," the accented syllable determines whether or not one should double that final consonant.  If the first syllable is accented as in the word "travel," then one does not double the "l" in "traveler" or "traveling."  If the second syllable (or it could be the third or fourth) is accented as in "compel," then one* needs to double the final consonant.  This is one of the more "compelling" spelling rules that I know.  Certainly, there will be exceptions to this rule, but not very many.

                  Kudos to Jigs for designing our poster!

*Who is this "one" people are always writing about?

The Blue Moon Grille. . .

. . .has a new official follower.  Welcome, Deb.

         I've mowed the lawn, moved most of the mulch, and done the errands that were set aside for today, and I have a little time to blog.  First, I want to put forward a phenomenon I call "the rule of three" and see if anyone else agrees with it.  Have you noticed that when you're driving down a relatively lonely road, haven't seen a car in three minutes or more, and a bicyclist or pedestrian suddenly appears at the edge of the road just ahead, that 9 times out of 10, a car coming in the other direction appears, too?  And sure enough, the two cars have to do some kind of automotive stop and go dance in order to pass each other without wiping out the biker/walker.  If you haven't noticed this, check it out.  I swear it's true.

             I also want to lay some kudos on my cast for last night's rehearsal, which was pretty darn delightful.  Mickey was regal, brave and befuddled; Scott was delighted, daft, and determined; Matt was both kind and clever; Chloe and Jackie (with an occasional appearance by Sarah B) were cute, sweet and simple; Glenn and Matt M., (with an occasional appearance by Pete) were manly, muscular. . .and simple; the Mordreds, including Colleen, Joan, Wayne, Chuck, and, eventually, Derek, were properly despicably humorous (special kudo to Wayne for the look on his face when it was suggested he might eat until he burst).  Mary was obsessive, twisted, and loving it; Jess and Sam were loyal without seeming servile;  Pete was wonderfully obnoxious; Sarah G. brought new meaning to bounce; and Sarah B. was wonderful, courageous, and pastel without wearing any, (pastel that is).  And I know that those who had to miss last night would have been equally swell.  (Did you know that in the 20's and 30's that "swell" was an off-color term?)  Having said how wonderful you all were, I now instruct you to forget it! You might very well stink at tonight's rehearsal.  

        I totally finished the second to last chapter of TISHA, and I really liked it.  I think I'll post a snippet with a little context.  In TISHA AND THE GIANT, tKevin Conley is a 14 year old with a huge crush on Tisha, a senior girl.  And because he is always watching Tisha, Kevin realizes that a scary looking man seems to always be watching Tisha, too, when he goes to her soccer games.  When thinking about Tisha, the imaginative, comic-book loving Kevin, imagines himself as a comic book hero called the Giant.  He assembles a costume and weapons, including a piece of pipe which he calls his mace.  Eventually, the Giant realizes that the evil man, who he calls the Lump, is waiting for Tisha along the road where she jogs.  So the Giant must go do battle with the Lump, and stealth is an important weapon.  Where this snippet picks, the Giant has sneaked up on the Lump and whacked him with the pipe/mace.

I hit him!  The Giant thought to himself.  I really hit him.  He watched the Lump tumble a few feet over the sharp rocks.  But suddenly, a big arm and big hand shot out and the Lump grabbed hold of a root and skidded to a stop on the rocky hillside.  He had lost his cap, and the side of his head was scraped and running with blood.  He was really mad, and he glared at the Giant.  “You little putz! You’re dead!”  

Looking down at him, the Giant was sure he meant it.  As the Lump lumbered toward him, the Giant swung his battle mace again.  Whack! into the Lump’s left shoulder it went, and the Lump moaned and fell to his knees.  He remained there, his right arm slung over his head to protect himself.  “Hey, kid.  You gotta stop hittin’ me,” the Lump croaked as the Giant stood above him, still brandishing his mace.  Once again the Giant tried to summon up a Giant voice.  “Then get in the Lumpmobile,  and leave us alone, and don’t come back here anymore,” the Giant said.  And then for the first time in a voice that was worthy of at least a little awe, he snarled,  “You will never again bother Tisha.  These are my orders.  I am the Giant!  Do you understand?”

Slowly the Lump raised his head and looked at the Giant.  His left shoulder looked kind of funny, kind of misshapen even for the Lump, but he didn’t rub it with his right hand.  “What the hell’s a lumpmobile, and who’s the Giant.  You ain’t no frickin’ giant, kid, but yeh, I understand,” he replied in the evil Lump voice that the Giant had first heard way back on the first Friday of the school year.

“Good,” said the Giant.

“Go to hell,” the Lump snarled back, raised his knife and slashed out.

“No fair using knives,” the Giant shouted, as he saw the shiny blade arcing toward his leg, and he tried to step aside, but he wasn’t quite fast enough.  The blade sliced down the side of his left leg, tearing his pant leg and scraping along his skin before it slammed into the hillside.  It hurt awful.  In a moment, the Lump had pulled the knife from the ground and was raising it again.  The Giant decided it was time to run.  He turned and bolted up the little hillside toward the road, but his toe caught on a root, and he fell flat on his masked face.  The tumble caused his mask to spin around and partially cover his eyes, and for a moment, he couldn’t see anything, so he tore the mask off with his free hand and rolled to his side, just in time to see the Lump rising up over him.  Out shot the Giant’s foot and crashed into the Lump’s groin.

The Lump made a sort of oofing noise and tumbled to his knees.  He looked pathetic.  His face was bleeding, his left shoulder was definitely dislocated, and he was crunched over in agony.  But he still held the knife in his right hand.

Jan and Chris came. . .

. . .for Father's Day today.  We had a great time.  This isn't about writing, but it's fun to recall.

           I have virtually finished the TISHA chapter titled "Can A Bicycle Fit in a Camry."  That leaves only two chapters to finish.  The penultimate chapter, which I will start tomorrow, isn't a rewrite.  The rewriting I have done led me in different directions, which necessitated the writing of a totally new next to last chapter.  (That's a context clue in case you don't know the word "penultimate.")  A lot of the final chapter will be new, too.

           I sent out a press release for ARTHUR REDUX tonight.  Without a CB TIMES, our pr sources are pretty well obliterated.  I hope the POST STANDARD will give us some space in the Madison or CNY sections.

            This is a rather uninspired blog.  They say that inspiration is 99% perspiration, but I don't feel like sweating tonight.

The deadline for completing. . .

. . .TISHA AND THE GIANT has come and gone.  What's nice about self-imposed deadlines is that you're the only one who gets upset with you.  I have been working.  I just completed a chapter, but the rewriting has taken on a life of its own.  What was to be the final chapter, will end up being 3 chapters in the final version.   I even know what the chapter titles are going to be and almost all that will happen within them, save for the surprises I'll discover along the way.  The chapters are titled "Can a Bicycle Fit into a Camry?," "Come Saturday Morning," and "Denoument Almost."

          My last blog seems to have spawned a bunch of interest and response.  Thanks to all and especially to Stacey, and Kelley and Lora.  I thought some more about REMAIN IN MY LOVE and wrote a second chapter.  I already did some rewriting of Chapter 1, also.  Dwayne is nownamed  Joshua.  The "dappled horses" are now "dappled ponies."

           Here is Chapter 2:

II

Joshua told us it was time we should all get up, so together, we yawned and stretched and stuff.  Joshua had gas really loud and said, “Well, that’s working good this morning.” Then we went to the bath houses to wash.  I stuck my hair under the faucet, which had only cold water, and soaked my hair, and used some soap from the little dispenser to wash it.  After, I put my head underneath the hand dryer on the wall.  I let Sarah borrow my toothbrush because she didn’t have one.  We both brushed our teeth with dispenser soap because we didn’t have any toothpaste, and we spit really fast and thoroughly.  In that bath house, the toilets didn’t flush.  You had to sit on them and just go into a stinky hole in the ground, which I thought was disgusting.

Without even thinking about breakfast, we got into the station wagon and pulled out of that campground pretty fast because we had intentionally not paid to be there the night before.  Out on Highway 1, the world wasn’t dappled anymore.  It was all sunshine.  Like a palomino maybe, if I thought of ponies.

I loved Highway 1 that day because it was so sunny and twisting and exciting and dangerous.  Joshua drove with one hand.  He drove fast and grinned and sometimes pointed out things for us to see.  Once he said, “Look there children,” and pointed to the sky.  A pelican was swooping down to the ocean.  If we hadn’t been going so fast, we might have seen it splash into the sea and emerge with its beak full of fat fish.

I was glad we were going north because on the east side of Highway 1, the hills are going up, but on the west side they are cliffs and fall off to the Pacific.  Riding south would be scarier, especially riding with a driver like Joshua, who always drives with one hand and sometimes with only one finger.  One time that morning, when no cars were coming toward us, he drove over into the wrong lane on purpose, and we swooped along, almost grazing the guard rail.  If he had just flicked his one finger a bit, we would have crashed off the edge and gone flying just like that pelican diving for his fish.  

Almost to Monterey, we pulled into a gas station that was also a little grocery store.  We stopped at the pump, where the gas was  29.9 cents per gallon.  It was Texaco gas.  “How much we got?” Joshua grinned at Sarah, who grinned right back and went exploring with her hand in the glove compartment, and came out with our money.

Sarah counted our money.  “$72.62,” she said.

“We’ll have breakfast,” Joshua smiled, and that really made me happy.  Billy, too, because he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek as if to say, “Thank goodness, we’re going to eat something.”

Right then the gas station guy came walking up to Joshua’s window.  He was frowning and wiping his hands on a greasy rag.  I could tell he didn’t like us when he looked in and said, “Yeh?”

“Fill ‘er up,” Joshua said back, and although I couldn’t see it, I knew he was smiling a smile so broad and beautiful that the gas station man wouldn’t be able to say no.  He didn’t say no, either.  He didn’t say anythng.  But he pumped our gas which cost $2.85, and while he was pumping, Sarah went in the store and came back with breakfast.

It was one of my favorite breakfasts ever.  As we drove through the sun on Highway 1, we drank freezing cold orange juice, the kind with the pulp, from a two quart carton.  We passed it back and forth and around the car taking big slugs and grinning.  It made me laugh, and a little juice bubbled out of my mouth, and I had to wipe it off my chin with the back of my hand.  

Not only did we have orange juice, but Sarah also brought a dozen Hostess powdered sugar donuts.  That meant 2 for me, 2 for her, 2 and 1/2 each for Billy and Thomas, and 3 for Joshua.  Sarah took a bite of one of hers, and turned back to look at Billy and me.  Her mouth was wearing a powdered sugar halo.  “Forgot napkins,” she laughed.  In a minute we all had white haloes around our mouths, but Joshua’s was the best because the powder was so very white and his skin was so very black.

It's funny how an idea may come to you, . . .

. . .or come back to you.  In church on Sunday, the sermon included a quote from John 15, which, in part read, "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love. . ."  The quote stuck with me.  I thought about it after church, and thought how the sentiment need not apply only to God. There are a lot of people who grant their love only to those who will do as they tell them. I then thought about a story idea that has been with me 2 months short of 40 years.  Let me tell you about the five hippies.

          On August 9, 1969, I was camping with two fraternity brothers at a park in Big Sur, just south of Monterey, California.  Having just graduated from college, we were on a last cruise down Main Street, USA, before we accepted the responsibilities of grown-up life.  We had crossed the country in my new white Barracuda, which had a black stripe down the hood.

           At a little after 9:00, a wreck of a station wagon came puffing into the campsite next to ours.  Five young people, long-haired and sloppily dressed, came stretching out of the car.  I mean my friends and I were rather long-haired and sloppily dressed, but this group out longed and slopped us.  They were, in the jargon of the time, five hippies.

          We were drinking beer, and one of them came over and offered to trade some "reds" for some beer.  We didn't take the deal.  For one thing we weren't users of "reds," which I think was slang for uppers, then, and we were almost out of beer.  I think we might have given the guy one can, but I can't swear to that.

          Eventually, we went to sleep, and when we got up, probably a little before 8:00, the five hippies were sleeping all over the place.  They had no tent.  They hadn't even checked into the campsite.  They were sleeping on picnic tables, the ground and in the car.  They didn't stir as we packed up and headed south toward the wonders of Los Angeles, about 300 miles away.

          An hour or two after we left, there was a news report about the horrific murder of Sharon Tate, her friends, and her gardener's son in L.A., the first of the infamous Manson murders.  Eventually, the radio reported that the police were looking for a group of "hippies" in connection with the crime.  Of course all we could think of for awhile was if, perhaps, our hippies were those wanted hippies.

          They weren't, though, we carried the idea around with us for days, finally stopping at a police station somewhere in Southern California to report our suspicions.  The police didn't think much of our report.  I think maybe they already had a handle on the Manson family.

          Ever since then, our five hippies have haunted me.  We had blamed them for this horrendous crime, given them the heinous ability to slaughter people.  I really felt bad about that, and many years ago decided that I would sometime write a novel about my hippies, creating for them identities, purposes, and dreams.

          I decided to combine the memories of that time with the quote from John to begin writing a novel that travels for awhile in that station wagon.  Richard Brautigan wrote a really good novel called A CONFEDERATE GENERAL AT BIG SUR.  I always have liked Brautigan's simple, terse, yet poetic storytelling.  So I'm going to try to go for that.  I'm going to call it REMAIN IN MY LOVE.  I had to get started, get the idea solidified, although I won't be back to it for some time.  So I made some notes, named my characters and wrote the first chapter, simply, tersely and poetically, I hope.  Here it is:

        We spent the night at a campsite near Big Sur.  It was a warm night, fine for being outside. I tried to fall asleep on top of a picnic table with Billy curled tight against my back.  We were like spoons.  Sarah slept in the back of the station wagon, and Thomas slept in the front seat.  Dwayne stretched out on a little circle of grass between our campsite and the next one.  He lay flat on his back, his arms out wide, as if he were studying the stars.  

As I tried to sleep, I could hear the Pacific Ocean crashing on the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs.  Now and then, I would open my eyes and watch the three boys at the next campsite. They were sitting on top of their picnic table.  Two of them smoked cigarettes.  All three were drinking beer.  They had a white car with a black stripe on the hood and a New York license plate.  They looked like nice boys.  I wondered where they were going, and whether or not they might take me along.  I fell asleep wondering where the three boys from New York might take me.

When I woke up, the sun was shining through the huge trees that towered over the campsites.  My world, that morning, was dappled with sunlight and shade.  Dappled was a word my mom used to say.  She would tell me about dappled horses.  Horse with spots.

All that was left of the boys, who were supposed to take me away, was a bag with beer cans in it sitting on top of their garbage can.   When we had pulled in the night before, it was after dark, after the campground was closed.  Dwayne had tried to trade the boys  some reds he had for beer.  But the boys didn’t have enough beer left to trade, and I don’t think they wanted any reds.  They didn’t look like boys who would want them.  I wonder if they couldn’t see me in the dark.  I wonder if that’s why they didn’t ask me to go along.

I'm stealing from the past once more. . .

. . .for today's blog.  Even though auditions for SUMMERPLAY are much less painful than those ones back at CHS, when 95 kids tried out for 20 parts, I still suffer a little bit along with those who may have been disappointed on the day I post the cast.  I found the following in my writing about A GIRL OF TWO WORLDS,  from which I used stuff before.

AUDITIONS (GOD, HOW I HATE THEM)

          "Most years, the two days I hate the most are the days I post the cast lists for the fall play and the musical.  When I look into kids' faces on those days, I feel like a dentist, which is not what I went to school to be.  For some of them, the message I bear is heartwarming and soul-lifting: they feel like dancing, so delighted are they by my news.  For others, there is acceptance in their faces; after all, at least there are painkillers.  And for a few, there is a sort of "I'm allergic to novocain " look of heartbreak, disappointment, and pain; nothing I can say or do will make this day not hurt.

            "I would never trivialize the heartbreak of not winning the part one dreamed of winning.  I know how awfully it hurts.  It has happened to me.  I have this dream that someday, I will write a play in which all the actors are stars, in which no one has more lines that anyone else, in which every role is of equal importance.  I might call this play EVERYONE'S A STAR."  (Sounds like a reality show.) "I'm afraid though, as Kurt Vonnegut taught us in his wonderful short story "Harrison Bergeron," that such a play would be terribly boring.  After all if every star burned at the same magnitude, then the brightest star would not amaze us on winter's night, nor would the North Star be able to guide us on our journeys."

             In SUMMERPLAY, I strive for repertory company kinds of plays, with lots of equal size roles and few or no stars, kind of like putting a lot of shiny not quite stars together to see how bright they can shine as a group.  I guess it's another one of those "less is more" things, and a different way of getting at what I was striving for more than 10 years past.

      

ARTHUR REDUX came to life. . .

. . . on Wednesday and Thursday.  The cast was good as were both rehearsals.  For a rather serious, albeit fantastical, play, most of the laugh lines work.  I do have to work on, "And what else would you call it," though.

          A couple of weeks ago, I talked about my burgeoning collection of Whitman books from the 50's and early 60's.  I got three more today, and they are really in great condition.  The titles are RIN TIN TIN AND CALL TO DANGER, LASSIE IN FORBIDDEN VALLEY, and CHEYENNE AND THE LOST GOLD OF LION PARK.  For the young'ns, Rin Tin Tin was a German Shepherd with a rank in the U.S. Cavalry back in the old West.  Now you may have heard of Rinty, but if you weren't watching TV in the 50's you are probably unaware of the character Cheyenne Bodie played by Clint Walker.  Cheyenne was a 6'6" cowboy who wandered the West looking out for folks in trouble.  When I got the books, I just had to sit down and read the opening chapter of CHEYENNE.  And right there on page 25 was another example of our changing language.  A 15 year old kid, impressed by Cheyenne's toughness, is watching him walk down the street.  When Cheyenne passes a couple of local gunslingers known to cause trouble for strangers, the kid is intrigued as to what might happen if they tried anything with him.  He says, "They wouldn't have much luck if they tried to get gay with Cheyenne."  How amazingly our language doth, I means does, change.

Not a lot of time. . .

. . .to blog today.  Tonight is the first rehearsal for ARTHUR REDUX.  Still, I wanted to write a little bit about something that came to mind this morning.

         The subtitle of this blog states that I "...love the words."  And I do.  I think our language with all its tricks and discrepancies is beautiful.  That's why it so troublesme  when excess words are created to screw it up.  This morning while driving to Oneida, I saw a very nice new sign hung up by a local realtor.  I'm sure he has more than one sign like that.  What should we logical call those attractive items?  SIGNS, of course. Not SIGNAGE.  Never was there a more stupid word created. Instead of having trucks shall we have truckage.  Instead of having horse shall we have horsage.  We already have sauce and sausage, but they are different things completely.

         Words like signage just clog up the vessels to the heart of our language.  Another one that bugs me awfully is "impact" as a verb.   It used to be that you felt the "impact" when another car drove into your car's rear end.  And there was a very good adjective created with the addition of "-ed," as in an "impacted" wisdom tooth.  But then, someone, a bureaucrat I would guess, decided that rather than be affected by stuff we had to be impacted by it.  Soon "impacted" as a verb was everywhere, and, though I didn't check, I am sure it is now listed as a v.t. in the dictionary.

          A couple of others that annoy me are "closure" and "paradigm."  There are more, but I am too impacted by the need to go to rehearsal to create a longer list.  Feel free to click on the little "comments" on the bottom of the blog and tell me words that drive you insane.  Or maybe I am the only one who suffers so.  I'll have to have some signage made up for my house.  "Crazy man lives here."

It's good to be back. . .

. . .to the blog.  The weekend was long but rewarding.  The Oz Writing Contest was especially enjoyable.  When I get a copy of the photo of Abby Wiegand, the 3rd to 5th grade division winner, listening with her mom to her story ending being read, I will post it here.  Her delighted face shows the joy of hearing your own words being read by another and being appreciated by a group.

           Strange observations department:  Yesterday while I was coming home from Oneida, I passed a kid going about 15 mph in the breakdown lane on his mo-ped.  He was wearing one of those nazi stormtrooper helmets so popular with the Hell's Angels.  This was both unsettlingly oxymoronic and a possible glimpse into the future.  Kind of like seeing little Jeffrey Dahmer playing with his G.I. Joes and his Easy-Bake Oven.

           Today is the day I had set as a deadline to complete the TISHA AND THE GIANT rewrite. I'm not done, but with all that has occurred, I'm pretty happy with the progress I made.  I might really be done by next Monday.  I think I'll share another bit of TISHA today.  In the story, Tisha's favorite book, like my favorite book of all time, is TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.  Her favorite character, also like mine, is the omnipresent but seldom visible Boo Radley.  At the end of the novel, Boo saves Scout and Gem from the evil Bob Ewell.  When Scout later sees him hiding in the corner, all she can think to say is, "Hey, Boo!"  It's one of my favorite moments in literature.  In TISHA AND THE GIANT, golden girl Tisha's life is battered when her mom leaves her dad and she is injured and can't play soccer for her senior year.  Soon her boyfriend will dump her, and her dad will start dating, and Tisha's life will really be in the pits, but when fictional Tisha writes this poem, she's still feeling pretty sorry for herself.   In her creative writing class, she is assigned a poem about a literary character,  a poem that both reveals her knowledge of the character and is a shot at being poetic.  Tisha chooses Boo and writes this poem:

    

Hey, Boo

a poem by Tisha Olsen

I wish so really, REALLY badly,

That I had my own Boo Radley.

Someone who was watching out

For me like Boo watched out for Scout.

And if one day he saw me sadly

All alone, then Boo would gladly,

Leave a gift, that’s just for me,

like the gifts for Scout that he left in the tree. 

Am I being silly, acting madly?

Wishing for my own Boo Radley,

You see my life’s been playing tricks,

The kind that maybe Boo could fix.

Boo killed to save his precious child,

In comparison my wish is mild,

I just wish that there’d maybe be,

Someone who’d make me first priority.

I’m sure right now my friends are thinking,

And behind my back they’re probably winking,

Winking and thinking, ‘what’s with Tish?

To have this strange Boo Radley Wish.’

She’s got great hair, her life’s not hard,

She has her Camry and her credit card;

Her dad is cool, her boyfriend’s hot,

I wish I had what Tish has got.

I know, I know, I know, I know,

But I have reasons even so;

Like missing soccer’s quite a bummer,

From my stupid head I hurt last summer.

But the real reason I keep grieving,

Is I can’t deal with my mother leaving;

There, I said it, and I really wish

I could say, “Hey, Boo,” he’d smile, “Hey, Tish.”

And Boo would be like mom had been,

I’d feel like me, like Tish again;

That’s why I wish so really badly,

That I had my very own Boo Radley.

             I thought this might be a good way of explaining how Tisha feels, and also be a way for me to establish Boo Radley as a kind of metaphor for the attention Tisha wants.  The poem is rhymed, because Tisha is suspicious of change and wouldn't write free verse.  The rhyme scheme is a bit clunky, because Tisha is still a clunky poet.  I also used Tisha's poetry later in the novel to help move the story along.

Well, it has been. . .

. . .a demanding couple of days.  And just now my friggin'/frickin' blog was trying to deny me entrance.  Hey, bloggie, I know my own password, after all.

           You know how the Chinese name their years like the year of the rat.  Well, I believe I am living the year of the complication.  First, I had my gall bladder out and had all the possible complications the doctors ever heard of.  Now, I go innocently up to school to sell John Kentch a Lions Club Calendar (Anybody want one?  $20/365 chances to win!) and find out that, regardless of the fact that I reserved it in February, the auditorium would not be available for our use this summer.  Why?  Renovations.  Will they ever stop?  Lucky that I believe life is too short for anger.

         ARTHUR auditions were great, but we came up 2 people short of a cast, one of each sex.  That has never happened before.  Complications.  

          I am happy to report that both complications have been beaten to pulps and left by the side of the road to whine.  We will be doing the play at the community center at CrossRoads Community Church.  (The library is also available if we need it.)  Buck LeMessurier, a great guy and experienced thespian, is going to do the male role.  Either Mariel Keppler or Jackie Owens will do the female role.  SUMMERPLAY will be better than ever, and once I get through the busy-ness of OZ weekend (I'm driving my new car in the parade with Oz-celebs in back, and hosting the writing awards ceremony), I will get around to figuring out who is going to play who and post the cast list.

            Enough about complications, let's get back to commas.   No, Scott, commas are not a "high falutin'" waste of time.  They serve definite purposes, but can be overused.   For example, I can imagine a sentence punctuated improperly like this.  "Last Saturday, on our way, to the beach, we were pulled over, by a policeman, on a motorcycle."  That is comma overuse.  The only necessary comma in the bunch is the one after "beach," and it would be better to be comma-less than overwelmed by them.

            There is one rule I love, though.  It's the one that says an adjectival or adverbial clause should be separated from a sentence unless it is absolutely essential to the meaning.  Most times, this kind of error wouldn't be noticed, but check out my favorite example.  "All men who commit murder should be executed."  If you separated the adjective clause "who commit murder" with commas, you are saying that the removal of those words has no real effect on the sentence.  And only a true misanthrope would believe that to be the case.

           

Now it is time to reveal. .

. . .two junior high school urban legends that haunt me still, with special emphasis on the one that conjures up a punctuation rule.  When I was in ninth grade at Webster Central School, there were two teachers about whom retold tales existed.  They were both maiden ladies.  One was a math teacher.  Let's call her Miss Smith.  Another was an English teacher.  Let's call her Miss Jones.  I would be PC and call them Ms., but I'm sure those two very traditional ladies would turn over in their graves, if, indeed they are dead, if labelled in such a modern fashion.  

            Now, Miss Smith, the math teacher, had snow white hair.  It was suggested by some that she was a bit young for such tresses.  There were actually two tales told about her.  (Twice Told Tales?, that's a lit. joke)  Some said that her brother had been killed in a terrible car accident.  She was told of his fate, and when she woke in the morning her hair was completely WHITE!!   The other tale, which I preferred, said that her boyfriend had been killed in THE WAR, (no war was specified, just THE WAR).  She was told of his fate, and when she woke in the morning her hair was completely WHITE!

              Now Miss Jones, who was my English teacher, lived in the village of Webster.  It was said that a girl in our class once went to her house to drop off an assignment, and that Miss Jones's mother was in a hospital bed in the living room.  The elder Jones was dying and the smell was reportedly awful.  There were two reasons we found this story hard to stomach.  First, Miss Jones was one of those little old ladies, who always wore light gray dresses with handkerchiefs pinned to them.  She smelled decidedly of toilet water, which was a term for perfume in those days.  We all felt she was so old, that it was impossible that she had a living mother who could be dying in the living room.  One of our classmates told us that her sister who was six years older had heard the same story when she was in ninth grade.  This suggested that the story was untrue, or, horror of horrors, old Mother Jones had been dying in the living room for at least six years.

           Why do I recall Miss Jones with such clarity.  Because she taught me the rule about commas when used in a series.  In Miss Jones's class, you never put a comma before the and.  In other words, in the example, "I love tofu, hummas, watercress and sprouts."  Never, she warned us, put a comma before the conjunction (and).  It would be like saying, "I love, tofu, hummas, watercress and and sprouts."  Even worse if the conjunction were a "but."  Then your sentence would read, " I love tofu, hummas, watercress, sprouts and but not horse radish."  This rule was so pounded into me that I accepted it as gospel.  

             Then came the horrible day that the PA ENGLISH people and the ADVANCED PLACE MENT people declared there would be a comma before the conjunction.  I fought it for awhile, but they broke my spirit.  I now punctuate my series like this.  "I shout, howl, gurgle, and stutter."  Which to me reads, "I shout, howl gurgle, and and stutter."  I guess that is fitting.

The weekend was a lot of fun. . .

. . .and now I am psyched for the ARTHUR auditions at the library tomorrow and Wednesday.  I was sitting at my desk earlier and saw the leather blank book that Christina Fink gave me after A GIRL OF TWO WORLDS.  I think I mentioned it in an earlier blog.  I read a bit of it today and found an interesting section on why I started writing plays back when.  I was reminded that two people who pushed me to write were my daughter Jan and Mike Keville.  Of Jan I wrote, "Last May (of '98, I think) my daughter had a one-act plat that she had written presented at Castleton College in Vermont.  I was really proud of her and admired her courage for presenting her work for public reaction.  I wanted to be that brave, too."

            Of Mike, I wrote, "Mike Keville asked me at a graduation party (that same spring), if I had ever thought of writing a play to be performed by the Motley Players.  Seeing that I had thought of it, I decided Mike's words were sort of an omen. . ."  

           Tomorrow marks the ninth audition for a play I have written.   Thanks Jan and Mike.

    Thanks, too, to Scott for his enjoyment of my blog.  Sometimes, Scott, I think it might be fun to do a class in writing or a workshop at the library, then I think of all the thousands of writing classes I taught over the years, and the, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of pieces of other people's writing that I read, and I thank God for my good fortune of being able to just worry about my own writing for the first time ever.

             I will comment on your love affair with commas, though.  It's best to nip it in the bud.  Of commas, it can be said that "fewer is more."  The traditional way to express that sentiment is "less is more," but that would be grammatically incorrect in this case, because you can count commas.  If you can count an item, use "fewer;" if it has value but can't be easily piled up or arranged and counted, use "less."  (Clever use of the semi-colon inserted in the previous sentence. The ";" is another grossly overused piece of punc.)

              Too many commas can drive a reader crazy and unnecessarily interrupt the flow of your writing.  I'll provide one simple rule for you today with a minimum of educational jargon.

           Interrupters in a sentence, be they at the beginning, middle, or end, should be set off with commas as in, "By the way, that is my cat that you ran over." Or  "That is my cat, by the way, that you ran over." Or  "That is my cat that you ran over, by the way."   I like those examples.  There's something very civilized and British about them.

              Tomorrow, Scott, I will tell you about a comma rule that I recall from the 9th grade.  Or.  Scott, tomorrow, I will tell you about a comma rule that I recall from the 9th grade.  Or.  Tomorrow, I will tell you about a comma rule that I recall from the 9th grade, Scott.

              Actually, it may not be tomorrow.  It may not be tomorrow, actually, but whenever I next blog.

Author's note:  Doesn't the semi-colon with the quotes around it look like someone with his tongue sticking out?