Notes From Another Side

  Dream 1:  Boarding a jet to Paris. The jet's enormous, wide as a football field, and you can choose any seat you like. I settle in a cozy corner row, comfortable, but somehow but I forgot to bring anything to read.  I get up, wander till I find a rack of magazines. I grab one, but then can't remember how to get back to my seat. No matter; easy enought to find another one. The plane takes off so quietly that I hardly notice we're in the air. At times, the jet pitches low and we cruise through city streets before ascending back into the sky.  Maybe I sleep as we cross the Atlantic. I don't remember. We land in a tunnel that resembles a cave and troop out into daylight. This is France. A bus takes me into town. Lacking French currency, I wander about searching for a bank. I find one in short order. Don't know how long I will stay. Dream 2: Back in Rogers Park. I need diapers for my child, so I stroll south on Damen Avenue until I reach Devon. Rogers Park has changed....

The first line of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl"  published in 1956:  I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked ... Damned straight as we reach the end of 2024. Many of us baby boomers imagined that by now we'd be living (if we were still alive) in a technologically advanced, George Jetson-like world where the problems of hunger, poverty, war and discrimination would be greatly diminished, if not eradicated. Ha. Not so much. The poem "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats, published in November 1920, seems eerily prescient. (Please note this poem is in the public domain.) The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre    The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere    The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the ...

Two friends and I often have coffee on Saturday mornings. Outrageous fortunes have hit each one of us, losses, illnesses, the whole gamut. Well, of course, that's the way life goes. I'm in my early seventies and my friends are in their eighties, which makes me the kid of the group. We talk about death sometimes, and it seems to me our attitudes are less fearful than when we were younger. We've been fortunate to make it this far, and we know the Grim Reaper waits patiently (or not) around the corner. Which is surprisingly okay, the cycle of life and all that.  Death be not proud , right? Apologies to John Donne. If there is an afterlife, he's one of the people I'd like to meet.

My husband forwarded a post of women gathered at the shores of Lake Michigan, screaming in unison to express their anger and despair over Trump's election. A few of them jumped into the lake to further demonstrate their outrage. Lake Michigan - I have to say, not my first choice of swimming spots at the end of November. Whatever demigod Poseidon appointed as Lake Michigan's overseer must be utterly puzzled. Why were these women screaming? Why did three of them brave the lake's bone-chilling waters? What did they hope to accomplish? Really, what the hell was going on? I'm thinking the demigod shook his head, further observed this rite, ritual, or whatever these women thought they were doing, and then gratefully sank back beneath the lake's silvery-gray waters. What fools these mortals be , he mused. Shakespeare had it right.

At least twice a year, I buy a new datebook with the intention to be neater and more organized.  Pristine, blank pages. A new start, yes. Clarity, not so much. A week's worth of notations might include: A scrawled note to call my critique partner  Two or three medical appointments (between myself and my husband)  A notation with the updated name of my latest work-in-progress, along with dialogue notes: Did he know? I believe he did. His last words didn't make sense to me, but in the light of recent events, they become clear. A list of possible birthday gifts for grandkids Coffee with L on Saturday mornings, or conversely, no coffee with L Meeting with my friend T Lots of random check marks, circles, boxes, arrows Notes to return emails A shopping list and reminder to pick up prescriptions Admonitions to file and clean and figure out dinner Putting pen or pencil (whichever I can find) to paper brings me pleasure and helps me think, despite my attraction to chaos, and yeah,...

"Hazy Shade of Winter." A Simon & Garfunkel song - my fellow baby boomers will know it. Mournful sky today, yesterday as well. Usually I love rainy, gray days, raindrops hitting the roof, trees bending to the wind, the fierceness of lightening and thunder and watching it all from the cocoon of our home. Today and yesterday, not so much. Rough days. My husband Bill has Parkinson's and we both see it getting worse. Nope, let's write about something else. I opened the Oxford Dictionary and selected a word at random: Jesuit. A member of the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic order.  What first comes to mind ... My Auntie (my mother's sister Blanche) and I once had a conversation about who I should and shouldn't marry. I was 12 or 13 at the time. Auntie said it was okay to marry a non-Jew if I wanted, but she warned me against marrying a Catholic. According to her, Catholics were fanatics, to be avoided at all costs. Well, okay. I discussed the issue with my tw...

The general consensus is that there are two types of fiction writers: plotters and pantsers.  Plotters plan out their stories, scene by scene, chapter by chapter before they start their manuscripts. They know exactly where they're going and how they plan to get there. Pantsers , as the name implies, fly by the seat of their pants. As much as I've tried to become more of a plotter, I find the technique difficult. Once I start a novel, I have a general sense of my main characters, theme and plot. Endings are no brainers for romantic suspense writers like me - the romance genre requires happy-ever-after resolutions, of which I've always been a fan. My characters often have minds of their own and take me in unanticipated directions. Today, as I penned my sixth chapter, the hero of my current novel (I'm branching off into sci-fi romance) revealed he has a drinking problem. I had no idea. My problem as a pantser is that I can dig myself into plot holes in terms of sequence a...

Helping a friend put together a website and course syllabus. I can help edit the website but I'm the last person to give advice on software, SEOs, etc. because I'm an impatient sort and social media phobic to boot. My friend has spent countless hours on developing WordPress sites, but doesn't have the budget to get much needed help.  Which led me back to Blogger, where I started a blog/website a number of years ago and in short order abandoned it. (I've also abandoned sites on WordPress and Weebly, which I suppose makes a grand trifecta.) I thought Blogger might work better for her, and in the process decided what the hell, I may as well try it again myself. Here goes:)