There are so many things I want to know! The minutiae of details I’d like to put into my stories require a vast amount of research. While I enjoy doing most research, it’s not all easy. For instance, I’d dearly love to know enough about horticulture so that I don’t have to search for pictures in order to name the flora I can so easily envision.
Like this:
I’ve been living with this hedge for three and half years and do I know what it is? Not a clue.
I’m good with researching things like diseases, psychology, historical eras and objects, sexuality, (okay, that one’s fun), culture, geography – all kinds of things. But when it comes to botany…
It’s just real purdy.
(I did just look up the difference between horticulture and botany.)
You are unique. I know you wish you weren’t. I know you don’t want to be thought of as different, but the fact is that you are.
There are not thousands of you, or even hundreds. There is you.
No one else thinks the way you do. No one looks like you or sees the things you see in exactly the way you see them.
No one even smells like you; you are sweeter than the rest.
When you go, the people who have known you will grieve, but they will also learn to smile. They will remember the joy with which you illuminated everyone around you.
Be proud to be unique. And know that the way you touch the earth is precious.
But the real adventure didn’t start until we came across the lady playing catch with her unleashed dog.
Me: (holding Alex by both hands as the dog is running towards us) He’s afraid of dogs.
Lady: Oh, he’s friendly.
Me: But he’s afraid of dogs.
Bitch: (looking around me at Alex who is straining to see where the dog went) Does he want to pet him?
Me: (hanging on to Alex for dear life so he doesn’t run into traffic) No, he’s afraid of dogs.
Psycho bitch: But he’s smiling…
Me: (in my head) Hey fuckflap! Have you ever considered how shitty you would feel if a kid got run over by a car because of your friendly fucking dog that you won’t restrain because you obviously know my son better than I do? Wake the fuck up and listen to me! HE’S AFRAID OF FUCKING DOGS!!!
In reality I said nothing because the dog had run off again. I should have said something.
P.S. When I told my son you were moving he smiled but his eyes glazed over. He turned away and tried to hide the fact that he had to take his glasses off to wipe his eyes. I imagine he’s upset because he remembers the two times, at the beginning when you allowed him to come over and play baseball with your kids, and because he’ll miss watching them have fun while pretending to ignore him for your sake, surreptitiously waving to him when you weren’t looking. I wonder if your kids wonder why they didn’t get to say goodbye to him.
Now normally I’m not the vindictive type. I usually just let things go. But before my backdoor neighbour has a chance to move out (which she will any day) I’d love to be able to give her a little present in the form of a song.
Here is my letter:
Dear Natasha,
When I met you and became friends with you we had in common the fact that we both have children. You have six of them, which you repeatedly pointed out were little angels, I have a normal teenager who tends to swear (what teen doesn’t?) an autistic teenager who has tantrums, and a Deaf child who wants to be friends with your kids.
I didn’t really notice there was anything wrong with you until you commented on the fact that you’d traveled all over the world but would never go to a country like Japan because they weren’t Christian there.
After a few weeks of summer break that year, and after having lent you all my DVD’s that teach kids how to speak American Sign Language in a fun way, you gave them back to me, saying that your children weren’t interested in playing with my son (they showed no indications that they felt this way) because of the way he showed his enthusiasm for actually having friends his own age by looking into your back yard and screaming with delight when he saw your kids doing something fun. You then went on to explain to me that I needed to teach him how to behave himself… after all, you didn’t have any problems making your kids behave.
So, Natasha, I leave you with this song. The heathen I am. And a big nakayubi to you.
No love,
Linda
To my readers: Please note, when (and if) you listen to this wonderful gem, the chanting at around 2:19. Apart from the fact that I can imagine myself singing along at the top of my lungs exactly the way Sakurai Atsushi belts it out from on top of the table on my deck, my teenaged son and a few of his friends (if I have my way) would be trudging slowly around a bonfire in my back yard, fully cloaked in robes with pointy hoods. Please also note that the lyrics don’t matter. It’s the thought that counts.
English: Icon for lists of science fiction authors (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I was sitting here trying to come up with a blog post when I realized it. There’s nothing going on in my real life that’s worth writing. Whenever I came up with something, it was either something I want or something I imagine.
For instance, I was out on my paper route today, looking as I always do for inspiration, and there was this woman walking her dog. From a distance it was an odd looking dog, mostly because it was black and gray and the gray parts of the dog blended in so well with the sidewalk that parts of it were invisible. So, of course, my imagination took over.
What if I woke up one day and no longer recognized things that I should… as though I’d woken up in a different dimension. And what if I saw this dog on my paper route and *gasp* it had four legs?!? Everyone knows that animals all have two or three legs – except birds who of course have four. But imagine that! An animal that resembled a dog except it had FOUR LEGS!
So that’s my life. Dogs with four legs. Exciting stuff, eh?
First my debit card was compromised – I lost almost $200 and would have lost more had I had more money in the account. When I called the bank the first thing they asked me was, ‘Were you in Puerto Plata yesterday?’ to which I replied ‘HA! I wish’. Anyway, they apparently tried 4 times to withdraw $200 from my account.
Second I get to the dentist’s office to pay my son’s bill for three teeth to be filled – $618. When I asked my ex to pitch in he simply told me he’s broke. *sigh* …and I’m not. HA! again.
Third, I get home to find I’m apparently NOT a mother and so Mother’s Day didn’t apply to me – see the last comment on my About page.
Fourth, I was sitting in my living room and at exactly the same time my laptop shut itself off and my cellphone came on…except the cellphone doesn’t have a sim card in it. I just keep it around to set alarms on.
Fifth, I’ve tried 3 times to put a link code to my About page in this post and it keeps screwing up.
…that is the question. What’s in a name after all? It’s something by which you are instantly recognized. But which one of you do you want recognized… I think that’s really what it comes down to.
We all have different personas for different occasions. To my children’s teachers I am nothing but a dedicated mother. To my readers, a sage. (Stop laughing. Oh okay laugh. It was a joke.) But seriously, I am myself. I am a woman who has never, on a regular basis, worn makeup. What you see with me is what you get. And yet few of the people in my real life understand where my imagination goes.
This post was brought about by the fact that, after a rather questionable fic I wrote last night, I lost a follower on my fiction blog. Whether it was someone who went ‘Ewww, what am I reading?!’ and clicked unfollow or whether it was someone who deleted their blog (a robot perhaps?) I have no idea. But it got me to thinking. My writing covers many different things. I’ve written a children’s book which is currently being illustrated by a friend and most certainly will go out to a publisher under a pseudonym. The stories I tend to enjoy writing however, go from humorous (my Second Seat on the Right series ) to perverted ( Beauty ) to horror (see a short story entitled ‘Reaper’) and of course the psychologically horrific Boy Series on this blog.
I understand that it’s probably important to write under different names for different genres. My biggest concern, however, is protecting those I love from the depths of my imagination, not only for what they would think (I believe they already suspect a great deal anyway – case in point, my eighteen year old son telling me I’m a sick fuck) but also for what the people my kids have to deal with on a daily basis – what are they whispering about mom?
Having been married a number of times I’ve been through a few aliases in my life, to the point where the hardest part of filling out an application form for something was deciding on my surname. My kids don’t even have the same last name as I do, and to this day you wouldn’t find me under Linda Hill in the phone book. But it was the name I was born with and the name I’ve chosen to stick with from now on, no matter what.
lindaghill.com 