A Post With No Title...

This is the part where Bloggers often apologize for the (self) perceived sin on "Not Posting".

There will be none of that here, not today.

Saturday morning, I drafted yet another post that got dumped into the Draft Bin.

I woke up that morning with big doings in my head. We had a Family Day planned. Beers and OU Football, etc.

After "The Incident In Colorado"... Well, my mood went to hell.

It wasn't just my mood either. There was a mob chanting, "Get a rope! Lynch Stoops! Hang Him!"

They were eventually subdued with more liquor and German Chocolate Cake.

The bright spot was Echo November running around shouting, "Boomer Sooner!" and "Make Steaks". He reminds us all that there is always 'next week'.

So, here I am. Into 'next week'. Pimping myself out, looking for work as a writer and or photographer. I've got the resume and cover letters out there. Anxiously awaiting the first rejection letter. I have a frame all ready for it and a bulletin board ready for the ones that are sure to follow.

Negative? Pessimistic? Nay, nay, nay! Not so. Realistic.

If the first shot comes back with an acceptance, it will, no doubt, have a line that reads, "David! Congratulations! You've been accepted. Now, if you can recruit five more people who can recruit five more people each who can recruit..."

You get the idea.

I don't say that with simple cynicism. Oh, no.

I've been down that road or one like it.

In a world now far away, a friend I'd known most of my short life invited me to a 'business meeting'. He admonished me to, 'dress nice'.

I did. We went.

We went to a home on the East side of town where a couple greeted us cordially and offered Hors d'oeurev's. This wasn't the sort of 'Business Meeting' I'd imagined but there was free food.

Anybody guessed it yet? They were 'Soap Salesmen' of the legendary 'Soap Sales Pyramid'.

Thanks Again Rick!!!

Years later, I wound up in a B2B cold calling scam for a while. For this post, the definition of 'B2B' is, Bonehead2BrighterPeopleWithRealJobs.

And, later still, what I call, "The Rainbow Road To Ruin".

No, no, no not the colorful, celestial phenom in the sky.

The vacuum cleaner!

Really neat machine. I wouldn't mind having one. But, have you ever met anyone that bought one? Me either. That pretty much sums up my vacuum cleaner sales experience.

I did learn a lot from those experiences. Mostly, if it looks like a duck... well, duck it.

"Journaloidism"

There was (gasp) a shooting in San Antonio last night.

I apologize to those that are suffering.

They are not the reason I'm making note of the 10:PM Tabloid Report.

It's not even the Plasticine Actors that play on the 10:PM Tabloid Report.

It's the girrafix department... This time.

Here is my representation of a background graphic displayed on a (DELAYED BY FOOTBALL!!!) news report from last night...

"FATHER
GUNNED DOWNED"

I don't make this stuff up.

Weirdness...

There are a few 'feel good' posts from today's' Nada but here is one that is just plain weird. It has to do with dreams and the odd nature of them.

Please don't analyze this one.

And, if you do analyze it, don't tell me!!!


From the "Be Careful What You Wish For Dept."

Sleep.

You heard me lament, OK, whine about not being able to sleep.

It stinks!

We take it for granted that at some point every night we will rest our heads. Literally and figuratively.

When it stops coming you begin to miss it pretty quickly.

It doesn't take long to notice the effects either.

Obviously I must have slept some along the way. Otherwise I'd be dead or institutionalized by now. I've avoided both.

Sleep does come in fits and starts. More like restless naps. They punctuate the hours of cursing in the darkness, cursing the night.

Lately the game has changed.

I knew I was getting at least some minimum amount of sleep. I became certain of it when "They" began.

"They" being the vivid technicolor dreams.

Sure, we've all had the dreams that we hated to awake from. The uplifting and exhilarating kind that leaves you wanting more.

I don't seem to get that channel.

Sometimes it's just an image.

Once, the entire screen was filled with writhing snakes.

Another time it was puppies.

The cute little dogs were just as disconcerting as the reptiles. Just from a different emotional place.

Some have been elaborate nocturnal productions from some serious masters of the macabre.

You know those guys. The ones that can push every or any of your buttons at will and delight in doing so.

The most recent shake up of my psyche came and went a little like this...

I was in a dumpy little motel room.

It was for certain a motel as opposed to hotel. Replete with the Dodge parked right out in front of my room.

Where? Why? Who the hell knows.

I found myself being invaded, for lack of a better term.

The leader of the wave of weirdness was someone I hold as a close and dear friend. Only, their demeanor was unlike anything I'd ever seen of them.

Mean spirited, spiteful, hateful. Laying waste to my emotions, much to the delight of the toothless crackers that made up the balance of the invading force.

When I say 'toothless crackers', think of the worst of white trash stereotypes. These guys were the rejects from "Deliverance" casting!

Filthy of mind, body and temperament.

One of them was seriously deformed.

Another was horribly injured, burned all over.

'They' cared for the burned guy on my motel bed as if he was the King of the World.

My friend's demeanor and the behavior of the crackers all fueled my agitation... Which, of course was fuel for the fire so to speak.

You see how this was shaping up.

The more upset I got the more the crackers cackled the more my friend provoked me. The vicious circle.

I know better, in the light of day than so let on when someone bugs me. (21 years on hangar decks, if you don't learn that lesson quickly you will be miserable!)

I was flipping out.

I couldn't understand who these people were or why my friend was so willing to please them and use me to do so.

Then I noticed they had 'redecorated' my place. (By now it was where I lived and not simply a way station.)

They hung sheets on the walls like tapestry's.

Soon, I realized why.

They were covering up things, or the places rather, where they had carted my stuff out of the place.

I walked through a (previously nonexistent) door and into the room of a black couple. They weren't any happier to see me than I was to see the crackers.

I went through a few more rooms in the same manner until I reached the lobby/ office.

I either didn't or couldn't ask for the help I needed. Or maybe was brushed off. I don't recall.

I looked out the window and the cackling crackers had destroyed my Dodge!

I headed out.

I passed a woman that was looking at pictures on a bulletin board.

She seemed nice and the pictures were the most brightly colored and cheery things in the dream.

I tried to stop and inquire about them but by then I had reached the double glass doors at the exit to the lobby.

There were four thugs there, shoulder to tattooed shoulder.

At first I thought they weren't going to let me out.

Then it was clear, they were not going to let me stay in the haven of the lobby.

I didn't want to stay in!

I wanted out to salvage my Dodge and whatever I could get from the room and get the hell out of there.

I thought I was just a few doors down from my room...

Only...

The vehicle I had seen was no longer my truck. It was something else.

I wasn't 'a few doors down'.

I was in a bizarre landscape.

I could see the rooms much farther down than I expected and they were fading fast.

A hand.

Someone had sidled up to my right and placed a hand on my left shoulder.

There was no pain or tight grip but there was no place to escape to either. (Believe me, I was looking for a way out.)

This person began to speak.

I didn't hear or understand much of it at all.

I was walked up a dirt burm, farther into the rubble.

The farther up the more form it seemed to take. It was like one of those late (late) night heavy metal techno bars you see on in the movies.

Populated by the freaks that only come out after midnight.

Tattooed with phrases about Hell, in positive terms.

I thought this individual was female but the voice turned very husky. (This cannot be good.)

I turned to look.

She was (is) in fact a she.

Someone I knew long ago and didn't like then or now.

She said something like, "I'm dating a porn star now."
(If you knew her that would come as no surprise.)

Then she turned to one of the pits full of people. (There were shallow pits everywhere and people were seated around the edges drinking something and in, I guess, party mode.)

This pit was full of the same types that met me at the door. Tattooed with pro hell and anti social phrases and marks.

It took two more weird turns before I mercifully awoke.

They looked like the rest but were speaking in very effeminate manners and if that wasn't strange enough, they were speaking knowledgeably about changing cam shafts in small block Chevys!

I awoke with a flinch. Blurry eyed in the darkness, "WTF, Over?!"

I got up and put on the coffee, making certain I wouldn't go back there. At least not that night.

Sometimes...

A boy just needs more hands!

"San Antonio Ground...

King Air, Echo November with you..."

The Nada is proud to present...

"Brightledge" and "Archimedia"

http://myarchimedia.com/

Both the home (pictured) and the architecture practice are products of one of my 'Little' Brothers.

In this case, Andy.

Andy has built a practice over many years, paying dues from Cameron College to The University of Oklahoma and all over South Texas.

His portfolio has even more facets than the home he and "T" built.

From the church house to the jail house to schools to medical clinics.

His efforts have been published in architecture and trade magazines as well as local newspapers.

From my unique position, I have watched since he was eight years old constantly thinking, reading, studying and exploring.

Always alert to better, more sustainable practices.

Andy looks not only towards future methods and technology but to history in the pursuit of what works best in a given application AND in a changing world.

He is an astute business man, a helluva artist and an all round great guy.

I'm adding a link here to the ARCHIMEDIA website.

Have a look!

I WAS at a pretty mellow place...

Until, Norton tried to commandeer my computer.

I'll right myself but I must say that engineers, mechanical or software or whatever breed they be, are the lowest self-absorbed-monosyllabic- single cell scum on this planet!!!

(L.I.S. is granted an exemption.)

Just start a system scan whenever. No concerns about the work I've been doing for about three months and totally disregard the system setting wherein it is written, "Norton will perform a full system scan at 0300 on Wednesday night." (Which, by the way, it never seems to DO!)

Oh-no. Let's wait until David is writing, then we'll put a stop to that!

OK, ok, okay...

Headphones?

Check.

Volume?

30, Check.

Artist? (Please say it's not Zevon.)

Nope, worse, Tom Petty...

Alright now... Tom Petty with a J.J. Cale tune.

I feel my balance coming back.

15 days with 5 to go...

What the hell was I gonna say here?

I haven't posted a lot. I have written a lot. Frankly, I loose track of what I have posted and what-not.

So if I repeat myself, it's probably a sign of things to come!

I have a mouthful of a writing project. Kinda explains why I got a little hostile when Norton tried to save me from myself. I had two word projects open at the time and was feeding each one with the other.

I was frantic. Worried that I might loose all of the work I've done.

Even when I realized it was all backed up and on other computers, no less.

It still spooled me up.

Still having trouble getting back on track here.

I'm tempted to just post one of the things I was afraid I'd loose a little while ago. It's a fictional stream of spit balls. Thoughts about a character really.

Oddly, or maybe not so surprisingly, I'm apprehensive about posting it when all the while it's supposed to a part of something I not only want to post but to publish.

Gut check time huh?

OK. Just remember. It's only David shooting spitballs at the board to see what kinda pattern I can make...

Mr Man

Who is he and why is he?

What do we have so far...

He has been living alone.

He is lonely.

He plays the "Loner" but he dislikes being alone.

His "Loner" persona is very practiced, he is accomplished in the arts of bachelorhood.

He is disgruntled at work.

He is lonesome at home.

He talks to himself, "I'm the only one that ever listened to me anyway."

He talks to his *pet*.

He dreams of a land not so far away that he visited long ago.

He misses his two children.

His intermittant attempts to reconnect with them are met, more and more frequently with contempt and disdain from the children and acidic animosity from their mother.

He misses the the woman he loves.

Not the mother of his children.

The one woman he trusted.

The one person he trusted completely.

He loves her in the present tense even though she left him long before she deserted him.

Every breath draws back the cold, hollow slap of an empty, silent apartment.

Celibate for years, again.

Long ago, long before he tried one last time to love and trust, he shunned sex as conquest and developed a disgust of those that practice it.

Long ago, intimacy became a matter of trust and devotion.

Now, every genuine human contact is a soulful reminder of what life could be.

What it should be.

What it has never been.

And at nearly 45 years old he has resigned himself to...

What it will never be.

Love has been distilled to a fantasy.

Sex is just a reason to shower twice in the same day.

He is cordial and always polite.

Chivalrous even.

Holding doors and offering aid to the healthy as well as the less than capable.

He is not, however, gregarious.

He never has been.

That skill wasn't offered in the list of high school electives.

Neither was emotional stability and growth 101.

Raised in a sufficient yet less than savory family and home, he developed coping devices at an all too early age.

While effecient, those devices were not adequate to carry him through life.

He is cognizant of the deficencies.

He lacks the tools to repair, modify or improve upon them.

He is not weak.

Certainly not spineless.

When pushed...

He grows more quiet.

It SHOULD be a clear sign.

An astute individual would take immediate note.

And, begin to acknowledge the signs.

The clear and lethal demeanor of a man that has been pushed as far as he is willing to go.

Some do.

Some don't.

A few wish they had.

The aches and strains of coping grow more acute every day.

The disappointment, the pain gets worse and the soul's shell grows harder.
(...the hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder...)

More detached.

More distrustful of others.

"Others" equal betrayal.

He sets about Mans most independant endeavor.

Sailing solo.

A man alone on the sea.

A man growing old upon the sea.

Trusting only himself.

Risking only himself.

Reaping only for himself.

He sets out with a dark, thumbnail moon above.

He forsakes an idyllic departure beneath a full moon.

The full moon no longer represents the things that he once believed.

It shines down harshly on the things he now knows are lies.

No longer is it the old friend he once stood eye to eye with in Nairobi.

No longer is it the anticipated thing of love and sharing that rose over Atlanta every 28 days.

No longer is it the shared symbol of love rising over icy sidewalks.

Now...

A semi-celestial reminder.

Now...

A symbol of disappointments.

*******

Now before ya get all weird and worried think about all you've ever heard about writing. (OK, skip all that gramar stuff for the moment.)

"Write every day."

"Write what ya know."(t0 that I add, "Write what you feel. If you don't feel it why the hell would anyone else want to waste their time reading it?")

Etc and Et Al and all of that stuff.

What do I know?

Well, for one thing, I know a lot more than I get credit for sometimes.

I do know a lot of real characters!

I do know a lot of places.

I have figured out a way to begin to merge all of that into one 'place'.

It's a sort of fictional place.

Populated with fictional folk.

Laced with facts.

Woven together.

I'm still learning the weaving part but I keep gathering wool. I'm trying like hell to make something out of it.

I'm probably gonna get smacked in the head with a keg for this but what the hell. I laid it out there and it might just get whacked...

I'm trying to build literary architecture.

Building it on a solid place where parts of it are real and existing and have verifiable history but most of the stuff in the story are 'pigment' of my imagination.

OF COURSE... All places, characters, and events are ficticious and not based on any individual or place or event and any resemblence is a pigment of your imagination.

I've been doing a lot of reading about writers. The ones that have influenced me or at least made me think.

A lot of research into history, geography, politics and even bathyometry. (Say that three times fast.)

A lot of recollecting as well. Basically, just a lot collecting.

Collecting my thoughts.

Every now and then they collide and I go back into the file and let them roll off of my fingers, doing my best to let my mind stay out of the way.

I said today, "... I WANT to rush it but I'm not GOING to rush it..."

I do feel an urgency.

That urgency seems to bring frequently deliver a burst of notes.

Notes and details and dialogue and motivations and sight and sounds and, and... all of it.

Emotions.

That's what it brings. The emotions of at least three if not four of the characters are taking shape. Coming to light. Playing a part. Their parts.

I've been here at the keyboard for the better part of 12:39:07 seconds working on this today alone.

It's gaining weight.

I'm going to have to print what I have tomorrow because it's getting to be a pain to scroll back and find stuff I want to refer back to.

It isn't that I have all that much written but I'm trying to build the first 15 or 16 chapters from all of the notes I've made.

Going back through those notes looking for and discarding things.

Going back through those notes trying to gather up things about individuals that didn't come out all at once.

I saw on the news yesterday, a couple with 16 kids and one on the way. I feel like I'm trying to name and describe and have viable history for all 17 of them, At Once!!!

But it's a damn cool feeling to have. (Whoa, characters! Not 17 kids! That's nuckin'futs!!! Six kids. Six is a nice round even number.)

Thus the title of the file above "Mr Man".

That's got to sound pretty weak. I haven't settled on a proper name although I'm digging into the poor bastards head.

Same goes for "Miss".

And for the "Kid".

As well as for most of the others at this point.

Only character has a fairly well defined name. The 'pattern' is set for his name. Only his first name is pretty well decided. "Howell".

More significant to me is their emotions and motivations. I can let them name themselves, eventually.

Why the hell am I telling you all of this?

I just deleted a bunch of 'maybes' here.

They weren't the right reasons.

The root is, I'm creating and creating is pointless without sharing.

So, in that spirit and with that spirit, I'm not going to proofread this for the 24th time or even run 'spell check'.

If it's a gut check then let it be a true one.

Afterall, the only thing more important than sharing is the truth.

Look closely. Only two vehicles parked in front.