Oh, yeah, I'm still a writer!

Just thought I would write a bit about what I did last year in terms of writing. I did make a substantial dent in The Strega's Story. I also had a poetry acceptance to Oyez Review; they actually Fed-Exed me an acceptance letter (I'd neglected to put my email address on my submission, and feel really bad that they had to spend fourteen bucks to get ahold of me--I hope to remedy that by subscribing to the magazine). I had several of the litmags that had rejected include a handwritten note, asking me to send more. I have to admit that I was, up until Summer 2006, very lax about sending any work out. I've remedied that, and my submission process is much more streamlined, though I still never make simultaneous submissions. I don't think it's a bad thing, just not for disorganized me. I have had a lot of rejection slips this year, and simply toss them and keep going.

As to why I haven't posted about a search for an agent, I have a deep, not-so-dark secret about that which I can't talk about just yet. I am sorry not to be able to talk further about it, but a couple of folks have gotten my hopes up by offering promises to send my book to their agents (and then reneging on that with no explanation, something I vow now and forever NEVER to do to anyone), or other things surrounding the book that didn't pan out, that I have decided to be quiet about what is happening now. Besides, being a great-granddaughter of a strega, I can be a bit mysterious now and then.

It's very hard in a time of conflict, war, and craziness for me to focus on creativity. There is "war within and without," since my family of origin is having a great deal of conflict, too, which makes me want to run for the hills or go take an extended vacation in the Himalayas. In these times, I feel that my writing is just fluff, like pink hot chocolate or cotton candy, and why should I concentrate on it when people on both sides of an insane war are dying? And yet it has to be important somehow that I should. I think that creativity has some sort of alchemical effect in the unseen world, that what we do as writers and artists, musicians, dancers, actors, whatever, has value beyond what we can see or name, and so I just tell myself to keep going. Sometimes just the "keeping going" is its own reward.

I wish all my readers a wonderful 2007. May you and your loved ones know peace, good health, prosperity, an end to worries, and many, many blessings as this brand new year is born. I appreciate all who come here to read my words; it means a great deal to me and I thank you all most sincerely.

The Execution of Saddam Hussein

I did a Google blog search to see what those in the blogosphere had to say about the
execution of Saddam Hussein. As I rightly predicted to myself, the majority were
touting the actual videos of the hanging. A few folks were commenting. Many seemed
to have mixed feelings, or trouble finding something to say. Perhaps it's simply too
early after the fact.

I found comments by the musician Moby ("We Are All Made of Stars") to be fairly well-stated.

Post Holiday Posting, Gerald Ford, and Asha Veil

As I said in my previous post, I was sick for Christmas. I have never in my life been so ill for this holiday, directing a lot of the shopping by cellphone with Mr. Strega, who, among all the shopping for gifts and Christmas dinner, had to move Prada out of her student housing in another city just before the holiday. He deserves the Congressional Medal of Christmas Honor...BUT--we survived, and wrapped all the gifts, and the kids were pleased with everything...and, much more importantly than things, we had ourselves. Mr. Strega and the kids gave me a telescope for Christmas (I am an amateur astronomer, but haven't been out stargazing much this winter).

I didn't want to let this post slip by without mentioning Gerald Ford's death. I have a great deal of respect for Betty Ford, who has done important work in the recovery field, and I think was an extremely brave person for going public about her own recovery from addiction and alcoholism. I don't want to do a political commentary about Ford, except to muse on the fact that, though the happenings in the government then were insane, they were not, in my opinion, at the fever pitch of lunacy they are now. Ford seems like Mr. Rogers compared to Bush; he (Ford) had the difficult task of trying to reunify a fragmented country after Watergate, though that was not really possible. I remember Watergate very well and was old enough to see the terrible disillusionment it caused among people in my mother's generation, who had seen presidents like Roosevelt and Kennedy--so many of them had been raised to trust the government, to not question the integrity of people in office, especially the President. I think one benefit of Watergate was in its cautionary tale of not placing blind faith in institutions and people--and yet that lesson also carried with it a tremendous loss of innocence from the idea that the government cared and that elected officials had the best interests of the people at heart. So Ford's passing reminds me of that chaotic time, the lessons of which might be good to remember in these even-more-chaotic times.

I tend to write longer posts when I have been away from the computer for awhile. The flags at half-mast today reminded me of something a commentator on this blog pointed out awhile back.

It has been over three months since Joanna Veil, known as Asha to her family and friends, was found murdered in Ben Lomond, dumped on Love Creek Road like a sack of trash. She was in her last trimester of pregnancy; her daughter Anina would have been born by now. That Asha is not alive today, holding her daughter in her arms, enjoying their first holidays together as mother and child, is an unspeakable sorrow.
I was sadly disturbed by the winding-down in the media about stories concerning Asha, as if she had become "old news" to our local paper.

Still, there was FINALLY a Sentinel story again about it, the only real news in it being that the investigative team is waiting on laboratory results from the state.
I realize that real investigations take a lot of time, that this isn't an episode of CSI, but all I can do as a lone blogger on the outskirts of Felton is simply urge our media to keep Asha's case visible and for the investigative team to keep up their work diligently until a suspect can be named. Asha and Anina deserved their lives; these were selfishly snuffed out by someone who MUST, without question, answer for this and be brought to justice.

Santa brought me the flu for Christmas...

...and I feel like crap. Special note to Lynn: Dearest, I hope you were able to get my email about missing The Event in San Jose. I was coming down with the deathlies the night before and had no desire to infect you or your little one with the flu. I did not have a phone number for you and am so sorry I missed it.

I guess it was inevitable, given that my kids have succumbed one by one. I have been bombing the little viruses with Airborne,but mostly I want to sleep. I have missed every appointment and get-together this week, including my bellydance troupe's Christmas party and all my dance classes, and giftwrapping with my youngest at Borders, which I volunteered for and now feel like a schmuck for missing. But I just don't believe in going forth and infecting folks.

Well, time to take more Airborne and go to bed--but not before I send an encouraging note to my dear daughter Prada, who is probably at this very moment making buttonholes in the sewing lab at her college. She has yet again pulled through a very difficult semester and is just about to finish up. Eveyone in the family all very proud of her and her efforts to make beauty in the world. And I just hope I didn't get her sick to top off her finals week....

Holiday Scurrying, and White Dolphins

Hi, y'all:

Haven't visited Blogland in awhile due to getting things together at the last minute for Christmas (as always). I got my mother's gift, which is one of the most important ones, as it has to be shipped to Boston. I try to get something for her every year that replaces all the stuff she lost over the years. This year, I got her three porcelain Dresden figurines, of a Marie Antoinette-like lady sitting upon a chaise, and a fellow who looks a bit like Mozart; he sits at a wee piano and entertains the Marie Antoinette lady with (imaginary) popular tunes of the day. I know Mom will like these--my mother used to have several of these sort of things on her dresser. Someone once chided me a little for sending such schmaltzy gifts to my mother--you know, the lady is in her seventies and if she likes schmaltzy porcelain figurines, she gets them.

The Strega household is in its decorating stages--I have been very tardy this year getting things going, as I was studying with my younger daughter Kat for our Red Cross course we took this semester at Cabrillo. I am proud to say that both of us have certification now in adult, child, and infant CPR, First Aid, and automatic external defibrillator. I am very proud of Kat, for this is her first class and her first step towards her goal of being a paramedic.

I guess one wish I have for Christmas this year is that governments begin to realize how crucial the environmental situation is. I just read yesterday that a rare Chinese white dolphin, which lived in the Yangtze river, was declared extinct just a few days ago. Its demise was due to both noise and environmental pollution in the river. I keep praying that maybe a few are hiding somewhere and are able to find each other. There were plans for a breeding program for this species, but they can't implement it without the dolphins, obviously. This dolphin was known as the goddess of the Yangtze. Now it is probably gone forever.

There are so many terrible things happening around the globe and in this country that perhaps a species of dolphin going the way of the passenger pigeon is a small thing, but it is, to me, a warning. At any rate, instead of preaching, I have included a video of the dolphins so people can see what they looked like. Please let me know if the link does not work.

I'm certified (in First Aid, that is)

Sorry to have been away from the blog, but I was getting ready for my Red Cross first aid, CPR, and AED certification exams. If
you don't know what an AED is, it stands for "automatic external defibrillator." It's used to try and get a heart back into normal rhythym, and a few public places have them now. I was taking a Red Cross course with my younger daughter, and really wanted my Red Cross certification--I nearly wanted it more than I wanted my MFA...well, maybe not that much, but it was important to me.

And...tonight I passed the exams! So now I have three cards in my wallet from the Red Cross, which I have tucked under my driver's license.

The holidays are upon the household, and I have bought our yearly ornament. This is Seti, the Christmas Yeti. Yes, he is really named after the Seti Project. Mr. Strega says that Seti brings lovely high-altitude gifts to all good little Himalaya climbers, like oxygen cylinders and ice picks, and tents that don't fly away with people in them during gale-force winds. I think Mr. Strega and I have been eating too many holiday cookies. But then again, I'm certified.

darn cold

Hi, y'all:

Santa Cruz has been hit with its version of a cold wave, with temps below freezing in some places. I know this is nothing compared to what other parts of the country are going through, but it sure feels like winter here.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Mr. Strega and I produced a proper feast, with turkey and all the trimmings, and also a prime rib. I did Tarot card readings for people (I always seem to do this, no matter what the occasion), and my friend Mary read palms. Too bad we never seem to figure out the right lottery numbers!

And thus, on the heels of Thanksgiving, I want to announce that I have joined Weight Watchers. This is because I'm not particularly worried about my weight, even though I could stand to drop about fifteen to twenty pounds. I was becoming seriously addicted to sugary things, and, since I write a lot in coffeehouses, I was eating far more than my share of scones, muffins, bread, cookies, etc. There were some emotional reasons for this eating, too, which I won't go into here, and these I've decided to work on in counseling. Food is a wonderful comfort, but I was also using it a bit like a drug, to push away feelings.

I was also beginning to be concerned about the health issues of carrying extra weight, as my mother developed diabetes as a direct result of her own weight and eating habits. I lost nearly fifteen pounds in the first year I started bellydancing, but have lost very little since then. Prior to losing those fifteen pounds, I was definitely developing problems related to my weight, including acid reflux, which has since gone away. The clincher for me was an online test to determine my risk for Type II diabetes and, despite my level of activity, this test said I was at high risk. I feel there is a lot of tyranny in the media about how people ought to look, that we should look ageless and be thin as rails, but at the same time, I don't want to develop health problems beyond the ones I already have.

I have a long history with Weight Watchers in my immediate family. My Auntie Jo was on Weight Watchers in the 1970s and lost some weight on it, but complained the whole time about it. Another female relative of mine has been on and off Weight Watchers for years, and gained and lost the same fifteen pounds each time. Weight Watchers assigns a certain points amount to different types of food; she used to complain endlessly about this, and berated herself in a way I thought was unnecessarily merciless when she went over her points limit.

I decided three weeks ago to just give the online program a try (I don't really want to go to meetings just yet). I learned in the first few days that if I decided to eat a lot of scones, muffins, cookies etc., in a day, I would blow all my points really quickly, and that if I ate healthily, I would end up not hungry, not deprived, and stay in my points limits. There are also a surprisingly large number of points for each day--I thought it would be like some horrible gulag thing, but it's not. I did feel weird for the first three days as my body started to adjust to not having so much sugar, but that was transient. I can still have desserts and things like that, but within reason.

By the way, I'm not touting WW as the only program there is to lose weight or something--it just seems to be working for me. I have lost four pounds in the last three weeks, even with Thanksgiving, and this rate is fine for me. It is a little tedious to sign on and record what I've eaten in a day, but I decided to use the points system as a tool and treat it like a game, not use it as an instrument to beat myself up. I feel a lot more energetic, especially in my dance classes, and I feel better about my relationship with food.

So, that is what I am doing lately, as well as finally shopping my poetry manuscript around. Harvey's poem was the very last one I will put into this particular manuscript, which has taken me--ahem--well over twenty years to put together. But there you have it--I am a very slow, painstaking writer and that is who I am.

Speaking of Harvey, I had a dream about him last night. He was standing just outside my peripheral vision, so I could not see him, but I heard his voice; he was explaining to me that "really, death is an illusion." The strangest thing was, I woke up for a minute and could still hear him talking to me, a moment when my dream-life and waking-life touched.