Birthday Boys

No, it's not another Corgi post. This one is birthday wishes for two May 22nd boys, my brother, Anonymous, and my eldest child, Son One.

Born on the same day, 32 years apart, they share an awful lot in common.

Exhibit A - Anonymous

Exhibit AA - Son One
























Kind of scary, huh? Of course Son One has longer hair now, and a fixation on musical instruments: Here he's working on staining the body of his latest electric guitar for his coursework at Roberto Venn School of Luthiery.



















Since I don't have any recent pictures of Anonymous, you'll have to pretend the awesome extended fork, banana seat with spoiler bike in this picture is his BMW motorcycle. (Ignore the girl on the right, her bike was fairly utilitarian . . .)























More commonalities - Anonymous makes a living playing with electricity, and wiring things to be loud and/or bright.
Son One wires up an electric guitar, because after all, max decibels would make his uncle proud.




















A last pic of Anonymous, because I can, and because he looked so thrilled to be standing out in the backyard, by a cornfield, getting his picture taken with his dorky little sister.
Happy Birthday, Anonymous Bro.




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Sunday Poem

Learner’s Permit

by Constance Brewer

Riding on the passenger side,

everything look/feels wrong.

My mature eyes can't read

the speedometer, note the status

of the gas gauge, scan the rear

and side views for trouble.

We move fast—much too fast,

turn too sharp, drive too close

to other animate objects.

My foot stomps the non-existent

brake pedal, right hand clutches

the overhead door grip. I flinch

in anticipation of my teenager's

frustrated sigh. I restrain

myself from commenting

on technique, anticipation,

turning radius and anything

parentally instructional.

He already knows it all.

He's good, a better driver

than I'll ever be. Fearless,

not reckless, proactive,

not reactive. I forgive the out-

burst of exasperation, the eye-

rolling, the heartfelt expulsions

of breath, and instead, study his methods.

I've given up my attempts to explain—

it's not about him, but my mistrust

of the intentions of the rest of the world.

Evil HypnoGnome Sez...

Buy This Book!

Or I will visit U in d' Nite...


Unleashed by Kris Reisz

Not convinced? How about a testimonial (review) from a non-reading 15 year-old teen with no connections whatsoever to HypnoGnome?

"This was a cool book."

"This high school kid, Daniel, kept trying to be what everybody wanted him to be."

"Then he met some werewolves and they taught him how to be himself."

.

.

.

"I wish I was a werewolf..."

Uh, anyhow, obey Hypnognome! Buy a copy of Unleashed and help protect the planet! (some planet, somewhere) If you buy enough of them, they stack nicely and also protect from random attacks by the undead!*

*Not intended for use as protection against Really Seriously Pissed Zombies.

Snow Days and Novels and Edits, Oh My

Wyoming. Gotta love it. One day warm and sunny, the next snow, complete with 50mph winds.

Tuesday Evening

Between the wet, heavy spring snow and the hefty winds, I now have a gutter dangling like pop art down the side of my house. I got off easy so far. Other people had shingles ripped off their roof, a friend had a pole barn flipped upside down. Now all we have to look forward to is three feet of snow melting at once. That should happen right about... now. Water is running down the street in torrents.

Friday Afternoon

Yeah, that quick. It started snowing Wednesday afternoon, by Thursday morning, our little corner of the world was closed. Roads, interstates, schools, city and state government (yeah!). Nothing could move. By Friday afternoon, I was out shoveling with the help of two unenthusiastic teenagers. Two and a half hours to clear a thirty foot driveway, twenty foot sidewalk to the garage, and get the teenager's car out.

Friday Afternoon

Since they called off work Friday also, because the roads were just getting opened, I spent my non shoveling time trying to finish off the novel I started during NaNoWriMo. I decided plowing my way through (must be the snow talking) was the only way. So I pulled out a piece of paper, did one sentence outlines for the chapter I was working on in the 'here's what happened, here's what happens next' vein. Wrote the chapter. Same for the next chapter. Then the next. I sat Idby the Writing Gnome on my table with a ruler to whack my hands if I strayed from just getting it done.

Idby came through. I wrote about 12,000 words in four days. It's still not done, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. I know how it will end, I know pretty much how I'm going to get there. I even know ignoring description and detail until later is not a crime against nature. The only thing I didn't know for a long time was who killed who in the end, and how. All of the sudden it was clear, and could be no other way. The big outlining I did up front helped, but these mini chapter outlines were wonderful roadmaps. It broke things down into bite sized chunks.

I also did the final edit on the chapbook, and tightened up a short story I want to submit. Edited six poems. Made soup and knitted half of a pair of socks. I didn't clean the house or paint the bathroom. These snow days were an unexpected bonus. Since I don't expect any more 'free' days anytime soon, I wanted to get MY work done. I think Idby reports back to the writing gods, and they wouldn't look too kindly on me placing housework over torturing my protagonist. And yes, there was an ulterior motive to getting the teenager's car shoveled out. They got to go to work and provide pizza to starving shovelers, and I got peace and quiet in order to plot mayhem and destruction.

Seemed like a fair trade.