I'll Name This Post Later

I have a couple of personal motto's that I steadfastly follow ...

Lettuce is the Devil. (actually lettuce is merely the ringleader. I eat no vegetables unless they are fried a deep delicious golden brown)

Never do today, what you can put off until tomorrow.

Yes, my friends, I am a procrastinator.

Ever hear someone say, everyone is good at something - they just need to find their niche?

I believe that to be true and I am hear to say luckily I have settled in quite nicely with my procrastination. First, by day, I am a Postal Worker. What is more fitting for a self proclaimed procrastinator to be than am employee of the Federal Government?

And secondly, I am a writer. And let me tell you every fiction writer needs to learn the fine art of putting something off. I'm not talking about the actual process of writing. You have to do that otherwise you are not a writer -- you're a dreamer. Saying or thinking, One of these days I'm going to write a novel, does not make you a writer. Putting ink on paper does. It is my belief you can call yourself an author once you signing your name at the bottom of a publishing contract. So right now I can say I am a short story author and a novel writer.

Still with me? Good.

Back to the part about needed to be a procrastinator. See how good I am at putting things off.

Francesca falls in love with a photographer named Robert while her husband and children are away. Robert and her share a brief time of passion and he urges her to go away with him, but in the end she chooses to stay behind in her bland marriage and continue to be a wife and mother.

That is pretty much the entire story of The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller. Now I know the book is often panned and criticized but no one can argue that it was a huge commercial success. I happen to be one of the few people I know who will actually admit to liking the novel, but I wouldn't have if it had been anything like the above version.

It is the doubt of the outcome, the question of what each character will do that propels a story forward. Put off revealing that little detail that clearly spells out whether a character is a hero or a villain. Delay that scene that make it obvious your first person narrator is unreliable. So you female protagonists is madly in love with her next door neighbor. Don't let me as a reader know right off the bat that he too is madly in love with her and can't wait to kill his wife so they can be together. Make that wife's car wreck look like an accident. Keep me guessing, wondering. Try a bit of procrastination in your story.

But, there's aways a but isn't there? Don't just add filler. Add characterization. Smaller conflicts that your characters must work through before the big climax is even possible. Throw is a red herring or three.

Think of it as dating. If the minute you walked up to a girl and asked her to dance and she said, "I'd love to, but first let me tell you a few things -- "My ex boyfriend is in prison for stabbing the president of his Hell's Angel's chapter but he's getting released next month. My mom is a meddling old bitty. I like to nag and spend money I don't have. I don't really enjoy sex all that much, and I collect tiny porcelain chihuahuas."

You might, if you are a really nice guy go ahead with that first offered dance but you'd cut and run after that regardless of how attractive you found her to be.

Too much information too early on is never a good thing. Trust me on that. Wait until you hear that I do to announce, My father's back in covered in hair and therefore I'm bound to look like Chewbacca within a few years. Trust me, she'll learn to live with it then.

For a Plucking Change

I'm changing up a few things here on the blog. You might have noticed that I haven't posted a new Tales of The Yellow Flag either of the past two Sundays, and today there will be no Terrible Tuesday with Travis. Matter of fact I'm doing away with anything that imposes a deadline on me as far as this blog goes. Doesn't mean there won't be new stories it just means I'm not promising yo anything on any particular day.

Heck I might even pop in with a new edition of The Feedstore Chronicles some random Wednesday, a ref story on a Friday, or a Terrible Tale on a Saturday. In other words I'm going a bit more spontaneous.

Also I dropped the side bar of books I've read since I started this blog back in April. My original intent was to track the number of novels I read for one year but I got sick of updating the list and fell far behind. I figured the six month mark was a good place to call it quits anyway since I can multiply by two. Using that inexact math and had me pace remained the same that puts me at 74 books a year. Not as many as I would have guessed but a fair number just the same. and well above the average according to the surveys, especially for men. I think they claimed the average American man read something like 3 books a year. Pathetic even the real number is three times that.

Also, I'm going to start a new reoccurring type of post, to appear on random days as something occurs to me called RIDDLE ME THIS.

Now there are lots of things in this world that I do not understand. Things that baffle, bewilder, and befuddle me. I'm not saying they are wrong simply that I do not understand them. The Riddle me this pieces will give all of you, the readers of this blog a chance to teach me something and explain the finer points of something that I do not quite comprehend.

Like what you ask. Well, there is no time like the present to start -- so here is your first edition of ... Riddle Me This.

Remember those infomercials a few years ago where they were hawking this spray to help cover baldness. They showed some grinning chrome dome as he happily spray painted his scalp. Hiding baldness and destroying the ozone all in one fell swoop.

Most of us laughed at this ridiculous notion and said, Nobody in their right mind would ever think that looks natural. Why not just go bald gracefully since the comb-overs, bad rugs, and spray on hair jobs only highlight the fact that you're locks are thinning a bit.

So that brings me to the true nature of this post. The very thing that makes me say ... Riddle Me This ... why do women torture themselves by plucking out their eyebrows one by one only to take a glorified pencil and draw them a new set of phony arches?

Ninety percent of the time these stenciled on brows are ridiculous looking. At least in my humble opine. Some are even done in blues and greens and purples, or like the set I saw yesterday Red. I'm talking Bozo nose red? Maybe there are a few talented artists out there but when was the last time you saw a natural set of brows that fit anywhere in the primary color wheel? Roy G Biv indeed. Now I'm not talking about those that enhance or magnify the brow already there. I'm talking about the one that wipe the pallet clean and start over. Why oh why?

Come on ladies. Help me out. Where is the logic in this.

Oh and as an aside, no guy has ever said, She has a great smile, a wonderful personality, and a fabulous body, but those eyebrows of hers are more than I can deal with. If only she'd pluck the suckers out and draw on a new set. I mean come on, You remember what those babies of Brooke Shields looked like and many a guy once fantasized about her.

Children of the Corn

I've said it before but I'll repeat it again. Halloween is big around my house. My wife is an avid holiday decorator and Halloween might just be bigger than Christmas when it comes to making the place over. She collects Department 56 village pieces and the Halloween village she constructs is much larger than the one for Christmas.

Then there is the fact my oldest son was born on Halloween. So when we heard that a local farmer had turned his cornfield into a giant maze and had all kinds of other fun fall and Halloween related activities we had to go check it out. The The Amazingly Fun Farm as it is called sits only about four or five miles form my house. Here is an aerial picture of the maze.

The Buffalo is the mascot of West Texas A&M university which is in the small town of Canyon, Texas just south of Amarillo.

The maze was really cool and every so often you come upon a place where you can answer a question for a clue which direction to turn. My family made their way through the twists and turn in about forty five minutes. I'd say the filed covers about ten acres so it was a good bit of walking.

Afterwards the boys picked their own pumpkins right out int he field. Overall we had a great time and I highly recommend it as a family activity if you have anything like this near you.

Just thought I'd let y'all know what I've been up to.

Ding, Dong The Murphster is Dead

Three days and MANY conversations later, I finally have that little thing Benjamin Franklin discovered. ELECTRICITY!

Having no juice seriously damaged my blogging mojo. If only it were as easy as my six year old suggested, "Change the batteries Dad." I'm still not sure what went wrong but Thursday my power went out and I was told when I called in that they were working in the area and I could expect BRIEF outages for the next four hours. Some twelve hours later I was told "It should be working now." and "No one else has complained."

Friday I was told that they operated on a prioritized system and since I was one house out in the boonies I was low man on the de-energized pole. That conversation ended rather badly when the customer service rep repeatedly told me I did not need to talk to her manager since he would only tell me the same thing. This morning I got in touch with an actual human being with an ounce of compassion and miraculously they had me juiced back up less than two hours later.

Currently I reading Richard Russo's latest novel Bridge of Sighs and I am completely and utterly drawn in. But he is my favorite contemporary author.

After today my son's flag football team The Mean Green (or green beans if you prefer) is 0-5, but he could care less and he is having fun playing just the same. The younger boy's team soccer team is 3-1 but he has decided it is much more fun to run into and knock down the opposing players than it is to chase that ball.

This isn't much of a post, but it is what you get for today. Anybody else reading Bridge of Sighs, or anything really good? Also I posted something over on the Awesome Amalgamation site yesterday so pop on over there and have a look if you get the chance. You just might learn how devious I can be.

Swimmin' in a Cesspool.

I am still alive, but right now good Ol' Murphy and his stupid law is kicking my butt. But I'll whoop him soon, He's not nearly as ruthless as Lady Luck or her evil sister Karma.

I'll get up a new post later tonight, or tomorrow at the latest.

Burn Baby Burn - Terrible Tuesdays with Travis

It is Tuesday once again so that means it is again time for a story of when things went bad for me. But first a brief message from our sponsor.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY !! To my lovely wife Jennifer. Of course she is off at another carnival meeting, one of her notorious volunteer activities, and afterwards her fellow suckers, I mean volunteers are taking her to a local martini bar so she will not read this until tomorrow at which point it will no longer be her birthday but still I wanted to say it publicly. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!


For today's Terrible Tuesday episode I'm going to take you back in time to my mischievous youth. Sure I did lots of stuff for which I never got caught but those times do not stick out nearly as much as the ones in which I paid a price. Today is a two for one special, but the two tales do share a common theme.


As a youth I was a bit of a pyromaniac. And in truth, I still love to catch things and watch them burn still to this day. I'm not talking houses or buildings or anything that could get me into serious trouble, but I did build model cars just to later watch the plastic melt and curl under the advance of dancing flames. To this day if I go to a restaurant with candles on the table I end up catching sugar packets or something on fire.


So I was probably about twelve or thirteen when me and my buddies were in the alley behind Mark Roan's house. Jason I can't remember if you were there or not so chime in and let me know. Who knows what we were doing. Looking for toads and salamanders int eh water mains or gathering cans out of the trash can so we could ride our bikes to the edge of town and buy firecrackers? The only thing better than a fire, is a fire followed by an explosion.




Anyway, there we were in the alley. We found this almost full fifty pound sack of dog food which at some point had gotten wet and all the pieces had clumped together when it dried. Well I took one look at it and said, "Let's burn it." So a few of us dragged the sack out into the middle of the alley, where it was dirt and gravel and therefore would not catch anyone's fence or yard on fire. Mark or maybe Cootie ran to get some matches and if I recall right, a splash of gas. Hey, starting a fire without an good accelerant is like having sex without a woman. You can do it, but it ain't near as much fun.





So before you knew we had a right good size blaze going there in the middle of the alley. We gathered around the flames and stared down at the burning mass with the same expressions of awe we normally reserved for a newly discovered Playboy.


Now I'm only guessing how this next part went, since I was mesmerized by the fire and oblivious to my surroundings. But put yourself in the place of a city cop, just driving along a residential street when he happens to look down an alley and spots a fire. You turn down the alley and idle along. All the while a group of young boys have their backs to you. You pull up as close as you dare without tipping them to your presence. Then you hit the switch.. WOOH WOOH! When you hit the siren those boys jump a good three four feet in the air and then land facing you -- with looks of fear, bewilderment, and out right shock on their young faces. They're too dumbstruck to even run. It is the best laugh you've had all day and after a good long lecture you drive them home and turn them over to their angry parents.



Story Two



Basically the same group of boys are in my backyard maybe a year later. My Mom is at work. Earlier that morning me and my friends had collected a good many aluminum cans while doing a bit of dumpster diving. Afterwards we rode our bikes to the recycle center two miles away. Then rode a good three or four out the the closest firecracker stand.


We'd blown up a few model cars the legs off of several G.I. Joes, and now we'd moved on to the bottle rockets. After the fourth or fifth aerial shot I happened to look through the slats of my fence. I spotted the old black and white cruiser just as it came to a stop at the curb. Yelling COPS! I ran for the house. Behind me I hear Mark or Jason say," Oh bull, the cops aren't here."


I peek out the bathroom curtain and see Mark or Jason, I can't rember which climbing up the fence just as the bearded face of a cop appears. My friends damn near fell of the fence. Well I knew we were doomed so the storyteller in me kicked in and I went back outside yelling as I went. "Come on guys! Let's just stay in. Those guys throwing firecrackers at us will leave us alone if ..." I let my voice trail off as I acted surprised to see the officer.


He kept us there for twenty minutes or so questioning us as I concocted one hell of a story about this group of teenage boys who have been harassing us by throwing firecrackers at us while we try to jump on my trampoline. He asks me to describe the kids and since just a few days before I had had a run in with some older boys around the block I described them in exact detail, even told the nice policeman where one of them lived. He nodded and said he knew the kid and he would take care of it. That just might be my greatest story telling feat to this day.

Trust Me, I know What I'm Talking About

Today marks the sixth month anniversary of my first official post on this blog. Yep, I started this sucker on April Fools day. Fitting huh?

Anyway in the spirit of that the most noble of holidays and with tongue planted firmly in cheek, here is my answer to WordVixen's tag about blogging advice.

1)Make it an Annual Event - Who the heck has time to type a post once or twice a week much less every single day? Only a real loser would spend that much time on the Internet. Three or four good posts a year are enough for anyone. Readers won't mind checking every other day or so for months on end without anything new. You don't believe me. People plant fruit trees don't they? And those only bear fruit one time a year.

2)It's all in the Details - If you are going to insist on posting on a regular basis then you have no alternative but to relay every last minute detail of your life. Sue in Sioux City would love to read all about your favorite sappy soap opera. Bill in Birmingham is on the edge of his porcelain bowl to hear about you belly ache and bodacious bowel movement. And Harry in Hutchison is in a hell of hurry to hear of your horrible hemorrhoid heartaches. And don't forget that pictures add a nice touch to every post.

3) Take the Offensive - Go ahead. Rail about how lazy all fat people are. I mean why else would they be overweight. And those skinny folks. We all know they're all anorexic. And those damn rude Yankees from up north, while they are pert near as bad as those rubes in the south, or those high falootin' yuppies out California way. Then yo have the Okies, those hayseed Midwesterners, those freaks from the Pacific northwest. An anybody that would live out in a desert ain't is a few thorns short of a Saguaro if you ask me. And don't even get me started on those Canadians with all their ehs and that backwards game they call football. Who wants to win a grey cup anyway? At least our trophies are gold or silver.

4) Reject This - For those of you who are writers don't just sit back and take that rejection lying down. Go ahead name that agent or editor by name. Let the world know how stupid they are for passing on your work. And while you're at it, mention a couple of their published authors and why their last book sucked. That will show 'em who's boss.

5) Skim City - Who has the time to read other blogs? Sure it is good to visit other blogger's sites but you don't wanna waste time actually reading their entire posts. Skim through a couple of random lines and then post a stupid little comment to let them know you were there. And if they have some kind of gosh-awful list don't bother reading but the first three or four. IF you read number five you might find out the whole thing is some kind of twisted joke. Or one of those stupid memes where people post five items of really bad blogging advice.

I would love to see what Alex, Cher, and Mr. Shife can do with this topic. But if they decline I'm not going to hunt them down or badger them with comments.