I was fascinated by it. The straight line of one part of the cord. The rounded, looping curve of the other half and how it wound around the straight side as if hugging it.

The harder I pulled on the looped half, the tighter it wound around the straight side. The stiffer the straight side seemed to become, as if it had been threaded around a bit of wire, when the looped side squeezed over it.

If I pulled the end of the looped side, it would slide up the straight side like a merry-go-round horse rides a pole. But then, all my work disappeared. The looped became straight and the straight seemed to taunt me. I resolved the issue by weaving a finger in at the top where the straight side bent into the looped side. Whenever I tugged at either end of the cord, the bend at the top remained.

My finger, however, grew purple and hurt, then tingled.

Tingly. I like that sensation.

Devoid of pain. Pleasant, actually.

Did you know that if you push past the pain, you can actually begin to tingle? It's a fascinating experiment. Each time I tried a new form of the exercise, the results were always the same. Sooner or later, the tinglies would come and on its heels, a sense of euphoria.

But then, after the tingly sensation and the euphoria, both would go away. There's nothing left. No pain. No tingles. No euphoria. No headiness. Nothing. It's like the complete absence of being.

I think I may have liked that better than everything else.

Some say that absence is death. Or the equivalent.

Possibly.

I would know about those kinds of things, wouldn't I?

I learned a new knot today.

I studied it closely. I tried out several ways to move it. Up. Down. To the very end when it would disappear. Tight against my finger. And then a stick. Finally, I fashioned a neck tie.

The tingles brought the euphoria.

After that, the blankness stared straight into my open eyes.

I think that's the last slipknot I'll ever tie.

-----

December 10, 2009

© 2009, Kathie Leung. All Rights Reserved.
No portion of this may be copied, transmitted, printed, or otherwise disseminated in part or whole without the express written permission of the author. 

What will come of iRON-ic Suicides, your 2009 novel? (It's pronounced Ironic Suicides for those of you stuttering with the name like my mother did; which, by the way, she became a character in it because she helped sponsor me through her charitable donation to the Office of Letters and Light.) It goes on the back burner for now. I've plotted and stayed fairly true to the plot, so it won't be so hard to pick back up and finish the first draft.

Did you finish the novel? No. A decent sized novel is roughly 250-300 pages (paperback). A trade paperback has an average of 300 words a page, therefore 75-90,000 words. I'm about 2/3rds done - with the first draft.

When will you finish iRON-ic Suicides? I'll go back to it after I take care of some other irons in the fire. Right now, I have another manuscript, MSD (sorry, that's all I'll reveal about the title right now for a number of reasons) which came from my first NaNo novel, then titled And Then There Was Sam . . .. Once I have that one done and sent out, I'll probably pick up last year's NaNo novel, The Haunting of Mira Beck, pound the putty out of it and ship that out.

MSD/First NaNo // Dani Summers (2007) // Haunting of Mira Beck (2008)

What about your other NaNo novels? In 2007 I wrote one that started out as a mainstream mystery but then came back, tweaked it and wrote it as a young adult novel. Yet will need a lot of work to get the voice right in it. Or possibly rework the main character and torque the plot a bit to turn it into a mainstream mystery. I'm not sure yet, but as it stands right now, that one doesn't seem to be working as I'd hoped. iRON-ic Suicides will probably be finished up long before the one about Dani Summers. Or was it Sommers? See? I don't even remember!

Did you give in and tell your husband you were participating in this year's NaNoWriMo? No. The good news is, this year I managed to fulfill my goal of NaNoing without telling my husband I was participating. Mom likes to think I'm keeping secrets. No. I'm surviving, Mother. It was merely a test. Had it been a real emergency, I would have thrown him a life preserver and told him to have it on stand-by, demanded he take off the entire month of November and sequestered myself in the back storage shed along with my handy espresso machine and bars of Trader Joe's dark chocolate. The kidlets knew and I had them promise me they wouldn't spill the beans. However, when my mother pointed out that if I got them to keep secrets from my husband, I couldn't complain in a vice versa situation. So the very next day I qualified that and said that they weren't to volunteer the news but if they were asked, they could certainly tell him.

Does your husband know, now? Yes. And that's all I'll say.

Why do you do the NaNoWriMo if it takes away from getting a manuscript out and published? I ask myself this all the time. Usually the time NaNo comes up, I'm already getting frustrated with the current manuscript and look forward to taking the month off to create an entirely different story. But this might change soon. I might participate in NaNoEditMo (February or March, I believe) and forego WriMo. I'm still undecided. February is a very busy month for me, odd as it seems.

Got a question about my participation in NaNoWriMo? Ask away!

Today, Tuesday, November 24, 2009 there is a special 24-hour fundraising event. If you have a buck or ten you can toss into the coffer to help raise money for these wonderful programs, I'd be especially grateful. And if you do it within the 24-hour period via my sponsorship page (https://www.gifttool.com/athon/SponsorAParticipant?ID=1891&AID=777&PID=109076) I'll write you in as a character in my current novel, iRON-ic Suicides, which is a dark comedy (and yes, I'll be nice and not transform you into a writing pin-cushion). To watch my progress and learn more about this year's novel, check out my NaNo page at: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/21182.

Next up: A site and blog revamp! Look for it soon (but not before the end of NaNoWriMo, foo'!)

Spear on my back, arrow in my right hand, and bow in my left. Lay ahead of me, the buffalo that roamed and feasted on the grassy meadow, the mighty kill. I kneeled down, then fell on my stomach, then went into a full out crawl. I pulled the bow up, aligned the arrow, and pulled back the string until my muscles couldn’t take any more.

The horn blew, the buffalo stepped forward, and then came the noise that echoed through the valley that my people often heard before the buffalo fell. I didn’t think it was possible, or true, until the buffalo fell. What followed was the laughter, heard far away, from the terrible machine that always passed and made weird noises like an extraordinary animal.

The waste of meat, bones, and the hide that was used to make my tepees. My family needed it, needed it all. The tepee needed patching due to the water wear, we needed more eating utensils, and I needed more weapons now that my father had risen up to be one with the bear in the sky.

The gold stake was driven nineteen moons ago. Since then the black smoke maker rumbled in the night. The buffalo had been disappearing since, and if the buffalo were disappearing, my people were to go along with them.

Three weeks before the driving of the golden spike:

I sit down on the log along with Kohla, my sister. The fire burns and rises up to point to the stars above. The sticks crack in a rhythm tonight, and the sparks rise and dance in the cold wind. I grab a rock of obsidian, along with another rock, and start rubbing them and sharpening them for better and newer arrowheads so I can hunt with ones that are sharper than my father’s old, worn arrowheads.

The shouting starts from the tepee behind me, I drop the obsidian and run to the entrance. There, in the middle Koluku, a friend of mine and tribe mate, stands with a wooden club. The light shimmers through the tepee, shining gold on the walls. I follow it to the red hair on the white man’s head.

The man was murmuring to himself with his hands on his shins and blood seeping through his fingers. I grimace. Koluku raises the club, and strikes as hard as possible. The man screams in agony, his hand crunched where the club struck.

I walk forward, raising my hand in front of Koluku’s chest. Crouching I stick my hand out to grasp the white man’s chin. I turn his head so he is staring into my eyes. Fear, hunger, pain, and shock is etched in his eyes, it sunk down into his brain. I let go and shoo Koluku.

I run out of the tepee and to the warm fire, and lean to the buffalo meat in the center. A handful is as much as I can take. I run back and grab the crippled hand of the white man and place the meat in it, then nod. His hand shakes and quivers as he pulls it to his mouth. The meat falls on the red dirt he sits on.

Tears form under his eyes then fall to the meat. He shivers tremendously, and then cries out in agony.

Present

I walk towards the dead buffalo, my hands shaking as I put them on the animal’s back. The tears formed the same way they always do, the Irishman's and yours. The tears fall on the mammal’s fur that shimmers in the sun, and ruffles in the wind. My legs aren’t broken, my hands are not crippled, but the pain is the same as the Irishman’s. The pain of knowing your death.

--------------------------------------------------------------

This was written by my son, Z-dude, for his history class project. When I first read it, I was moved to the point of tears. What an incredible story, don't you agree?

It's out with the old, in with the new. Maybe I'll get lucky enough to have it all ready for release on New Years Day. Wouldn't that be the bomb?

Periodically I might post here. Thoughts get caught up in my brain and need a way to come out. This has always been the perfect medium. It's just of late, well, there's enough going on that those thoughts can't be voiced in this type of forum. Please don't ask. It's personal. Very personal, and not something I'm willing to share, not even via email or any other route. I don't want to seem rude, but even pressed, it's not going to happen.

What will become of the posts up and till then? Probably archived and removed from the site. I haven't decided yet. Of course, if there's something you'd like to see transitioned onto the new site, leave me a comment. Having a link to the particular post or page would be even better. I won't make any promises, this is, after all, my site. But I do try to be accommodating.

The other blogs and pages? Yeah, revisions, remodeling, maybe even removed altogether. It's the website mid-life crisis!

So there you have it.

In case you were wondering.

See you on the flip side!

Actually I write about them. Maybe too much. You see, the other day I was doing some research on the fictitious town for my latest novel. I'd visited the intended site several months ago but still had to plot out the layout which Google Maps is really helpful in that way. As I added streets, placed markers for various locations, I added a few people icons to mark where dead bodies were located. Then, for kicks and giggles, I switched out to Google Map's street view and "drove" beside the first dead body.

And this is what I saw:

There in the white area (see me in the section below? The yellow figure, looking at the light blue figure, which is the dead body marker.) you might be able to pick out a face. Can't quite see it? Take a look at the image below where I traced it.

Freaky, huh?

So I did it again, just to see if I was imagining it.

The picture on the left highlights the face I saw with that white rectangle. The one on the right, because the tracing didn't work as well as the first one, I pointed to what I saw so maybe you can see it too. The big arrow points to what I call a "park ranger's hat". The line just below, to the eyes, then nose and finally lips. See it? Triple freaky!

So yeah. This is definitely a good place for a dead body. Don't you agree?

Until next week, have a freak-tabulous weekend, folks!

Sometimes things are better left unsaid. Goodbye.

Where's your flag? Is it out today? Have you thought about the thousands of Americans who died just eight years ago, today? The thousands more who've died, been maimed, are struggling as they fight in a war for justice and to preserve your freedom? Those left behind? Those who work tirelessly on home soil to protect and preserve our freedom? Don't let the memories slip away. Don't forget to thank those who have worked to give you your freedom. Don't. Forget.

A few years ago the kidlets and I took part in a special tribute to the 2,996 victims of September 11, 2001. Author D. C. Roe had spearheaded, Never Forget. He vowed to never forget the 2,996 lives that had been taken from this planet that fateful day, their contributions and the families and loved ones they left behind. The boys and I were given five names to research, learn about and join D. C. Roe in vowing to remember them.

We are thinking of Ernest Alikako, Francis J. Nazario, Frederick Kuo Jr., Jimmy Audiffred and Juan Salas who were victims of 9-11. We will be thinking of their families. Of their contributions to this world, to our country before their untimely demise. We will be lifting them up, their families up. We challenge you to do the same. For more information about the project, to participate or read the tributes other bloggers have put together to never forget the other 2,991 victims, visit Roe's new website at: http://project2996.wordpress.com/

Our schedule is full. Our cups runneth over. Our plates are piled high. We are inundated. Dentist and doctor appointments, after school projects, assignments with long term deadlines, homework, baseball, swimming, basketball. Places to go, people to see, things to do. That snapshot to the left? That's our actual calendar, minus a much needed update now that the school year calendar is in. Much bigger, I'll give you, easier to read, but you get the gist.

For a long time, we've incorporated a scheduling system with the kidlets to help them organize their days, most importantly, their homework, using something that would help them visualize their time. We used to use blocks, but now have gone to using paper.

First they'll write down everything they have to do after school, estimating the amount of time it takes to do each thing (the columns to the left above). This includes each homework assignment, chores, bedtime routine and even dinner.

They'll total the estimated time and then move over a column and enter their start time and end time (bedtime) and come up with the total amount of time they have to do the things they've listed.

After they're done with those tasks, they'll use the "blocks." There are four for every hour, each block representing 15 minutes. In the example above, the bottom right are the blocks, each column representing an hour, therefore a total of five hours are available to them. The colors match up with the tasks they've already identified so it's easier to glance at it and know what they're "in for." In this example, the yellow-gray blocks represent free time. They were amazed to see that they were going to have almost two hours of free time, which was enough of a motivator to get cracking on the less desirable aspects of the schedule.

It may sound a bit anal retentive, but in truth, it's become a wonderful motivator. Without us having to harp on them, they're able to stay on task, get the job done quick and efficiently. They've learned that if the task isn't done right the first time, not only do they have to do it again, right; but they've learned that they've doubled up on the time it takes to complete the chore which means it takes away from free time.

We started doing this about the time they were starting fourth grade. As the system progresses to match their cognitive levels, we still have to work with them initially to make sure they're using the system routinely. They seem to like it and I can tell you we sure do! I especially like it because when my husband steps in to oversee their jobs (believe me, he's very much a hands-on dad, but in this instance, I'm more hands-on for this), it's easy for him to pick up and keep going, like he'll need to do in a few weeks when I'll be away for a few days.

Interested in this system for your kids? Leave a comment and I'll be happy to share!

If you're responsible for hiring at somewhere like Office Depot or Staples, you'd be wise not to process my application, I'd go out of my head being surrounded by all these yummy things day in and day out! 

So when the kids are getting ready to go back to school, as much as I try to get them to give me very specific lists in an earnest attempt to curb my overwhelming need to take all those homeless items back with me, the kids don't quite get the importance of being specific. And whose to blame them? The lists they come home with from their teachers seem to grow to a ridiculous size whenever the budgets go wonky.You can probably imagine just how crazy the lists are now, given how strapped the school's resources are with the massive budget cuts.

This year my husband stepped in to save the day, offering to grab up what they needed provided they came up with a list. Did I happen to mention how they're not very good at that? Yeah, I think a bit of my adoration for the stuff has rubbed off on them, too. You'd have thought they were writing out their wish list for a birthday or Christmas by the time they were done!

I thought it was way too much and began comparing what was on their list to the list their teachers had handed out and what I knew we had on hand. It went something like this:

They came back with notebooks, mechanical pencils complete with extra 'lead' and erasers, and I believe I saw two bright yellow highlighters. It was just the silly string that kept me from permanently assigning the hubby to the task next time.

But I might reconsider. I got these:

from their trip to the store.

Happy back-to-school supply shopping, y'all!