Category Archives: Observations

Flowers in the Snow

February 4, 2010

flowersinsnowI heart irony. I should. It tends to follow me around, holding hands with Murphy, pointing and laughing and occasionally slapping me in the forehead. Which is nice, it evens out the beating I take to the back of the head from the Universe.

Irony. The rotten red-headed step-sister of Fate and Destiny. Sometimes you laugh at her. Sometimes you laugh with her. Regardless, there’s usually laughter involved—even if it’s that uncomfortable laughter that’s really only to mask the fact that you do not want to be laughing.

I was laughing. Not that I didn’t want to be, I just didn’t realize I needed to be.

See, a few weeks ago, I had planned to wear heels to work but noticed there was a touch of snow on the ground. Now you need to understand, I set my clothes out the night before and get dressed in a pitch dark room in the morning, rather than turn on the light and wake the sleeping Hippie. So no, changing my mind about what to wear is not an option—unless there’s a flashlight handy. So I hemmed and hawed about footwear. I put the shoes on, I switched them for boots, and then I switched back. “Screw it, I’ll walk carefully and avoid any ice.”

And on my smoke break I looked down and noticed…
a. high heel marks leave this goofy wedge-shape with a dot mark, it almost looks like an overly fat, cartoon exclamation point
b. there’s flowers in them thar treads!

Flowers in the snow.

Maybe normal people look at the bottom of their shoes. I don’t. I never would have known there were flowers on the bottom of those high heels if I had gone with the boots. If I had chosen to cave to the pressures of a little snow on the ground and the fear of slipping, I would have never known I had my own private garden—literally at my feet.

Irony. I heart it… especially when I can laugh with it.

So? I think maybe you should all flip your left foot over right now and look at your tread. Or go step in the mud or whatever snow you can find. Because there’s tread that someone put thought into, choose on purpose, designed even… and you should appreciate it, or at least know what it looks like.

Also posted in Garage Talk, Life, Misc – 2 Comments

You know you’re from Wisconsin when…

February 2, 2010

groundhogYou know you’re a redneck if… We’ve all seen these jokes. Some are fun. Some are lame. But they serve their point—meant to humorously jab at a region or lifestyle or whatever. I’ve started a collection of my own without even realizing it. You know you’re home when…

And it all started because moving sucks (Don’t worry, mom, it’s not a comparative blog. It’s an “ahh” blog). Across the street, across town, across country. It doesn’t matter how far, it still sucks. The farther you move, the more alien the new location feels. The more out of your element you are. A stranger in your own home.

I am just a new boy
Stranger in this town
Where are all the good times?
Who’s gonna show this stranger around?

Wow, lyrics! I suck at the lyric game, but they popped into my head and fell out of my fingertips. Any way…

When does a house feel like home? When it feels familiar, lived in. A wise man once said, “When you can walk into a dark room and turn on the light switch—because you know exactly where it is.”

So when does a new town feel like home?

When the girl at the gas station doesn’t just greet you with a smile, or even “hey there,” but rather when she says “Oh hey, where are the ponytails?” Because it’s familiar. You’ve been there long enough.

I was talking to the Princess about this in the car and mentioned those above, then added “You know you’re home when they smile and give you stickers at the grocery store.”

To which she replied, “Yes! And her name is Brittney or Ashley or something.”

And that is how you know you’re home. Not just the familiar faces, but when you can talk about those faces without knowing their names and be okay with that, because someone else knows exactly who you mean.

Because it’s familiar.

I may not be in Kansas anymore, but it’s okay. I’m not searching for Ruby Slippers, I have them and they have strappy ankles—and I’m not tapping their pretty spike heels looking for an escape. I like it here. It’s familiar. I know the Mayor of the Munchkin City by first name, know where the Lullaby League lives but understand that they’ll be in my basement and/or fridge every day, right after school, and I thoroughly enjoy napping in the poppy fields on lazy sunday.

It’s familiar.

It’s safe.

It’s home.

Happy Groundhog’s day. I can actually see groundhogs near my home now… and none of us are afraid of our shadows.

Also posted in Life, Misc – 1 Comment

I had a dream…

January 18, 2010

Happy Martin Luther King Day. Schools are out. Banks are closed. The nation celebrates an official day on the calendar—generally by doing nothing associated with said day, but that’s a different blog. So everyone enjoys a day off, but does anyone actually listen to the speech again every year? Does anyone actually know the speech outside that mantra of REM state hope? I would bet it’s very few people. Here’s the ‘dream’ portion of that speech, for those that haven’t memorized it…er, 99% of the population.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

Check. We have laws, ideals and philosophies in place for this. Where it fails is on a personal level, an individual failure, that a nation cannot take fault for.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

Check! They all play professional sports together, slap each other’s asses, and make more money than god.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

Check. In 2000, Mississippi and Alabama together had more black elected officials (1628) than the entire nation had in 1970.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Again, judgment is an individual thing. And while I’m a dirty rotten atheist, even I try and remember the idea behind the wise words “judge not, lest ye be judged.”

I have a dream today.

Oh, I did too! Mine included colored wooden dowels and fishnet and painting the cabin pink for some reason… wow I wish I could remember the rest of that so it would make sense!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

“Red Rover, Red Rover, send Billy over!” Yep… Check. Schools have more than just black and white now. Today’s playgrounds have black, white, red, yellow, green and even the occasional rainbow—all holding hands.

I have a dream today.

Yeah, but did you understand the fishnet part? I’m still really confused by that!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

See, now we’re gonna fight. Religion IS a personal thing, so I can’t get behind this portion of everyone believing in “the one true god”. The dirty rotten atheist calls “pass”… talk to me in 2012.

Now, what is the point to all this? It’s not to tell you the speech, you can google that. It’s not to point out that we have a black president, ya’ll can see that. It’s the long way around the barn to say… there were other people in history, other speeches, other ideals and other hopes and dreams that don’t get this much attention. And that complaint didn’t even originate with me, it came from the mouth of a sweet little fourth grader, who came home from school the friday before the holiday and declared…

“Again?! Why do we have to learn about Martin Luther King Jr. every single year? We don’t learn about anyone else every single year. This is just stupid.”

He stomped off to the other room to do his homework and I stood in the kitchen absorbing his words. He wasn’t saying the ideas were stupid, he was saying the focus was—and he was right.

When you google “important people in history” you can find a page of the top 10 (which doesn’t include King), the top 25 (of which he’s 17th), and google suggests Albert Einstein,  Susan B. Anthony and Isaac Newton as “similar searches.”

The kid’s got a point.

We don’t teach Buddha, Gandhi, Hitler or even Groucho Marx over and over and over. You learn them once and then you move on down the years of history to the next person, event, war, whatever and learn about that.

So, because every kid in the nation is going to have to learn about King, again (or may have already done so, last week), I suggest that the adults pick new dreams. We’ve got King’s hopes covered—for the most part, or, at the very least, we’re aware of them. But to stay there, to accept that as the pinnacle of national achievement, is stagnant. Things change. Prejudices change. The world changes and your hopes for how society accepts or rejects those changes should adjust along with it.

So what are your dreams? Do you have a dream for the future that includes national or global change on the way people think or behave on a whole? What is it? Let’s make a new speech for a new millennium…

I’ll even start it and you can chime in, off the top of my head:

I have a dream…that one day (or hey, now would work!) all adult have the right to sleep with whichever other consenting adult they’d like without persecution. And should those consenting adults feel that they want to spend the rest of their lives together, their “union” should be accepted the same as a marital “union”. Because, after all, love is love and throughout history it has prevailed.

Your turn! What else should be in the new speech?

*Fine Print: this post isn’t meant to piss anyone off. If you get pissed of it’s because you choose to. Get over it. Learn to laugh at a child…they often speak the truth without knowing the greatness of their own words.

Also posted in Life, Misc – 2 Comments

Garage Talk

January 14, 2010

minitrampMom, in her infinite wisdom, has named this blog category. Well, not really, but she voiced the option she preferred and I really liked her reasoning. Reason. Yeah, moms are good at that some times.

See, garage talk came about in real life because once upon a time I met a princess in a garage. I sat on a mini-trampoline (at left), sucking my coffee, while the Broaddus household slept (and let me tell you, they enjoy their sleep!) and a groggy Greek princess crawled out of bed, grabbed her own coffee and joined me. We listened to the birds wake the neighborhood and then go quiet while they busied themselves with other things. We talked about writing and family, boys and men, life and fantasy. An hour in, Broaddus family still unconscious, you’d have thought we’d been friends forever, or sisters, or something.

We did that every morning that weekend. We dubbed it “garage talk” because it’s where we met, it’s where we continued to dig into each other’s soul and peek under each other’s band-aids, and giggle at the similarities that were too glaring to miss. Our discussions encompassed everything. And nothing.

It came about here because I needed a new category. “Coffee talk” was just a reminder of a friend that isn’t talking to me. The friend that coined the term. Yeah, I needed a new term. New Year, new blog—time for a change. Coffee Talk was usually a question, Garage Talk will be mostly observations.

And then there was mom’s reason…ing. Mom liked “garage talk” because different people see different things. She likened it to the garage sales she goes to with her best friend, where they are in the same garage, at the same time, but see different things. Observations are like that. The more people that see something, the more meanings or reasons that thing develops.

So… welcome to my garage. Everything is less than a dollar, nothing is returnable or exchangeable, batteries are not included, and I promise to tell you the meanings of the things I see… at least as they’re interpreted by my little girl eyes and old woman’s mind.

Traditional gypsies never had garages, but I bet they could have gone garage saling like champs!

Also posted in Coffee Talk, Garage Talk, Misc – 3 Comments

#blamemymom

January 4, 2010

Because this week #rondickie is off the hook.

The month of December saw a lack of Monday blogs. Not because I didn’t have something to say. Oh no.  I had lots to say.

So did mom.

See, mom reads the blog. She reads mine, several of my friends’, has a twitter and lurks in the keenedom. She’s a nice supportive mom. She often comments on my blog and occasionally brings up something someone else did or said (*ahem* watch your language, Dickie!). And sometimes, rather than comment online, she’ll send an email response—because it’s not to share with the world, because she felt like it, because it’s Tuesday, who knows what controls what she does and doesn’t do. In early December she sent an email response. It wasn’t to any blog in particular. More of an overall 2009 commentary.

“You need to stop comparing WI and PA, and the ex with the Hippie.”

Ok. No problem.

Ummm… wait. Strike that. Big problem.

See, my blogs used to be full of snark and anger. It’s what I did. I vented and ranted. I did it well. Every time I thought of changing it, the other 3 ponies of the apocalypse would say “don’t.” But things changed in my world. First I sold Horror-Web and I was no longer reviewing books that made me want to punch babies, and my snark started to soften. Then I got divorced, moved across country and found happy, and my anger went into hiding. I was stunned. I’d been Wenchie for so long, I wasn’t sure what to do, and continually commented on the things that I wasn’t used to.

And mom said “enough.”

Ok, fine. Wenchie is dead, long live the Gypsy. I have no idea what that means. I’m still figuring out who this gypsy child is, and “lucky you” get dragged along the way. I may blog about green grass in the winter (without mentioning WI—how’s that 40 below, mom?! hahaha). I may blog about something silly the kids did. I may blog about one of the novels I’m working on, or one of the publishers I’m dealing with. Hell, I may blog about bagels… just ‘cuz. But I won’t be comparing the boys or the states any more.

Because when she’s right, she’s right.

So, hello 2010, what would you like to do first? I have a backlog of drafts I can’t post, so I’ll have to come up with some new material. hmmm…  I also need to decide which novel to finish: The YA Fantasy, the Psychological Horror, or the Apocalyptic Love Story. Hey 2010, could you throw me a sign? Then we’ll see if this new year and I will be friends… and make mom happy in the process.

Also posted in Life, Misc – 5 Comments
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