Category: drama

Possessive Punctuation

On Monday of this week, I set out to write a post, but seriously lacked for any good ideas.

I seem to be going through the Mohave Desert of good ideas lately, and it’s killing me. I think I abused The Muse mightily back in June when I did four different entries for the county fair, and she’s pouting now. Seriously pouting.

So I decided to rely on my tried and true Muse busting trick of going to the random word website, laying down the rule that I must use the first word that shows, and then just writing.

The word I got was: apostrophe

Well. It’s Wednesday and I still got nothing to write about the word apostrophe. I’ve been Googling the word trying to come up with good ideas, but nothing really sparks my interest.

I mean, c’mon: “apostrophe…from the Greek apostrophos (prosoidia) (the accent of) turning away”

Um. Ok.

And then the grammar pages discussing how the apostrophe is either used to denote a missing letter, as in can’t, or to denote a possessive, i.e. Karen’s blog.

And a dissertation on how the apostrophe and the single quote are two TOTALLY different things (even though they look exactly alike).

Yawn.

I mean really, random word generator? Apostrophe? If you had to give me a punctuation word, why not something with flair, like Ampersand? Or as mudane as Comma, but at least I could wax on for a thousand words about my own personal, overuse, of, the, comma.

But nooooooo. You had to drop apostrophe on my already massively blocked self.

Damn you aposotrophe for making my already stifled Muse even stiflier!

Tis simply a writer’s dilemma. (<--Huh? Huh? Did you see what I did there?)








Cartoon from What The Duck.


Tis the Season

On this rainy, cold, dark Tuesday morning, my alarm went off extra early as I have meetings with London today, and that eight hours time difference is making me blue.

There I lay in my dark room, pondering my life and what it might take to get me up and out of the bed. The Good Man slept quietly next to me.

I froze in place when I heard outside my window a low moaning sound. It was a little otherworldly. It started very quiet and then grew in volume.

Well. I’m a child of New Mexico. You know what I thought, right?

La Llorona.

I’m not even kidding. I started *freaking out*. La Llorona here? In California? Did she follow me here? Does she live here now too?

My heart began racing as I remembered all the nights as a child I lay awake in my bed listening for La Llorona, straining my ears to hear, swearing I’d be ready to fight off her ethereal form and survive her grisly plans.

I clenched up, my stomach hurt, I bent to listen as the wailing increased in intensity. That bitch wasn’t going to get either me or The Good Man. Hell no!

And then the wailing became very loud, following by a hiss and a loud “RRRROOOWWWR!”

Oh wait, it’s just two cats fighting.

Sure. Ok. Right. I knew that all along. I’m a grown up. I’m a good kid. I’m in control of this stuff.

Relief washed over me. I joked to the now awake Good Man “what a sound to wake up to, huh?” and chuckled like my body wasn’t raging with adrenaline.

I got up to face my work day, pack my lunch, have some breakfast and shook my head at myself.

In my defense, a chilly, damp, dark October day….that’s La Llorona season. I’m just sayin’…..

: shudder :






Image found at Soda Head.


How Did I Get Here?

Yesterday was not what I’d call an ordinary day by any definition.

Let’s roll back a few days to give you the backstory.

On Friday I stood shoulder to shoulder with my best friend inside an auction barn in Las Cruces. We tried to talk over the drone of an auctioneer and watched the local 4H kids walk their animals around a pen while local businessmen bid up the price.

On Tuesday, I stood on the show floor of one of the largest IT conventions in the US, surrounded by the drone of booth workers shouting out to passerby as I tried my very best to be all business.

I have to say, it was a bit disorienting. I guess that 180 degree turn in the span of just five days is the closest example I can get of who I am. Both auction barn and big corporate.

Yesterday was my second day attending the show and I was doing my best to stay grounded in the midst of the chaos that is any trade show.

While waiting for a morning meeting, I idly checked my email on my iPhone. I saw a note from one of my aunts letting me know that a dear uncle of mine had passed away. He had gone through a long and valiant battle with cancer, and for a while he got topside on that demon. Sadly, just yesterday he lost the fight.

I was instantly crushed and heartbroken. I couldn’t begin to imagine how my aunt must be managing. I’d sat with my mom in the days after my dad passed, and I know that for a woman to lose her husband of 40-plus years is a long, sorrowful journey. It is a world turned upside down.

Glancing at the clock, I saw it was time to go, so I put on my game face and got back to work.

Later I had to meet with a Senior VP of the company who demands answers as he fires off questions from a fire hose and I do my best to keep up. He’s brilliant but irascible.

After I finished with Mr VP, it was off to another meeting with a telecom carrier, and then a hardware manufacturer, and then…and then…..

It was a brutal day and I had gotten up extra early to get to San Francisco through morning traffic and suddenly the lack of sleep caught up with me. My legs and back ached.

But I pushed forward.

When the day was mostly over, it was time to go to the big celebration to close the show, a huge event put on over at Treasure Island.

I changed clothes in a dingy bathroom and then set out for the meet-up spot to catch a shuttle bus. I got myself turned around and walked about three blocks in the wrong direction, only to turn and walk back against of tide of city people at the end of their day.

I was tired, sweaty, in pain and generally DONE with the day when my iPhone buzzed. The Good Man conveyed to me the sad news about Steve Jobs.

As I had worked for the man for a decade, I felt a certain affinity for him and at that moment, it was the straw that broke me.

I leaned against a mailbox on New Montgomery street, while cars honked, police officers directed traffic and busses coughed fumes, and I cried.

I cried because after traveling then working at this show, I am worn down to a nub. I cried because I did a terrible job of comforting my godkids last week as I found myself at a loss to explain why their pigs had to die. I cried because my uncle was a good man with a good life but grief never gets easier. I cried because the passing of a legend means the end of a very profound era.

It’s just a little to much death in too short a time frame.

Sometimes when it’s all built up inside you and the pressure cooker is about to blow, and you’ve found the end of your tether, crying is just a real good way to let off some steam.

It only lasted a few minutes. Then I straightened my spine, threw my shoulders back and walked ahead to meet my boss because he’s in town from London and had terrible jet lag. He relied on me to help get him to the right shuttle. And my supplier expected me to “say some words” to the team. And every one expected me to be adult and professional when I felt anything but.

Thankfully I met up with a couple friends out on the island. They handed me beer and gave me nodding, knowing looks.

And today, while still sad, I’m trying to be myself again.

Or in the immortal words of Stevie Ray Vaughan, I’m “walking the tightrope/both day and night”






Image from Agent Faircloth



The Worries of a Country Kid

As you read this, I’ll be winging my way over California and Arizona and on my way to New Mexico.

Look up and wave hi if you see me coming by.

I’m headed back to Southern New Mexico for a purpose.

As I’ve told you, I take my job as co-madre very, very seriously. I love the two daughters of my best friend with such intensity that sometimes I forget I didn’t carry them inside my own body.

They matter that much.

My baby girls, now 8 and 11, are part of their local 4-H and this year they took on the project of raising pigs. They worked very hard at this, including helping their dad clear an empty space in their yard and building the pig barn.

Every day they feed and medicate and care for those little oinkers. They text me photos. They tell me how cute they are. Those girls are in love with their little piggies.

This weekend is the final part of the process: an auction at the Southern New Mexico State Fair.

I never raised show animals myself, but most of my friends did. I know from experience that the auction can be really difficult.

Really difficult.

Especially the first time through.

As my friend said, “get ready for big crying.”

And I am. I think.

The Good Man and I will join forces with my best friend and her husband and we’ll hug those kids as hard as we can and try to make it better.

Because in the end, I’ll probably be the one crying the hardest. It hurts when my little ones hurt.

This is the dilemma of a country kid. It’s part of their 4-H training, learning to raise and care for animals, but knowing that these animals are also part of the food chain.

Most people don’t look at a bag of groceries and understand where, exactly the food came from. People think beef just comes in patties like that. Eggs are created in foam containers. Milk is mixed up back in the stockroom.

My girls know better. My girls are savvy and strong. They know the land and how to create sustenance from it. They join the long line of proud agricultural New Mexicans.

And so they’ll cry a little and grow up a little and learn a lot.

Or, hell, they might both grow up to be vegetarians after this experience. Who knows?

Wish me luck! I’m going in!





Photo by Gareth Weeks and used royalty free from stock.xchng.


Another Hard Lesson For a Hardheaded Girl

I’ve heard over and over how “if it looks easy, it was probably hard to accomplish.” This applies to music, painting, writing, and pretty much all of the arts.

The answer, then, is always practice. And then practice. And then practice some more.

I recently procured a light tent and have been learning how to shoot stock images. It’s a great outlet for photography and occasionally, if you build up a good inventory, you can make a couple extra bucks at it.

So I thought I’d try my hand. I did my first submission of ten to the online stock photo company I’d chosen, and all but one were summarily rejected.

I was told that most “were not commercial”…meaning I’d submitted arty stuff and not “hey that would look good on a brochure” stuff.

Ok. This calls for expanding my horizons a bit. A streeeeetch to my current knowledge.

So I’ve been practicing. And struggling.

I have spoken with a professional photographer who has a lot of success with both stock and not-stock work. She gave me great information and feedback.

She advised that making the move to add “commercial” to your “arty” repertoire is a tough one.

I had no idea how just how tough.

I keep looking at this photo and sighing. Occasionally I whimper. (I suggest clicking the photo to see the big size. In the small form to fit this blog post it’s hard to see details):



I took the better part of a hundred photos of ding-dang tomatoes in just three different poses. I fiddled with light. Lenses. Exposure. All of it. From the piles of photos from that shoot, this is one of the better shots.

And it still sucks.

The stems are out of focus (c’mon Fayeth, that’s photography 101!). The colors are muddy (gah!) and the depth of field isn’t quite right as you can still kind of see the corners of the light tent. And the way the lights are configured, it looks like each little tomato has two little eyes (this was not easily corrected by Photoshop. I tried.). GAAAAH!

So frustrating.

Turns out it takes a lot of effort to make a “simple photo of tomatoes” look like it was just simply snapped off the camera and ready to go.

What does this all mean? Well…back to the light tent I go with a new bowl of tomatoes from the back yard.

Practice. Practice. Practice.

And then practice some more.

I think the edges of my personal creative envelope are starting to ache a bit.