Thin Strands, Heavier Hearts

How much of this hair is yours?
I wonder as I pull a longer strand away
from my sweater, a filament of orange 
and white that could
only be yours.

How much is left?
I wonder as I roll the thing with
the sticky paper on it over my clothes
as I push the vacuum cleaner 
one more time
over the carpet

We marveled at how much you shed 
over 18 years, over how many kittens
worth of fluff we might comb 
from your coat in one sitting

no matter how many times
clothes and bedclothes go through
the laundry, no matter how much
is swept up, mopped up,
put away

a piece of you will always
remain along a crack in the floorboards
woven snugly into the fabric of a shirt
someone wore while holding you close
while you purred 
into our chests
touched your nose
to ours

so I like to think
even as we chase every last
strand of yours and the surviving
cats down with our sticky rolls
and vacuum cleaners
because we pride ourselves
on our place
not smelling 
like pets

Someday it won’t even 
smell like us but all the dead 
cells we’ve shed everyday as dust
will have already settled
to mingle with yours
in the seams of the floorboards
under the molding 
along the walls

breathing in and out
of the ductwork

and no matter how hard 
the people after us 
try to clean….

Otis T. Cat, 2001-2020
Forever in our hearts.

March Musings Among the Madness

Notes on the ninth anniversary of the blog and where I’m at now.

I haven’t trusted Google’s analytics on my blog since I noticed the difference between its numbers and those on the Flag Counter app. For the longest time, I would catch my own views of my blog as counted, despite repeatedly ticking off the “Don’t Count My Own Pageviews” every time I stopped by to see what it all looked like to the world. That appears to have been fixed over the last few months or so. Maybe longer, my sense of time is getting progressively suboptimal with age.

One thing that hasn’t changed is that, every now and then when I haven’t posted in a while, I’ll get a spike in pageviews over 100. I’ll stagger into my pre-dawn office with my pre-dawn coffee and click into Blogger to see 184 or suchlike spiking all at once at a curious hour. That it happens all at once is the biggest red flag. The next biggest is trying to figure out which post got the most attention. These top posts invariably have single-digit page views. It’s as if all 184 visitors picked one page out of the 600 or more here to look at. All at once. The top pages get maybe 4 views each. 

The discrepancy between my Flag Counter pageviews and Google’s is...what’s the word? Vast? Hilarious? Nuts?

Given that this blog turned nine years old on the 11th, some might say “pathetic” for either number, but especially for that lower one. 

Fro my 21 March stats. Trust me; they haven’t changed all that much. According to Flag Counter (if you can’t be bothered to glance to the right) my actual pageviews aren’t even a third of this, so it’s hard to get excited about cracking 100K after nine years.

I’m actually relieved. I’d like to think I’ve got my writing game solidly on point before I get 100,000 viewers per month, let alone nine years. I know people with blogs who already have their million-plus viewers (on Flag Counter, mind you) and they’re not any richer or happier. Maybe a little richer, but certainly less happy. However much most people get, it’s never enough. Thank God I’m not most people.

 The funny thing is, as per custom, I started getting my usual “pity spikes” of 100+ viewers last week. I had not posted in days, so that wasn’t unusual. What was unusual is that these spikes went on for three days straight. I was beginning to wonder if this blog had finally found its “mass” audience, at least as far as “mass” is defined for dark horses like me. Most blogs that are nothing more than “Hey, how about those people? Look at the stupid thing they did now! I’m so gosh-darn mad! Aren’t you?” get 3,000 unique views on a slow day. 

I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was partially about getting me over the 100K pageview mark. Of course, that’s the Google analytics thing and Flag Counter says I’m not even at a third of that.  On the other hand, 300, almost 400 people in France have had a look here. I don’t know why this gives me the warm fuzzies, but it does.

I’m happy with what I have. When I finish this third and last novel in my series, I’ll consider some constructive discontent.

After Sunday’s sudden snow squall, a lovely sunset.

My Writing Was Already Lit

...and less noisy. Unlike before, however, the sound is steady, even on the most pop-up video-crazy sites. Also, pretty blue light.

I’ve noted before how nothing strains a machine like a typically useless Microsoft 10 “update,” sometimes causing the rig to shut down in self-preservation. My son could hear the fans screaming from across the hall, so, by way of belated Christmas present, he purchased and installed two more fans into my CPU tower. 

Thanks to LED enhancement, the fans glow a nice neon blue and I can see into the inside of my case. It looks like the chill room at a Borg rave.

The 1970s singer-songwriter Cat Stevens released an album called Buddha and the Chocolate Box in 1974. In 2020, it’s Buddha and the Three Terabyte Portable Hard Drive atop the custom computing rig that facilitates my digital output.

The Borg’s actual color scheme is a depressing mix of neon green lines with silver accents and lots of black shadowing. I much prefer this aesthetic.

The March update is already out. I’m putting off the ultimate test until the weekend. I’m interested in what happens, but not so much to hear four fans driven to their limits, as opposed to two. 

It’s lit. Not pictured: the blinking blue lights at the base of my wi-fi antenna. I’m reminded of the predominantly blue color scheme of my basement office in Colorado Springs where I wrote my first novels. We even called it “the Blue Room.” Now I’m upstairs, and in neon-ish LED.

Stay tuned. If I write nothing further about it, all went well.

Forward, Beneath the Sun of Another Sky

Notes on a particularly pivotal week.

It was a genuine miracle and the biggest blessing, that as my wife and I cried uglier for the death of Otis T. Cat than any human we ever knew, that as our grief turned our home into a strange, empty place we could barely stand for the first couple of days, that as the world outside, even the very air seemed alien to us...no one came at us with, “Durr, I don’t get it. He was just a cat. You had him for a long time, sure, but, like, come on, you know?” That Cynthia and I have enjoyed nothing but compassion and empathy online and in meatspace during these darkest of hours proves unequivocally and most unironically what an awesome God I serve. We all know how the world is. If it isn’t the ubiquitous clueless fools and would-be comedians, it’s the predators.

I’m aware of how the above paragraph might serve as a can’t-resist invitation to trolls whose self-esteem depends upon the complaints elicited from the strangers they go out of their way to outrage or hurt. I still beheld the miracle. Throughout the time of our greatest vulnerability, we were shielded. Although this loss will always be with us, we’ve were led quickly out of the worst of our grief, enabling us to adjust to this new chapter under a sky that looks changed with the absence of a lovely creature who was with us for almost one-third of our lives (much more for our grown children, of course).

That is the most powerful thing about grief to me, incidentally. It changes your very perception of the universe. The sky is still blue, but it doesn’t look the same. The last time this happened for me was in 1986, when my mother took ill and died. I’ve lost many people since then—and, frankly, I grieved harder for that big, ornery cat than I did my mother, and why not? For all his cussed cattitude, Otis was certainly more empathetic and loving when the situation called for it.

The new thing I picked up about grief on this go-round was how physically and psychically exhausting the extreme forms are. Naturally, in keeping with the accompanying depression, sleep was hard to maintain. 

We’re adjusting though, and with surprising swiftness, given that I write this on Saturday, and the veterinarian and her assistant made their visit on Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday afternoon already feels like a month ago. This is a very, very good thing. Let’s make it a year.

This bald-head/Van Dyke beard period lasted only so long in 2008. Otis was with us for nearly 18 years, and was there for everything I had to do as a writer in the 21st century.

Schism of the Living Dead

Belated St. Valentine’s Day Weekend Felicitations from the San Uncanny Valley! Because why not? It’s when I started writing this post....

There are those rare, revelatory moments in the course of writing a manuscript when you stop mid-pace before your keyboard and look around at a changed world. You realize a beloved character must die, for instance, and there is no credible way around it if your story is to have any weight. That point in the narrative called the Darkest Hour shouldn’t be merely dark, but the darkest. Nothing personal, O wonderful three-dimensional human I conjured from experience and imagination. Just business.

Fortunately, I crossed that grim Rubicon years ago. What happened to me one feverish Tuesday night last month did require a major decision, though. Unlike other narrative choices, this one came complete with a Plan B in case it didn’t work. Although, in a way, it’s also Plan A. Which is to say, I’m doing both, because I’m not taking any chances.

What stopped me in my pacing—my actual writing gets done here; the rest is data entry—was the thought that I not only could, but possibly should declare a stopping point. I could  issue a third book called Escape from Colorado Springs or something more creative, while making The Saga of the Dead Silencer a tetralogy with The Wrong Kind of Dead as its finale.

The advantage would be to have a book out. It’s been going on six years since the publication of Grace Among the Dead and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn everyone who read and liked that book has given up on a sequel. It would let people know that the series is still very much underway.

But would I use the time to waste more time finishing my series? That was the question that vexed me. I could see releasing Escape from Colorado Springs as the third book and still taking too long to finish the series as a whole.

But would that be better than nothing? At least I’d have another book there. Both books split from the larger whole would clock in over 250 pages, so they’d be respectable in terms of length, and therefore more digestible in terms of serving size. So much for my dream of writing a 500+ page Stephen King-esque doorstopper, but, hey, you do what you gotta do.

On the other hand, why not both?

Just don’t hit it too hard, okay?

I’m floating between 353 and 354 narrative pages, depending on where I am in the Neverending Edit. I invariably end up losing entire pages in this process. Much like “throwing clay” on the spinning wheel, I’m peeling off extraneous matter to shape my piece, even as I add more to it. I can already break off my third book at around page 250. Once I’ve got the story of Agnes and Elyssa nailed down once and for all between pages 34 and 149, it’s good to go.

I can set aside a digital copy of that narrative as my third novel while continuing to work towards finishing my larger work. And should it get to the point it looks like I’m not going to get this done in time for summer release, I’ll release the third book.

Also, for all I know, the editors at Severed Press might like it better split up that way. For my part, I’m still angling for a doorstopper. Just to say I did one. It’s where I’m at right now with all of this, and I’m happy to be somewhere.

Marching On

Pardon the corny title. Let’s just get through this.

This leap year’s bonus day was the first day of the year I could wear short sleeves outside. The weather, at least, keeps getting better.

We’d suffered days in January that were so frigid, cloudy and gloomy it made one scream to get out. If we’d had to put our elderkitty Otis T. Cat down then I don’t know if I’d have made it. It’s going to be hard enough this week under sunny skies as the temperatures rise above 50° F (10°C) and the first big tourist event of the year, the Crane Festival, brings Monte Vista out of hibernation.

It is, of course, impossible to feel the least bit festive when you’re dealing with a death in the family. Again, though, if this had happened in January...seriously, I shudder to think about it. I will make a point of getting the sun on my face this week, so I’ll have that much to look forward to.

We were going to give it yet one more weekend before we made the appointment. When I came home from a volunteer gig Thursday night, however, I leaned over to pet Otis where he lay in his bed and noticed his entire back end was matted with urine. The deal was, when Otis is too weak to keep himself out of his own waste, his quality of life was below optimal and it was time to make the call. And so it came to pass that the call we were putting off until Monday was made on Friday. On Saturday, the first day of the year warm enough to go out in short sleeves, Cynthia took the can she’d chosen for Otis’ ashes from the thrift store and began painting. It was a festive little Christmas cookie gift container with old-timey London storefronts across it. Was....

Tuesday is the day, though. The veterinarian, bless her soul, will bring her needle to our house at about 1345 hours on Tuesday. We’ll pay the vet, and drive out to the local animal crematorium—coincidentally, right next door to the animal clinic the vet will be driving from. We were grateful this could be done at home, though. 

After that, it’s a post-Otis world. Now what?

Otis, in his bed where he spends his days, just after I’d come back inside from photographing his future resting place. Since September when it was clear Otis couldn’t hold his water, he’s moved from a chair in the laundry room, to the kitchen, and now in the area between the downstairs mud room and the kitchen. Farther and farther away from us. The isolation has to be the worst. That, and his failing kidneys.

I have a book release party to attend in La Jara on Wednesday so I can pick up a copies of the annual poetry collections I’ve been published in since 2018. It’s a 60-mile round trip, but it’s either go now or miss out. This is the third edition I’ve been published in, and I don’t have a copy of either. I’ll count myself lucky to get the earliest one. I’ll do a reading if I’m asked, but I want to get that drive home over with as soon as possible.

Thursday at my volunteer gig will be especially trying as I expect the early crowd for the Crane Festival to packing the place. It’s just one night, I keep telling myself. I should be okay. As I also must remind myself, I don’t want to disappear up my own backside in this office. Which can and has happened. Current conditions are optimal for such an occurrence.

Meanwhile...is this the month I finish The Wrong Kind of Dead? An important corner was turned last month. More on that later. I’ve got to get out into the sun, take a long walk. I’ll scratch behind Otis’ ears as I go out and come back inside. These will be among the last.

Last year we had tourists all the way from China. Maybe not so much from China this year, given current events, but the Crane Festival, along with the Stampede Rodeo in late July and the Potato Festival in September, keeps getting bigger with every iteration. Come to think of it, Otis first started seriously failing the week of the Potato Festival. And now...okay, I’ll stop.