Bear's Bad Hair Day

"Lord, this hot weather's hard on a fat girl!" (Overheard at a local store.)

And if the girl in question is not only big-boned but also covered in a double coat of black fur . . . no matter how often she takes a dip in the creek, she's still going to be pretty miserable.

I began with the clippers, but Bear's coat was so thick and there were areas of matted fine fur that seemed more appropriate for a sheep shearer to deal with. I had set the clipper guard at three-quarters -- wanting to leave Bear some sun protection -- but at that height, the clippers just weren't cutting it.

So over the past three weeks, whenever there was an opportunity, I've been snipping at Bear's dreadlocks and generally lowering the level of her hair to the point that the wimpy little clippers could actually be used.

The picture below is the result of only one of our sessions with the scissors. One could construct a small to medium size dog from that fur -- or maybe just a nice winter jacket for William. In any event, this should provide luxurious nest-lining material for all the birds in the county.

It took three or four scissor sessions before I could finally use the clippers. And when I did, it was still hard to get through that thick fur. Once or twice the guard flew off, resulting in the punk/moth-eaten look you see below.

It looks as if the bad haircut has driven our poor Bear to drink. But I guarantee she feels better.

Twitter

One lone male hummingbird -- master of all he surveys.




















But before he can settle down to enjoy himself -- here comes another hummer and the first guy feels obligated to defend the nectar -- no matter that there are four feeding holes and a lady in the kitchen ready to refill the feeder -- it's a point of honor!

These tiny birds buzz and twitter and perform spectacular aerial maneuvers -- only now and then managing to get a sip of sugar water.

I took these pictures a few days ago and was reminded of them last night when a heated discussion broke out after dinner about Twitter -- yes, the social networking kind. I don't know much about Twitter -- don't tweet and don't follow anyone else's twittering. So I didn't feel capable of weighing in on the subject under discussion -- which, if I followed it, was something like "Email and Twitter and other social networking modes, all of which place a premium on brevity, are rapidly destroying their users' ability to engage in detailed and abstract reasoning."

Or not. Twitter's role in getting the news out of Iran and in enabling dissidents to come together was referenced. Haiku were mentioned too -- an art form in which brevity is like the distillation of ideas. A case was made that many people are communicating now who otherwise would not.

I don't know how the discussion ended. It got too loud for me and I went upstairs to check my email.

What do you think? Is all this communication a good thing? Any down sides? (Of course, the fact that you're here reading this suggests a certain bias in favor of the Internet.)

Two More Books

The larger book is the recent Asheville Poetry Review which I had to hunt down in order to finish Kathryn Stripling Byer's magnificent poem "Searcher." She posted the beginning on her blog and I was hooked. The subject matter is startling and beautifully rendered. Have a look.

The tiny book is a little hand made treasure Kay sent me some time ago. Its blank pages intimidated me, as blank pages in a pretty book always do. But at last I decided to put one word on each page -- words I deem suitable for poetry. (Oh, I know -- all words are suitable for poetry; I mean words that in and of themselves convey a kind of poetry . . . a suggestion.) I'm adding the words as they occur to me, opening the book at random and writing the word.

So far, most of the words that have come to me are what I would call soft -- silken, wind-swept, silver-scaled, crimson -- sounds kinda like a romance novel. There are a few more solid sounds -- earth (though I find myself wanting to write earthen,) root-bound, wake (resolutely avoiding waken.)

I'm inviting you all to send me one or two words each and I'll put them in. When the book is full, I'll post what we've got.

Two Books

Our local library has an ongoing book sale that I can't resist -- 50 cents per paperback, $1 per hardcover. Some of the books are donated; some have been purged because no one's checking them out.

My last two reads have come from the book sale -- two very different books.

The Farewell Symphony by noted novelist Edmund White was a NY Times Notable Book of the Year -- "a novel of opulent sensuality and manifold sorrows that is at once the story of a writer's education (sentimental, erotic, and aesthetic) and an elegy for the gay world that flourished between Stonewall and the present.. . a work of Proustian richness, sadness, and wisdom . . . the premier chronicler of his generation." So says the back cover.

It's all of those things -- and more. A very intimate look at a segment of pre-AIDS gay society which I found fascinating -- as an anthropologist might find fascinating the interactions of some previously unknown tribe. I also found it beautifully written and profoundly unsettling.

So it was something of a relief to turn to Mary Stewart's My Brother Michael. I was a great fan of Stewart's romantic suspense back in the Sixties (this book was published in 1959) and I decided it would be interesting to see how it had held up.

At first I thought I wasn't going to enjoy it -- a slightly silly female protagonist becomes involved with a handsome mysterious man -- look at the cover, I thought, there she is in her dress and high heels, fleeing some unknown danger. Plus everybody was always smoking -- which no longer seems sophisticated and adult to me. (On the contrary . . .)

But then I remembered why I loved Stewart's books -- it's the settings and the descriptions. This one is set in Greece -- in and around Delphos.

"Bigger and bigger grew the circling hills, barer the land, drawn in with great sweeps of colour that ran from red to ochre, from ochre to burnt-tawny, with, above all, the burning, the limitless, the lovely light. And beyond all, at length, a grey ghost of a mountain massif; not purple, not faintly blue with distance like the mountains of a softer country, but spectre-white, magnificent, a lion silvered. Parnassus, home of the ghosts of the old gods."

Stewart spins a good yarn, as they say. But it's the descriptions, in the end, that make her stories places I want to revisit.

Wild Day Lilies and Tame High Geraniums

Orange day lilies grow wild along the branches in our part of Carolina -- their massed presence makes up for what they lack in subtlety. I have day lilies in an array of colors and forms that I find much prettier, but these wildings are just so obliging. You can't kill em with a stick and they multiply freely. Plus, what a nice complement to Maggie's red-orange fur.

This beauty is a tame hydrangea (there are wild white ones too.) The local name for these flowering shrubs is 'high geranium,' which has a certain charm to it, don't you think?

(Over at Radine Trees Nehring's blog, there's a post about using dialect in writing -- is this a big no-no . . . or not? You probably know which side I come down on.)

This old building above, once a barn and now a garage/toolshed down at our lower place, was briefly used as a school when the nearby schoolhouse burned -- way back in the early years of the last century. There's no sign left of the scholars -- except for this disused door. But I like to think that on recess, they waded in the branch where the daylilies still grow.

In Search of Shadows

Shadows are magical things, as Peter Pan knew. . .



Sometimes one sees a thing more clearly in the precision of its shadow . . .

Could we call these bright bars of light sun shadows?

Virginia Creeper's elegant shadow swag adorns a weathered wall.

In the Cool of the Evening

After spending a frustrating 45 minutes yesterday evening trying to get into my computer which wasn't accepting my password, I was getting pretty heated when suddenly Windows opened without the password.

I don't understand these things -- and Cory, my computer guy wasn't answering his phone. Understandable --it was Saturday night and some people have lives. I can only assume my fairy godmother must have been in the vicinity and fixed things for me.

The photos are from a little stroll I took to simmer down in the cool of the evening.

Flowers and greenery, mountains and sky are wonderfully calming. And thank heavens for that fairy godmother!

Up Close and Personal

I wrote, yesterday, of going to town to buy another Japanese iris. And I did, but I also did a number of errands including handing over the manuscript of The Day of Small Things to FedEx for delivery to Herself in NYC on Monday.

So it's bye, bye, Birdie and hello Elizabeth as I get those opening chapters of Under the Skin in shape to send for a teaser.

One of the problems with writing a series, I'm coming to realize, is confronting the delicate balance of making the same material seem new and fresh without abandoning the elements that readers look for in a familiar series.

Writers of long-running series approach this in a variety of ways -- change of scenery; addition of new important characters; death or loss of a character important to the protagonist -- or some other life-altering event.

After only four Elizabeth books, I don't yet feel the need of anything so drastic. But I do want to play with point of view a bit.

In my first two books, the present day plot was told entirely in what is called 'limited third person' -- everything was from Elizabeth's point of view and if something was happening, she pretty much had to be there to see it -- or someone had to tell her about it.

This was growing annoying to me as a writer and it was a revelation when, in the subplot for Art's Blood, I had Lily Gordon describe her meeting with Elizabeth.

Wow! It was liberating to see Elizabeth through another's eyes -- and it gave a fuller picture of our girl than had been possible before. So in Old Wounds, some of the chapters were from Phillip's point of view and some from Rosemary's. And in Dark Season, there were more for Phillip -- so we could really get to know him (Or did we? Stay tuned.)

So the big change in Under the Skin will be that Elizabeth's chapters -- the majority of the book -- will be in first person. Like this:


"Gloria's. . . well, she's a complicated person," I said, putting down the phone and glowering at it as if it were responsible for this new and unwelcome turn in my life.



It's not FAIR! I wanted to shout, a whining echo from my childhood. She always messes everything up! I wanted to throw something, stamp my foot, fling myself on the floor and have a screaming, kicking tantrum.

Instead I made a strenuous effort to sound composed and adult as I began to explain things to Phillip.

I didn't feel comfortable doing this till now -- Elizabeth was too much like me. But now that she's taken on a life of her own and will be dealing with her sister (I, by the way, have only a brother), I think it's time to learn more about her. What do you all think?

Nearly Wordless

A hard morning rain . . .

Much appreciated by day lilies . . .

Clematis and roses . . .

And more day day lilies . . .

Hens line the perch, keeping their feet clean . . .
























But by the little waterfall, the Japanese iris delight in mud . . .























The iris are so beautiful that I am consumed with a desire for more . . . a trip to town and I find one -- a slightly different shade of purple. . .
























It rides in the backseat . . . a haughty beauty . . . and I return home to clearing evening skies.

Nothing About Airplanes

A series of unrelated photos and why? Because I forgot to ask my friend Josie to take pictures last night when I did my presentation at the Hendersonville library.

There was a nice turnout and a few people I remembered from previous encounters. Some were familiar with my books -- others not -- so I rambled on, reading a bit from DARK SEASON, telling a bit about the whole series, talking a bit about how I came to write these books.

As always, my favorite part was the questions. I had to do what has become my standard apology and/or explanation re the cliffhanger at the end of DARK SEASON and why the answer won't be revealed in the next book. (Sorry, Molly!)

There were questions about research (yes, I do some -- more than I actually use,) about whether Elizabeth's children are based on mine (no, intentionally so,) about Elizabeth's attraction to Harice (yes, she was -- it was those bedroom eyes and and lazy smile, but it would never have worked,) and, the old favorite -- do I keep regular hours with my writing to which I always have to reply 'No, but I probably should.'

Folks seemed to be enjoying themselves -- laughter is always a good sign. And at the end one fella came up and thanked me, saying that this was very different from the talks he usually went to.

'And what sort of talks are those?' I asked.

'Mainly about airplanes,' he said. 'But this was nice.'

Oh.