Catching Up

Rochelle Weber--Author, Editor, Professional Grandmother

I realize I’ve been neglecting my blogs terribly. It’s been an eventful few months personally, but not professionally. I have started editing for a company in Champaign called Publication Services. I’m editing books published by I-Universe, Barnes & Noble’s vanity press. The writing so far has been pretty bad. These books were not selected from a slush pile or screened by an agent. It’s more a case of “If you have the money, we have the ink.” And, these “authors” do, indeed, have the money or their books wouldn’t reach my desk. I haven’t made a whole lot of money with them yet, but they like my work and projects do come in.

The holidays are an extended time for me. They basically started in October with Halloween. I drove up to Chicago and attended the Mensa HalloweeM gathering the last weekend of October. I had a blast. It’s been three years since I attended ’WeeM, but I’ve been on the Hell’s Ms list most of that time connecting with other Mensans who love to party and many of them were at ’WeeM, so we were able to put faces to names. I finally played “Double Deck War Killer Hearts” and found out why the word “kumquats” is used on the list to warn people that there may be sexual content in the e-mail they’re about to open in case they’re at work or the kids are around. It seems one of our members (who was sitting next to me at the card game as it happens) blushes when any word is used that has a sexual connotation. One day, during a discussion of her physical reaction, someone said “Well, does the word kumquats make you blush?” Not quite. It made her laugh so hard she squeaked. And it still does.

From the hotel in Arlington Heights, I drove up to my daughter’s in McHenry. There was a family wedding on my ex’s side in Arkansas the following week and the kids were leaving on Wednesday and returning Monday, so I babysat my granddaughter. It was nice having that weekend with her. I see her much less frequently than her cousins and it was good to have some bonding time together. For one kid, she about ran me ragged! We went out to dinner and shopping on Friday, shopping and to Borders to browse on Saturday, and to dinner and a movie on Sunday. With trips to the library so I could check my e-mail in between. The kids are in temporary quarters. Their house is being built and their rental of the last two years was sold before their house was ready so they had to scramble for a temporary rental. They didn’t bother setting up their computer or hooking up to the internet.

The second weekend in November, I attended a sci-fi convention in Chicago. I had planned to come home after that, but the kids hosted Thanksgiving/Christmas over the Thanksgiving weekend, so I stayed in McHenry for two more weeks. On Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the kids drove down to Will County and met my son-in-law’s sister and nieces at a truck stop so my daughter could drive them through the Chicago traffic. My other daughter, her fiancé and all four of their kids arrived around 5 a.m. on Thursday. It was a fun weekend with eight adults and nine kids in the house. We had turkey on Thursday, then on Friday we had ham. We each opened one gift Friday night—pj’s all around—and then on Saturday morning we opened the rest of our gifts. I didn’t have gifts for the kids, as I hadn’t planned on doing my shopping that early. We had brunch and then we all left for our respective homes to give the kids a day to rest and clean house before they had to go back to work. I had been gone a full month and my cats were not happy. They didn’t speak to me all day.

Oh, and while I was up there, I managed to visit my sister. We went out to lunch and had a nice chat. She is in her seventies and had a stroke two years ago. Still, she and my brother-in-law live in a senior community in Grayslake and are active in their community center. She plays “Mexican Train Dominoes” and for awhile was playing Mah Jong [sp?], but she found the rules frustrating.

My youngest planned to have Christmas the weekend before the holiday, as her exes had the kids on the holiday, but I was sick that weekend and the kids weren’t finished shopping. They held Christmas the weekend of New Years, but I stayed home as my neighbor, his girlfriend and I hosted a karaoke party New Years Eve. Most of the guests had small children and left before midnight, but there were about eight of us still around to drink Asti Spumante and toast the New Year. A friend came down from Chicago and crashed at my place, then took me out for brunch and left for home. I came home and had a nice, quiet day with no football. I watched movies and the Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel and wrote a bit and read a bit.

The following weekend I went to Terre Haute to celebrate Christmas and my birthday. I gave my grandkids board games and karaoke discs to go with the karaoke machine the kids bought. So we sang and played games all weekend. I played Chutes & Ladders with the “babies” Presley is now four and Abby is three and soon they won’t appreciate being called “the babies.” I played “The Game of Life” with Beth and Alex, and the kids played “Twister.” We had steak dinner and birthday cake and the kids gave me a set of real cultured pearls. They’re beautiful and when I chided them on spending so much, my daughter reminded me they aren’t married yet. Those pearls will make a wonderful “something borrowed!”

So, for me, “the holidays” spanned Halloween to my birthday and were full of family and friends and fun. My New Year’s resolution was to try to write everyday and to read everyday. Well, I’ve kept up with the writing, but not so much with the reading. I’m up to Chapter 14 in my re-write of Rock Bound. I attended a writers’ workshop at ConClave in Detroit in October and the critique caused me to go back to the first chapter and change some things so I went through the book making more changes. I’ve dropped my self-imposed deadlines and will finish it when I finish it. I don’t know whether I have any more books in me. I read newsletters from writer friends who each have four or five projects going at once and it makes me think maybe I’m a better editor than writer. I don’t meet many writers who go over a chapter and cut something every time they read it. Usually they guard every word as though it was gold. I’ve probably cut enough out of this book to fill two or three novels and yet all I have that’s worth publishing is a novella. But words flow out of my fingertips if I know what I’m writing about. Maybe I should make my living as a ghost writer.

Finally, I was able to go out singing on my birthday, was able to close the bar without losing my voice or popping nitro, and came home not reeking of cigarette smoke! Urbana is smoke-free, Champaign will be in less than two weeks, and we’re now working on the State of Illinois!

I have a good rant in me but will save it for next week. For now—I hope you will have a warm, loving, and prosperous 2007.

Finally, An Honest Answer—But Did He Think it Through?

As my profile says, I enjoy karaoke. I live in a small community that would be considered “rural” but in this homogenous country the only thing that separates rural from urban or suburban is whether you have farms on all four borders or whether you abut another town. While we’re only ten miles up the road from a major university, we still have our redneck element and you definitely meet them in the bars.

So.

I was out last evening in a local karaoke bar chatting with a man who actually did justice to Hootie and the Blowfish. When he found out that I was a writer and an editor, of course he had an idea for a book that he just had to share with me. Actually, he was describing a movie which is a completely different kind of writing. I’ll call him “Bill.” After we talked about his idea for a Biblical epic/2001 A Space Odyssey, the conversation went something like this.

“Hey, Honey!” He nudged his wife. “This lady’s a writer!”

“Oh, really? What have you written?” Honey replied.

“My book is called Rock Bound. It's about political prisoners who are arrested at a demonstration in Washington and sent to mine the moon as slave labor.”

“You must have been a hippie,” Bill commented. Honey turned back to her drink and their friends.

“Actually, I joined the Navy,” I replied. “I felt then the way most people feel now. I didn’t think we belonged in Viet Nam, but I believed we should support our troops.”

“What do you mean we don’t belong there?” Bill asked.

“Do you mean Viet Nam or Iraq?” I asked, wondering about his choice of present tense.

“Iraq,” he clarified.

I thought, Oh no, another redneck who thinks we should kill all people of Islamic belief because a few attacked us—or who still thinks Iraq had something to do with the attacks on 9/11. At least that stupid ABC movie clarified that much. But instead, I asked:

“Why do we belong in Iraq?” And was thoroughly startled by his reply.

“Well, I know they didn’t have anything to do with Osama Bin Ladin, but we need their oil.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” I asked, “that you would be willing to die so your neighbor can drive an SUV?”

“Yup.”

“How does that make us different from—“

“And now we need Rochelle at the karaoke stage!”

By the time I finished my song, he was talking with his wife and their friends and he and his wife left before I could complete that sentence. But I was amazed. I couldn’t believe this man actually admitted we had invaded another country to get its oil and thought that was OK. Is that how the Germans felt when Hitler saw something in Poland that he wanted and invaded that country, killing anyone who got in his way—military and civilians alike? I really hoped that the ABC movie would finally dispel the belief that Saddam Hussein or Iraq had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks and that more people would question why we are in Iraq. But it appears there is another viewpoint that is even more deadly—the viewpoint of the arrogant American who thinks we have the right to take over any nation that has what we want if the government of that country is unwilling to hand it to us.

I was afraid when I thought the only Nazi’s in this country were the ones in the West Wing and a few skinhead gangs and survivalists who don’t bother to vote. But this man appeared normal—at least as normal as a native of this town can be. And I’m afraid that he and his friends vote. Sometimes I really wish I could take my kids and grandkids and migrate to Canada—at least until American voters come to their senses and realize that “manifest destiny” wasn’t the noble cause our history books make it out to be. It was patently unfair to the people who already lived here. And now it seems to be spreading to the Third World. Bush will keep fighting in Iraq and claiming that the Iraqis are unable to govern themselves until they agree to vote for a leader who is friendly to Bush’s interests. You see, the Iraqis were ready to vote as soon as Hussein was found and removed from his hidey-hole but the theocracy they wanted to vote in was NOT friendly to US interests, so Bush and his cronies decided they were not ready to govern themselves. Just as Eisenhower decided the Vietnamese were not ready to govern themselves when they voted for a communist regime after we helped the French retreat from their colonies in Southeast Asia.

So—look out Third World. Or for that matter, look out World. Manifest Destiny is again the war cry of the United States. You’re only safe if you don’t have a commodity we desire.

Black & White -- The Good Old Days?

There is a popular piece making its way around the Internet. My friend, Raymond Anderson, wrote a rebuttal to this piece and gave me permission to publish it here. Many thanks, Raymond.

Black and White

(Under age 40?

You won't understand.)

You could hardly see for all the snow

Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.

Pull a chair up to the TV set,

"Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet."

Depending on the channel you tuned,

You got Rob and Laura - or Ward and June.

It felt so good. It felt so right.

Life looked better in black and white.

I Love Lucy, The Real McCoys,

Dennis the Menace, the Cleaver boys,

Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train,

Superman, Jimmy and Lois Lane.

Father Knows Best, Patty Duke,

Rin Tin Tin and Lassie too,

Donna Reed on Thursday night! --

Life looked better in black and white.

I wanna go back to black and white.

Everything always turned out right.

Simple people, simple lives...

Good guys always won the fights.

Now nothing is the way it seems,

In living color on the TV screen.

Too many murders, too many fights,

I wanna go back to black and white.

In God they trusted; alone in bed, they slept.

A promise made was a promise kept.

They never cussed or broke their vows.

They'd never make the network now.

But if I could, I'd rather be

In a TV town in '53.

It felt so good. It felt so right.

Life looked better in black and white.

I'd trade all the channels on the satellite

If I could just turn back the clock tonight

To when everybody knew wrong from right.

Life was better in black and white!

Anonymous

Black and White

(Don't know history?

You won't understand.)

I miss black-and-white times of 1950-some.

TV-Land is my friend, though some think it's dumb.

The innocent world that I knew in my youth —

What's wrong with the values I swallowed as truth?

Everyone had two parents and a family car;

Only small problems and help never far.

A good little black-and-white Pleasantville town

And old fashioned values gave our country renoun.

No Black or Jew was in leadership shown.

Orientals exotic, gay men were unknown.

Fair or not, Indians lost every fight;

You could count on the good guys to always be white.

"The Untouchables" taught us of drink to beware,

So instead we took smoking for our lungs and the air.

The times were so simple, the lives were so clean

When poor colored folk had their separate latrine.

We rode in the front

And they in the back.

And they had their own schools —

Don't blame us for their lack.

"Under God" was born of the Communist scare.

"One nation indivisible" apart did it tear.

McCarthy ruled through fear and brought on much woe

When a life was destroyed by all-American Joe.

Oh, we still had drug use, adultery, and VD,

But you never saw any on network TV.

We kept them invisible so good folks wouldn't mingle

With prostitutes, lesbians, and moms who were single.

Black and white times once again lie ahead.

"Either for or against", White House Occupant said.

“Hand over your freedom, we'll give safety for rights.

Then we'll know if you're part of the blacks or the whites.”

To return to the simple times we knew before,

Close your eyes to the world, facts of life just ignore.

There's no global warming, no gay marriage too.

The only people who matter are like me and like you.

Raymond T. Anderson

NASCAR -- The Un-American Sport?

I just spent almost two months with my youngest daughter and her husband. They are huge NASCAR fans. I am not. I find it boring to watch people drive around in circles. Yes, they drive as fast as they can, given the road conditions and the tolerances built into their specially-made cars. And people who do enjoy the sport are passionate. However, I think that right now it is a ridiculous pastime and even, perhaps, un-American.

Now most NASCAR fans would wave their flags in my face and call me a “pinko-commie” as my son-in-law’s father called two girls dressed as hippies in a movie we all watched that took place in the sixties. Frankly, it was amazing to me that the Speed channel wasn’t on instead, as it had been the entire weekend which I mostly spent in my grandson’s room, reading a book. My daughter and son-in-law live in Terre Haute, Indiana—about 70 miles from Indianapolis which is almost shouting distance. There was a big race at Indy this weekend. Racers drove their cars in circles for a total of 400 miles on Sunday, with preliminaries and qualifying trials on both Friday and Saturday.

My S-I-L’s parents came up from Texas on Thursday. They flew into Indianapolis and rented a car for the drive to Terre Haute. On Friday, they watched the race preliminaries on the Speed Channel. On Saturday, they took my two oldest grandkids to the qualifying trials and on Sunday, just the four adults went to the race. That’s three round-trips between Terre Haute and Indy for a total of 560 miles driven over the weekend by one family. It would have been four round trips if the Texas contingent hadn’t rented the car for transportation to and from the Indianapolis airport.

That is a lot of gas to use up in one weekend. Especially from the point of view of a person who is not sure she can afford gas to get to a doctor’s appointment at the VA in Danville on Wednesday. Just driving home from Terre Haute I’ve already logged over 100 miles on my own car so far this month. I can usually only afford one tank of gas a month.

So, why do I think NASCAR in un-American? Well, I’ll answer that question with a few questions aimed at NASCAR. How many thousand gallons of gas do racers use in a typical weekend of testing, qualifying and racing? How many thousand gallons of gas do fans use getting to and from the racetracks? And at a time when people are being urged to cut back their gasoline usage, to convert to more fuel-efficient cars—particularly hybrids of various sorts—and there are many people in this country who have to choose between buying groceries, medications or gas each month, how can NASCAR justify the colossal waste of such a precious commodity? How can people waste so much gasoline and yet wave the flag as vehemently as they do?

I think that NASCAR should suspend their racing until race-cars can be converted to use alternative fuels such as ethanol, which can be easily renewed. Are our soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq so people can watch cars go around in circles as fast as they can wasting the very commodity for which our service men and women are dying? We should be outraged. I know I am.

As Ive Been Saying

I have maintained for the past few years that the person sitting in the Oval Office should not only be impeached, but should be tried for crimes against humanity. In an article today on the AlterNet website, a Nuremberg prosecutor stated that George W. Bush, as the leader of the United States, has broken the highest law of the United Nations—the law against unprovoked aggression toward a sovereign nation—and that he should be tried for this most heinous crime at the International Court at the Hague. I feel vindicated. I’ve stated on several occasions that I believe this so-called Administration is the worst thing that has happened to this country since the Cuban Missile Crisis. When young people ask me (as a Navy veteran) whether they should join the military, I advise them against it—at least until these so-called “leaders” leave office.

I joined the military in 1971, during the Viet Nam conflict because I felt that whether the war, itself was right or wrong, the troops deserved our support. At that time, that was not a popular position and people questioned my decision to enlist in the military. I still feel that our troops deserve our support, but I do not recommend that anyone who is not already in the military enlist—not even in the National Guard. I fear that the greedy, power-hungry people who have managed to maneuver themselves into positions of leadership will send them off to Iraq or to yet another nation that has neither attacked nor provoked us in over a decade.

Meanwhile, back home, our rights are being removed right left and sideways. A VA nurse in New Mexico was arrested for sedition for expressing thoughts similar to these on the Internet. And a man was arrested at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago for wearing a tee shirt to his doctor’s appointment that said “Veterans for Peace.” In my book, Rock Bound, people are arrested for defending the Bill of Rights. As a friend said on my Yahoo Group, “The Freezeland era approaches.” I was frightened when I read about the nurse in New Mexico, but this most recent travesty strikes close enough to home to leave me absolutely terrified. I was treated at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center for over a decade. I would proudly wear such a tee shirt to an appointment there. In fact, if I were not babysitting my grandkids right now, I would be up in Chicago protesting that arrest. But my daughter needs me here so I am not free to risk arrest.

The economy is so bleak that I am helping my kids pay their bills as well as babysitting for free. I just paid $3.05.99 for gas a few days ago here in Terre Haute. I hate to think what my kids and sister in Chicago are paying for gas. Yet, I have no doubt that Bush and his oil-tycoon buddies are getting extremely rich because of the so-called crises that have occurred during this Administration. They have created an atmosphere of fear and hate in this country, which rivals that of the aura of distrust that was aimed at Germans during World War I and at the Japanese during World War II. Meanwhile, we ignore the UN and the Geneva Conventions while Osama Bin Laden, the man who actually orchestrated the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and whose family has propped up every business venture at which “W” has failed, remains at large. And Iraq is now a war-torn country, destroyed at the hands of the US. And nurses and veterans are being arrested for expressing their views. Just like in Russia during Stalin’s Administration. Or in Germany under Hitler. Or the US under Freezeland. I’m glad we’re not ready to start mining the Moon yet. At least, I hope not.