My Weblog

The Natural Life

by Kris

Moving to another state can be quite an adventure. Not just because of what you'll to do there, but simply for the new experiences that everyday life will present.

We hoped to move from California to Arizona for years. We love nature and the outdoors and wanted to live in a place where many people regard the land as sacred. But so much has happened since we moved here that I'm starting to wonder whether I like nature better in theory than fact. It's making me feel hypocritical.

It started with the snakes. When I saw a big snake in my yard, I called the fire department, which take them away somewhere. Only there were endless competing disasters at the same time. By the time the firemen arrived, the snake had disappeared. They assured me I was unlikely to see another one, which just proves that not everyone in the Sedona area is psychic.

Time passed and it seemed they were right. But then baby versions of the snake that crawled through my yard (and my garage, it appeared) began wiggling out from under our garage workbench. Philly, my cat, was nice enough to carry them into the house so we could both play with them.

Now I hate snakes. I've never even been able to tolerate visiting reptile houses at zoos. Of course we had snakes in California, too, but in thirty-odd years of living there, I only encountered two and those were on hiking trails. Now I was seeing that many every day! Okay, a slight exaggeration, but not by much.

Eventually, baby snakes stopped emerging from the workbench. How many eggs could she/he have laid? (Snakes are hermaphrodites, right? I don't know, I don't want to know.)

Snake attack over, right? Wrong. The final baby snake must have been climbing the trim over my front door, because when I opened the door, it fell on my head. That's right -- my head! I didn't know it was a snake at first, I just felt something there, and brushed it away. That's when that little wriggling thing landed on my foyer floor.

I'm here to tell you, despite what anyone else might say, aversion therapy works. (Charlaine, try it with the tube people!) By now I had carried or pushed or swept snakes out of the house with many different devices. This time I felt so angry, I just plunked it up on my car key and hurled it out the door. I didn't even consider whether it might be venomous. The firemen had told me the king snakes I had been seeing were not. But this one had entirely different markings. I guess it was debatable which of us was more stunned by my tossing it out, the snake or me.

Fortunately, that was my final snake encounter. And nature even gave me a rest for a few months. Our combat didn't resume until a Christmas party I attended.

The party's early birds snagged all the parking at our hostess' house. But a neighbor volunteered his circular drive, and even led partygoers through the strip of land separating the houses by flashlight. I didn't notice anything unusual happening during the short walk through the area between the properties. (In the interest of space, I'll edit out the herd of javelinas that awaited us on the front porch, though they represented nature in the raw, too.)

But when we decided to leave, and I retrived my purse from the guestroom, I saw that the outer pocket on my purse had been filled with spiny cactus sections. A mystery! Had someone stuffed those cactus pieces into my purse? Who would do that? During the drive home, we concluded that as we walked from the neighbor's driveway to our hostess' house, I must have brushed a cactus and they stuck to my purse, and I simply didn't see them when we arrived. But I swear I don't remember being close enoug to stick to anything.

Turns out those pieces were from a plant called a Jumping Cholla. Sections of the plant sort of hurl themselves at anyone passing closely in the hopes of being carried near enough to another plant for cross-pollination. It's how they reproduce.

Reproduce? Did this plant see me as a midwife, or did it think that we...?

Definitely way too much nature!

Things That Go Peep in the Night

There's a topic heading on my website Q&A feature, under COMMUNITY/GROUP THERAPY, that reads something like, "Random Question of the Day." My readers, God bless 'em, have a huge appetite for asking each other questions. Sometimes I enter my own answer; sometimes I don't. Today's question was especially good. In essence, it was, "What stupid thing are you scared of?" The answer shouldn't be some legitimate, like global warming or earthquakes. It should be more along the lines of, say, "I'm scared a piece of an airplane will detach and hit me on the head while I'm jogging." Something you KNOW is irrational, but you're scared of it anyway.

My answer was simple and heartfelt, and hard to describe because I don't know the proper name for them. You see them a lot these days right by the highway, usually in front of a gas station. It's a huge tube of some synthetic (one of my readers says it's kite material), often with "arms" attached, that's given animation by means of air being blown up it all the time. The tube is attached to the air-blowing machine. They're usually painted with faces, and the arms wave with the motions of the tube as the air flow varies. I think they're supposed to look like friendly cartoon characters, just very very large ones. It's the technological equivalent of putting a guy in a bear suit, or a hot dog costume, out on the curb to lure customers in.

I find these things incredibly frightening. I hate driving by them. I hate the fact that my daughter knows this and makes great fun of me. I picture the creatures detaching from the machinery that keeps them upright, and floofing down the road after my car. Even worse, maybe they'll lean over as my car goes by and  . . . grab it! Of course, NO WAY will I get gas at any station that's got one of these out front because then I'd have to drive right by it.

Okay, I'm afraid of crickets, too. But the tube people (that's what I call them) are way worse.

Rationally, I know this 'creature' is a tube of material that only moves because of air pressure. I know the extensions are not arms, and that the face painted on the material is not a true face of a sentient being.  But does that make a difference? No, sirree.

What rings your fear chime? Isn't there something totally irrational that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up?

Good news on the home front

by Donna

We had a small miracle today in my corner of the world.

Mom can hear again.

Just after Christmas we noticed that Mom wasn't hearing as well as she should. And her relatively new hearing aid was whistling a lot--the way hearing aids do when they're not seated properly in the ear. We made Mom promise not to wait until her scheduled February appointment with the audiologist, but to go in as soon as possible, since clearly the hearing aid had gone bad.

It wasn't the hearing aid. Mom had an infection in both ears. And even after the antibiotics knocked the infection out, she still had fluid in both ears and her hearing had only improved to the point that if you bellowed short, simple phrases in her ear, she might understand them. She couldn't talk on the phone . . . couldn't hear a knock on the door. If it hadn't been for email, we wouldn't have been able to communicate at all.

It's been a scary time.

I dashed down to Yorktown to help Mom cope with this--since clearly it wasn't safe for her to be alone. We had some doctors' appointments, and then I took her up to Reston for a week until it was time to come back to Yorktown again for still more doctors' appointments, and finally today's surgery.

I'm writing this offline, and downstairs I can hear Mom chatting with one of her closest friends--a friend she hasn't been able to talk to for several weeks now. I can't tell you how happy I am to hear the gentle rise and fall of her side of the conversation.

Of course, the doctor told us that she could expect a substantial improvement in her hearing once he drained the fluid from her ears and put in the tubes that are supposed to keep them drained in future. (Yes, the same kind of tubes they put in for pre-school kids with recurring ear infections. Mom would like to lodge a protest: we haven't seen a single pamphlet or website about her surgery that doesn't talk as if the patient is barely out of diapers.) So what happened today wasn't a big surprise. But I'm not sure either of us really believed how dramatic the improvement would be.

How nice not to have to write down every single thing I say to her. It's hard enough to write down the essentials; you miss all the grace notes that make life worth living. The inflections. The bits of gossip. The small jokes. For example: on the way home from the hospital, when the light turned green and I accelerated.

Mom: I could hear the engine of your car just now!

Me: Damn, I guess now I can't get away with driving around with the engine off, can I?

Mom: Why not, if you can? Saves gas.

Okay, a silly exchange--but one we couldn't have had yesterday. I am reminded, once again, how much of humor is in nuance and timing. It's the reason I read my books aloud. It doesn't just matter how the words look; it also matters how they sound.

Perhaps Mom's hearing loss fretted me particularly because telling and listening to stories is part of how we relate as a family. I've always said that my writing ability was a cross between Dad's writing skills--he was always a gifted and graceful nonfiction writer--and Mom's ability as a southern raconteur. And also because I've seen, over the past weeks, how easy it is for one loss to grow into another. Not being able to hear made Mom less apt to talk. I'd write her a note, and instead of answering me aloud, she'd nod, or reach for the pen to write back.

"Mom," I'd say. "Just talk. I can still hear you."

Sometimes she would. More often, we'd spend our time together quietly. It's been way too quiet around here.

But for now, at least, Mom's hearing is back. Maybe not all the way to where it was before the infection, but enough that she can hear me tell a story of something that happened while she was at the hospital, instead of waiting for me to write it down. Enough that the next time her three-year-old twin grandsons are on the phone to say "Hi, Grandma!" she'll hear them.

Life is good.

A day in the life

SJ Rozan

(Note: The honor of first guest blogger for the Femmes Fatales goes to SJ Rozan.  Actually, the honor’s ours: SJ, the author of the Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mystery novels, as well as the stand-alone Absent Friends and numerous short stories, has won the the Edgar, Nero, Macavity, Shamus and Anthony awards for Best Novel and the Edgar award for Best Short Story. Dang!  Her tenth novel, In This Rain, is just out.  A native New Yorker, a demon on the basektball court, and my Evil Twin--but if you don’t know her and her work already, you’re in for a treat.  Dana)

My new book, In This Rain, is just out.  What does this mean?

Well, in theory, nothing.  The actual pub date was Dec. 26. That doesn't mean the book was in stores then.  Who's going to shelve a book the day after Xmas?  Retailers are either lying down with ice packs on their throbbing brows, or else girding themselves for the return-and-gift-certificate onslaught.  What a pub date is for is to tell the media the earliest date the book will possibly be available, so they can schedule reviews, interviews, etc. for the following weeks with some assurance people will actually be able to find the book if they're interested.

So that date meant nothing.  The next big date was Jan. 10, the launch at Partners and Crime in NY.  And I have other events coming up.  Including a quick trip to Phoenix and Seattle, but no big tour.  The reviews are starting to come in -- LA Times, Entertainment Weekly -- and others will come in their own good time.  Or not.  There's nothing to be done about that.  And this is my tenth book, so a lot of this is old hat.  And I'm in the middle of writing my eleventh.

So I've been writing daily over the past few weeks, keeping up my usual steady, well-disciplined pace, with the occasional break for a pleasant New Year's drink with friends or a cheerful update from my publicist at Bantam.  Right?

ARE YOU KIDDING???

The pitiful truth: it NEVER gets to be old hat.  It's always the butterfiles-in-the-stomach, opening-night, did-I-make-Dean's-List, why-hasn't-he-called-me panic that you got when your first book came out, when you thought a pub date meant something and you didn't know your publicist had twenty-two books on her mind at any one time.

Not that experience doesn't change a writer.  In the month or so after a release, I no longer

• Go into every Barnes & Noble within a two hour radius, turning my book face- (as opposed to spine-) out (though if I happen to be near one...)
• Google myself in google news, looking for reviews, more than once a day  (because newspapers mostly post at 1 am, so if they're not there in the morning they're not coming... until maybe tomorrow...)
• Wait impatiently for my friends to email me the day after they bought the book to say it kept them up all night
• Wait eagerly for strangers, see above
• Check my Amazon.com rating every half-hour (ratings change so fast, you can be #104 one minute and #10,400 the next; any number you see can be meaningful, or anomalous, and you won't know which... and the high ones are so DEPRESSING...)

That's what I don't do.  I also don't even try to work on my next book, which I'm invariably in the middle of.  I won't be able to focus, and by now I know that.

So what do I do?

Well, I wrote a short story, for Bronx Noir, which I'm editing.  Writing something I wasn't working on before a launch has always been possible for me in this first month -- I think it has something to do with this not being part of normal life -- so I get a lot of short stories done.

I'm finishing up the edits on Bronx Noir, and the introduction, and will be putting that book together and delivering it.

My nephew's being home-schooled and he asked if I'd teach him essay writing, so I made a package for him: what a good essay is, how to think about one, and a couple for him to analyze.

I saw four museum shows I'd been wanting to see.

I scheduled annual physicals for me and the cat.  Mine involved a subway ride, a good book, sitting around the doctor's office waiting for various techs, talking to the doctor for five minutes, coming home.  The cat's was much more traumatic, having to do with a cat carrier, a grocery cart, the chance of running into -- oh horrors -- dogs; it wasn't pretty.  But I assure you, it was distracting.

I did not only the regular laundry, but the slipcovers for the chair and sofa.  And took a bunch of things to the dry cleaner.  And the tailor.  And the shoemaker.  And Housing Works, where I donate all my gently-worn clothes.  (The heavily-worn ones I donate to my cleaning bucket.)

I've been playing more basketball than normal -- okay, for someone my age and size, any basketball is more than normal, but there you have it -- and have been going religiously to the gym between basketball days.  I've also taken some very long walks.

I filed all the business cards I'd collected and put in the "To Be Filed" file over the past year.

And my biggest victory: I bought AND INSTALLED a new toilet seat!

So you see?  It's just as you suspected.  The writer's life, it's a life of the mind, focussed on the thrills and calm satisfactions of creativity, blithely uninvolved with the tainted, mundane concerns of the marketplace.

Yes, indeed.  It's a beautiful thing.

Hit Me

by Mary

A question mystery readers and writers sometimes discuss is, Why are darker books generally considered better than those that use humor or a lighter approach? We reading addicts most likely appreciate both ends of the spectrum, at least a little. We'll have our own favorite types along the curve, but I rarely hear readers say what they prefer is better or better written than another sub-genre, just that the other category doesn't appeal.

So why is it that awards nominations, ones that consider all sub-genres together, usually go to harder-edged books? Why do reviewers judge tales of woe and destruction more often and in a better light than humorous books? It surely takes as much skill, if not more, to write a comic scene well or sustain that comedy over the length of a novel. And why do we as readers tend to rave about these darker books more than the comic ones? Even when we adored the comedies?

I have a theory about that. Wait, not that one. I can see you all shaking your heads and covering your faces with your hands. No, I'm not going for the sexist theory, that lighter books are considered feminine. Or how cozy-bashing is a result of genetic defects in some males who desire the destruction of all that is female. And that the desire is so strong, even the nicest screenwriters and novelists will deny their sexist tendencies as they type out male fantasies of rape, torture and murders of women. And make darned good money for it. I wish I had a penny for every time a woman has screamed in agony on TV and in movies. I'd be a billionaire from HBO alone.

No, this is a different theory entirely. One that has nothing to do with wondering how cozy-hating authors sleep at night, when they capitalize upon the grief and ruined lives of women in the real world, and then stand up and ridicule those very women for seeking comfort in cozies about cooking, sewing and other female-dominated arenas, ones as far away from the horrors of men as they can get. Far be it from me to get on writers who try to undermine a path of escape those women choose and desperately need. Because then, we'd be into my own fantasies and genetic defects. The ones that make me want to wind up and bust a few pompous authors' sorry posteriors to the floor one good time. Hey, you know what, that violent stuff is not only genetic, it's contagious. Maybe I need to cut back on my hardboiled reading. Honey, could you please turn that TV down just a little bit? There. Maybe that will help me maintain my usual sweet disposition, too.

But back to my theory about drama vs. comedy. I think it all comes down to emotions and where they hit us. Comedy hits us in the head. (Remember, this is theory.) You know how you can hear a great joke, laugh yourself silly over it, and then not be able to remember it the next day? You remember you laughed, but you don't know why. The enjoyment comes from a twist on the ordinary or some other mental construct that tickles. And wherever that construct is, whether in the brain or elsewhere, it tends to fade pretty quickly over time.

On the other hand, drama hits us in the gut or the heart. And stays there. When you read high-adrenaline scenes of terror, you feel it in your chest, or your heart might skip a beat. Mine does, anyway. Rich stories about emotional conflicts between people who love each other aren't described as heart-rending or as tear-jerkers for nothing. They affect parts of our bodies that hold memory better and stronger than wherever comedy hits us. So when it's time for awards nominations and we look back over books we've enjoyed, maybe we choose the harder-edged books as favorites because we remember the feelings they evoked better. Just hearing the title of a book I loved can make me put my hand over my heart because that's where I still feel those emotions the author expressed so well.

When a writer can infuse his work with emotion, he's more likely to be a must-read author. Take James Lee Burke, for example. How many times have I read a passage, started crying, and then looked back over a simple sentence to wonder how he got me. Not only can he write characters and situations with emotional punch, he can put it in the scenery, for heaven's sake. I'm reading a book by Stephen Booth right now, and he can do the same thing.

That's what I want. I love comedies. We need those to maintain our sanity, and I've got to have them to get by. But I've got to have that deep stuff, too. That's the fix I'm looking for in the quest for a great read, something wonderful I will remember in my bones. I can do without the gratuitous violence and certainly most of the non-gratuitous kind as well, thank you, but I've got to have that strong emotional hit.

Shake it up, stir it up

By Dana

I was eating lunch with fellow Femme Toni a couple of weeks ago and she mentioned how two shows we both love, Battlestar Galactica and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, both derived from earlier, much less successful, efforts.  We started talking about what’s needed to take your old idea, tear it down, and rebuild it into something completely different, and yet still faithful to the germ of the original concept.  Not just a remake, but a total reconsideration. 

This notion was really driven home to me when I went to see Casino Royale shortly after that lunch.  I hadn’t been to a movie—in a cinema—for about a year, and I was ambivalent about seeing a Bond flick.  I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan; even with Sean Connery, the archness never worked for me.  I think Timothy Dalton could have sold the character with better scripts, but Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan never even got close, IMO. 

The rave critical reviews and the promise of a total lack of camp got me in the cinema, but the writing and characterization kept me riveted.  It’s Bond, and yet not Bond.  There’s action, but it’s visceral rather than high-tech glam.  There are funny lines, but no trademark quips.  There are gorgeous women, but they are necessary characters rather than props.  There’s no winking to the camera and at times, it’s a tough movie to watch.  This Bond is gritty and emotionally broken, vicious and painfully vulnerable; he’s got class issues and yet he’s a connoisseur of high living.  He is everything the character should be, but Casino Royale has departed the earlier clichés.  And as eye candy, Daniel Craig works very well indeed—and I’m not into blonds. 

I left the movie stunned.  It gave me the best feeling a movie can:  It made me want to get back to my keyboard and write. 

Thinking about these successful examples of reimagining a story, I realized that it comes down to two things:  love and fearlessness.  The first because you have to be so enamored of your idea that you can’t stop working with it, wanting to make it better, to make it live up to your expectations.  The fearlessness comes in when you have to be willing to deconstruct everything about it, to get to that kernel that inspired you, and then build it up again, while being faithful to the thing that sent you scurrying to your notebook in the first place.  Not easy tasks, but necessary.

You also have to do the same thing with yourself as a writer.  As I try something new, I want to recast certain elements I like working with and need to step outside constraints I may have built for myself and experiment with telling my story.  Like the song says, “There’s something exciting about leaving everything behind.”  All you have to do is remember what it is you’re looking for and hold onto that.

Buried Treasure

by Toni L.P. Kelner

I love pirates.

Long before Johnny Depp opened his first tube of mascara, I've adored pirate movies. The Buccaneer (with and without Yul Brynner), Captain Blood, Swashbuckler (James Earl Jones makes an excellent pirate), and a remarkably diverse assortment of versions of Treasure Island (Tim Curry is my favorite Long John Silver).

Moreover, I celebrate "Talk Like a Pirate Day" faithfully, and I have a very sharp cutlass.

At some point I picked up a nonfiction book on pirates. And then another, and another. Soon I had a small hoard. What could be more fun than learning why pirates wore gold earrings (a savings account for their funeral expenses), what careen and keel haul mean (a way to repair a boat without a dry dock and a really nasty way to kill somebody), the true story behind Captain Kidd (not a pirate at all), and the socioeconomic reasons pirates liked to dress up (to compete with Johnny Depp)?

Now my pirate reading was for fun, not research. I never intended or expected to use this knowledge in writing mysteries. But as any writer can tell you, you never know when a story idea will show on the horizon.

Except while reading the excellent book Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly, I found out an interesting fact. In Pirates of the Caribbean, much is made of the "pirate code." It turns out that pirates did have a code. Every ship had a list of articles that each crew member had to sign, and it specified offenses and the penalties thereof. Crime and punishment... Unbidden, an idea for a story started to rise from the briny depths.

Then, while visiting the New England Pirate Museum in Salem, MA, the costumed tour guide mentioned that each time a pirate lost a hand, or leg, he got a bonus over and above his share of the booty. That fact joined forces with the part about ship's articles, and a story started to form.

Finally, this week, I've started to actually do the writing. Which lead me back to my pirate books, this time for serious research. It was while checking out the pirate-with-a-hook-hand thing that I came across the most wonderful nugget that any mystery writer could ever ask for. In The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates by Gail Selinger and W. Thomas Smith Jr., I found the following:

A favorite pirate pastime was the mock trial. ... It was a realistic exercise performed so well one might think they were actually being tried for piracy.

Oh my stars and garters, what more valuable piece of information could a mystery writer ask for? Now I really love pirates!

After The Fact

Am I the only woman on the planet who is late for everything?

Really? You're just saying that to make me feel better.

I am late with this blog entry. It was supposed to be up yesterday. We Femmes post on Wednesday and Sunday. One of us at a time, so we each only have to think of something brilliant once a month. And yet, even though it's only once a month, here I am, late again.

What makes it even worse that this entry is late is that my New Year's resolutions included getting organized and being on time. So yesterday, when I should have been blogging, I was out at the office supply store deciding which color scheme to use in my soon-to-be-organized file cabinet, and it took more time than I would have thought. Once I got home, I had to start sorting all the stuff on my desk ...and the cabinet top, the printer, the booksehlves, the floor...I am rather horizontally challenged in terms of filing...and I ran across a note that I made while stopped at a red light the other day.

It concerned an NPR report on how a messy desk is actually a valid way of organizing your life. This would have been welcome news to me, but by the time I found the note and remembered the report, I'd already arranged for a Bobcat to come in and shuffle the paper into the Office Depot Spring line of file folders. (Pastels as pretty as anyone's garden palette.) My note had question marks around my Office Depot shopping list. (So that's why I couldn't find it when I got to the store, it was on my desk in my idea pile, not in my purse with my To-Do list.) The segment suggested that organized people were wasting a lot of time and effort on neatly typing labels and color-coordinated file systems.

According to Dave Freedman, co-author of A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, the paper mountain filing system I employ is as effective -- and less time consuming! Things of importance rise to the top of the piles and are dealt with. Every now and again a flurry of cleaning/sorting/searching brings to light something long buried, which provides a spark of enlightenment in the messy-desk owner, which may well turn out to be an Original Idea worthy of a Nobel Prize.

This appeals to me. (The letting mess serve as an organic approach to filing, not the prize thing. I don't think they award Nobel prizes for being a wife/mom/writer/gardener/farmer/volunteer.)

So I'm cancelling the Bobcat. I'll return the pastel "Spring" folders to Office Depot, resist the lovely "Autumn" colors which will no doubt lure me into thinking they will be a better organizational choice, and let the papers stay where they are. Eventually I'll go looking for something deep down in the pile and find a Treasure of Information, which will ignite a spark which may lead to yet another Good Idea.

I've already experienced the truth of the gift of the messy desk. If I hadn't been late with this blog entry, I wouldn't have found the note on my desk about the NPR story and I would have been even later because I would have been typing up neatly arranged labels for tastefully colorful file folders to hold papers I'd never see again. That messy desk has already saved me from myself.

Happy New Year to all of you. May 2007 be filled with great reads and happy times.

(And lovely messy desks.)

Julie

Shut up, already!

by Kris

I've always thought the great thing about writing fiction is that you get to admit to hearing voices without being carted off to Funnyville, which I'm betting doesn't vie with Disneyland for being the happiest place on earth.

Non-writers may not believe it, but characters do speak to us. Long and loudly sometimes.

A writer I know recently conducted a survey among her writer friends, to provide material for a talk she planned. She asked the novelists she knew how their book came to them. In her admittedly unscientific survey, she discovered the majority of writers experience their books purely through the voices they hear. A smaller minority don't hear much because their books come to them through pictures, like a silent movie. And, according to my friend's study, only a tiny percentage experience the full movie: vivid pictures and robust sound, with all the characters' voices pitching in. My friend concluded that the latter are the fortunate ones, since it's as it they channel the book from someplace where's it's already written.

I never really questioned my own writing methods, or whether the way a book sprang to life in my mind was different from the way it happened for others. But after hearing the result of my friend's survey, I discovered I was one of the lucky ones, according to her. I see it and I hear it. Maybe it is easier for me, than it would be if I only heard it or only saw it. But I think I'm working awfully hard to get it down for something that already exists in the ether somewhere.

Whenever time doesn't press on me in the course of a project I like to schedule short breaks along the way. Generally, I schedule one of those rest periods about every quarter of the way through a novel. I need a little time away from it, so when I come back to it, I'm fresher. So I can evaluate where the story is headed with nearly new eyes. I also count on resting mentally in those breaks, those times when I shouldn't have to see or hear the book at all.

Only it's not working. I'm at the ¼ point in my first draft WIP, and at the ¾ point in a revision of another work. And I'm on a break. (Do I sound like Ross on the TV show, FRIENDS? Have I seen that show too often?) Only the characters act as if they don't know that. Not only do the pictures keep rolling, the characters keep talking to me. When I'm awake, when I'm asleep. They shout over each other, competing for my attention. I calmly reason with them, of course, asking them to be silent for just a little while, so I can benefit from my break and bring that freshness back to their projects. But they're talking so loud, they don't seem to hear me.

Really, until now, only my pets have ignored me like this.

Two mental movies rolling round the clock. Two casts of characters vying for my attention. And now some short story character I never heard from before is piping up with the rest of them. 

Hey, I'm on a break. Be quiet, all of you!

For once, I think I'd like to be alone in here. Funnyville is starting to look good to me.