Dianne Pearce's Blog, page 29

BLOGROLL

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Have you seen my new blogroll? Up there, above Monet.

You’ll meet some really interesting folks there.

AND, if you follow me, I’ll follow you too, and add you, to my blogroll.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG BROTHER

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It’s your first birthday without you. It’s our first Bill-Birthday without you.

You’re so cute.

You’re so funny.

I remember how you could eat any number of Thanksgiving dinners one right after the other and still keep your 29″ waist jeans.

I remember the cut-offs you always swam in that had too many holes to be respectable.

I remember when you visited me in Los Angles and we sang “narcissistic” songs all night long. “I love me, for sentimental reasons. I hope I do believe me; I’ve given me my my my my my; given me my heart because I mmmmmmm- me, and I alone was meant for me…..”

We laughed so hard we almost peed.

I wish Mom [image error]had given in and moved to Los Angeles and you had come too, and we had bought that property in Venice with the three houses on one lot. I feel like we could have lived happily ever after there. But, no one was ever ready to compromise for the other. That’s how we are. We love each other, and we love our freedom. And we can’t seem to give one up for the other.

I miss you.

I hope you’re somewhere and not nowhere even though nowhere is where I am sure we all go someday.

I hope you’re happy.

It won’t be your birthday without you.

It won’t be Thanksgiving without you. And who knew, when you were sick and missed last year, that you wouldn’t be here for cake and pie this year? We didn’t expect 2020, and really who did?

I’m thankful you were my big bother of all the big brothers I could have had. I think you were the best.

Except you left.

Too early.

Too quickly.

I miss you.

Everyday.

ONE OF MY FAVORITES

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Yeah, watch out for that glass.

MY FIRST MEME!

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I know it is far from the most amazing meme ever, and you can see it challenged the limits of my Photoshop skills, but I am so proud of myself!

LOL…..

WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS?

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WORLDS…

COLLIDING

OXYGEN LEAVING THE ROOM….

This is what happens when your job is to teach grammar, and, all of the sudden, you’re teaching that very same grammar, not to college students, but to your daughter.

Let me just get this out of the way… when it comes to teacher my daughter I am as calm as the grave. Calm, calm, patient and calm.

My daughter… is not.

First of all, I do not know if it is because she is a pre-teenager, but she constantly interrupts me. “Mom, what does it mean when the verb has two subjects?”

“Well, when the verb has two subjects”

“I mean, I think it means there’s not change, or is their a change but not like a change that matters, or possibly the change could be that you don’t need a FANBOYS word with the comma, and can I have a snack? I’m soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hungry!”

“Okay, sure you can have a snack, but let’s talk about….”

“I’m hungry now! I can’t think when I’m huuuuuuunnnnngry!”

*sigh*

#homeschoolfun #thatlasthashtagwassarcasm

#howthehelldohashtagsworkanyway

#isthereanybodyoutthere

IT’S BEEN STRESSFUL, WAITING FOR THE ELECTION TO BE CALLED

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That is what I wore when I went to vote, and I felt like I was dressing to do battle. I had my Ruth T-shirt and my Ruth pearls, and I felt RGB’s loss, again, and keenly.

I made myself get up and do a run before I went to vote. I have been trying to bike or run 2-3 miles every day (M-F) because this is probably the best chance I will get in my over 50 life to develop an exercise regime/routine, because I am teaching from home. (I am one of the very lucky people to be working from home during the pandemic.) I am hoping it will get to the point that when I finally am back out in the car for 2-3 hours a day I will be so accustomed to exercise that I will still do it, and do it 5 days a week.

Oh, and by the way, I hate exercise. Yup. I hate it. I don’t wanna. But, WTF, I am going to be one of those dam lucky people who comes out of this damn pandemic hotter than when I went in, even if I’m only hotter in the sense that I am covered in hot smelly sweat.

In any case, I got myself all exercised, and then I got myself all Ruth-red up, and then I went to vote.

There were no parking spots.

Typically, in this small rural town, my husband and I walk in, vote, and walk out.

There were no parking spots.

I went home, went to a Zoom meeting. Worked at my desk and homeschooled Sophie for awhile, made her lunch, and, at 1pm, went back.

There were no parking spots.

I went to my doctor for my check-up (blood pressure good, pnemonia and flu vaccine, and I am still fat), and went back to the polls.

There were no parking spots.

At 6pm Dave and Sophie and I picked up my mom, and we all went to vote.

After 90 minutes in line, we made it through, and voted.

I was shocked and dismayed to see one particularly do-nothing state Republican representative was running for re-election unopposed. His name is Steve Smyck, and, as a politician, he’s a waste of space. I was disappointed no one had run against him. Had anyone run s/he would have lost in this part of Joe Biden’s state, but still.

I took my mom for her first Delaware vote. I made sure she got there, was safe, and voted. Last spring I made sure she was registered for state and town elections. My mother votes straight Republican all the time, and this time was no different, except, I may have convinced her that Chris Coons was a nice guy and Lauren Witzke was a nut. I may have convinced her. She was quite dismayed to hear Witzke thinks the earth is flat. Well, she would be. She went to Europe with me once. She knows it’s not flat. She saw the curve of the earth with her own eyes. But, currently, she is having just slightly more trouble than Trump accepting the results. She said she is going to rename her cat Joey… Donny. She refuses to give an inch on her conviction that Biden is a slimy election stealer. She refuses to believe Trump ever said anything even remotely rude about anyone who was a woman or non-white. It just hasn’t happened. And my momma is sharp as a tack. She is not in dementia. She’s only in the river, that one called the Nile. Suffice it to say she is not happy with me. She expects gloating. I would never do that, to her. Hell, I took her to vote. That’s not just what Democracy is, that’s what family is; that’s what being a mensch is.

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Mouse, bless him, was also supporting Biden and RBG. He has often referred to Trump as a bastard. Well, you know Mouse, he would. He’s got a bit of an obscenity problem. Probably because he spends too much time with Sophie, and me.

Did you vote? Were you part of the wonderful process?

SALES

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So, you know, I run Devil’s Party Press (and now Gravelight Press, and Hawkshaw Press, and Out of This World Press). And, the toughest thing about it is that I have this mission, to publish older authors, like myself, who don’t get a fair nod from traditional publishing companies, so I am a traditional publishing company and I do give them a fair nod, but…

Sales.

I have to find people out there to buy the books.

They are great stories. I know it. You know I have read a lot in my life, and been through dozens of classes on literature and three college degrees on writing and literature, and, I’m going to venture to be bold enough to call myself an expert on not just good writing, but engaging and surprising writing. Unless you’re down for all romance, all the time, of which, I confess, beyond Love Story and Oliver’s Story and a brush with Barbara Cartland in my misguided youth, I have almost no experience, I can find you a really good book to read.

So, when I pick stories and books to publish, I’m pretty selective.

These are great writers I am publishing who just happened not to have the time in their youth to hunt down and kill a publishing career. Which, I get. Sometimes I feel like life, for me, in some ways, ending being about what I wanted once I bought my first car. There it was, debt, and from then on out I was striving to stay caught up or ahead of it beyond anything else.

So, these writers I am choosing are really worth a reader’s time.

And our books, thanks 100% to Dave, are gorgeous.

So, how do I find people to buy them?

How do I let people know about these wonderful stories and these wonderful writers, and writers they should choose, over the latest cookie-cutter best seller, because these are people who have done their duty to job, family, country, and now, finally, they get to write.

This is the nut to crack.

And, the loneliest part of the job. It’s all up to me. I have to do it.

Of course, I want to do it.

But I have to do it. These writers are important to me, and I have to find a way to get them out there.

Would you like to buy a book?

Buy it through our website (where more of the money goes to the authors) or buy it on Amazon. All our titles are available there.

And reassure me I can do it.

GETTING MY SOGGY (FOGGY? SAGGY?) BOTTOM OUT THERE

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Oh yes, in support of the arts! I am going to be running my slow and steady tushie around my neighborhood this weekend.

Why not join me? What else you got going on? Gorging on Three Musketeers? Wait, that does not sound like exactly what I want to say, but you know what I mean. However, come to think of it, D’Artagnan sounds yummy, but this woman would have to get rid of her soggy bottom to tryst with a Musketeer! And so, run lady run!

Join me, and, for a teeny bit of money, help keep the arts going through this tough time. They have absolutely wonderful kids, classes at the League. You donation and a nice slow one-mile walk around your neighborhood could give a kid a free class.

Do it. You know you’re gonna do it. Do it!

I AM HOMESCHOOLING. POST 1: THE MATH BOOK

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Ay, yi, yi, I am homeschooling this year. (expletive deleted) Fun.

In any case, this is the workbook my daughter’s school used last year, and it was a private school (that went out of business that I switched to after the racism at our public school was simply unchecked). Being as it was a very expensive private school I made the guess that it had picked fairly reliable materials. As we could not afford the private school one-bit, I guess it’s just as well that it went out of business, or I would be paying to have her enrolled in that school and also be acting as a homeschool, basically, which would double-suck.

Last year, when the school went on lockdown, our daughter brought this home (for 4th grade), and if we needed any help we asked the teacher, and it was fine. Our daughter learned math with really zero Zoom meetings of any substance, so I attributed it to the book, and my help understanding concepts.

This year I bought one, on Amazon, for 5th grade (And, no, neither Sadlier or Amazon is giving me a kickback.). First thing to note, even in a private school with a class of only 14 kids, they only got about half way through this. In homeschool we do math once or twice each week for about 2-3 hours total each week. Important to note, when you homeschool there is a LOT of time to fill. I’m guessing, in K-12, most of that time is filled with trying to get kids to sit still, and to stop passing notes, and to transition subjects in an orderly manner, and, not to put too fine a point on it, the time is mostly taken up with crowd control. So, like, for a 45 minute math class, about 15 minutes is actual math. What a bleak outlook on school for the kid who does not need crowd control, or who would like to explore something longer in math, or history, or etc. Is public school shoving the bare-minimum down kids’ throats like so many foie-gras geese? I mean, it seems to me it must be.

In our 2-3 hours/week my daughter is either doing the worksheets, discussing math with me, or taking a math test that I create based on the workbook. No homework, right? Because it is all homework. And each test I create includes concepts from every single unit we have covered, so, yes, the tests get a little longer each time. But hey, I have one student. I’m not about to let her go forward not really “getting” it.

I get it that math is confusing. It is not hard though. I reject that. It is confusing, like reading the directions on how to install a dishwasher. Once it has been explained to you properly, you can do it. I teach English in community colleges, and maybe my mastery of understanding what I read helps here, but, also, I like math. So, we don’t have too much trouble.

But, sometimes, I feel there is a concept I need to re-explain to myself as much as teach it to my daughter (exponents anyone?).

For that I was going to the absolutely wonderful (&free) Khan Academy. And I know I will again.

But, last week I broke down and called Sadlier. Turns out if you don’t need the answers (I don’t) you can buy the student textbook and get all you need to teach with for waaaaay less than the teacher’s edition. Perfect.

I’D LIKE TO THINK

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If I could choose an outcome for us after we are no more; it would be that we would leave behind our dusty bodies and sharp bones to add our essence to the fuel that lights up the stars.

I’ve never been able to wrap my mind around the idea of an ever-after. Though I have kidded with my mother that her mother and father are above us playing double-deck pinochle and having the time of their lives, well, what they would be having would, in fact, not be the time of their lives, for the time of their lives is over.

I mean, just, what, exactly, would be the point of this time here, and now, if we were going to get to go to another place and do the same thing again, but this time just all our favorite bits?

Is all we do on earth simply preparation for a greatest hits album?

If so, I find it unappealing.

I miss my brother.

I do think Bill would have a pretty good time in the great beyond playing pinochle with Grandmom and Pop, and cracking jokes to make my father laugh. Bill was always one for his favorite reruns, and I think he often wondered why we couldn’t take a new year and replay the same exact holidays in it the same ways as the year before, or make them just like the ones he liked best from childhood

Trying to repeat your favorite moments is like herding cats. People will not hold still and stay the way they had always been.

My brother was 9 years older than me and 17 years older than my sister. I know there are people and events he knew that I never knew, and still more that he and I knew, but not my sister. So much flux, and unending forward movement.

In any case, maybe I’m too smart for my own britches, but it seems, on the one hand, unlikely to me, and on the other, undesirable. Though I would love to see them all again, and especially my Bill, I do not think I would enjoy playing out our same lives, over and over minus the bad times, for all eternity. I’d get bored to, well, death.

For my dad and my brother I feel like I wish so much that I could have somehow convinced them to take better care of themselves.

In any case… here I am, woefully behind on my blog because I am back to teaching, albeit online, which is not any easier at all, and because we are into the homeschool experiment big-time. But that’s for another blog.

I have some wonderful plants around my house that my BF Kris gave me when Bill died, and my BF Dot gave me this star today in memory of Bill.I know that those who left before me are certainly part of the essence that I see in the stars. Do we really want a mapped-out life re-do?

When you leave us, when I leave us, may we all number among the stars, bringing light to even the most dark of nights.

And may I always miss my brother.