Pat Bertram's Blog, page 98

The Wheel of Time

Since I finished reading all my emergency books, I’m reduced to reading the books in my Nook, books I’ve already read. Although I don’t generally like rereading books, Robert Jordan’s massive Wheel of Time series seems to be the perfect place to go to hide from The Bob.

The books in the series are not stand alone books — you cannot understand one book without the previous books — which means that in effect the WOT series is single novel of over four million words broken up into fifteen parts. In fact, the series itself is not stand alone — there are all sorts of books, blogs, discussion forums comprising billions of words where readers try to figure out the truth of the story.

Not only is the scope of WOT almost impossible to fathom, but Jordan had a bad habit of putting in bits of deus ex machina that he refused to elucidate in the work itself, companion books, or even interviews. Perhaps he himself did not know what those bits meant or maybe he simply wanted to be mysterious for mysterious’s sake, to create a legacy of people debating worthless points. Which they do. Ad infinitum. Jordan also refused to explain what to him were obvious story points, such as who killed a certain bad-guy-turned-maybe-good-guy, but again, dozens of forums present various theories because that obvious point was obvious only to he who created it. At least in this particular case, the murderer was revealed in an appendix several books after the fact. Jordan also spent thousands upon thousands of words on red herrings and subplots that go nowhere, but sometimes used a single sentence buried in huge blocks of description to bring out a major point. Yikes.

And wow, is there description. Tons of description. Whenever food is mentioned, I find myself skipping a paragraph or two. When clothes are mentioned, I skip a couple of pages. And sometimes, when there is zero action or character development, such as in a few very clean bathing scenes, I skip the whole dang chapter.

I also tend to skip over some of the women’s parts. Although Jordan mostly develops his three main male characters into individual heroes, each with his own mythic journey, he turns his three main women characters into insufferable caricatures, indistinguishable from one another except for a few annoying character tics. At first I thought he had a problem with women, but his secondary and tertiary female characters are often well-defined or at least not brats and prigs who believe, without giving a single shred of thought to the forces the other characters face, that they know the best for everyone.

Even after investing so much time in reading and rereading the books, I’m still not sure I like the series — although the theme seems to be about the importance of having choices, most of the characters, both good and evil, go out of their way to force others to their will. Too much torture and punishment for my taste. It seems to me that in a world where everyone is free to choose (or at least what the pattern created by the wheel of time allows them to choose), it’s just as easy to find someone to willingly do your bidding as to waste the effort forcing someone to do it. (Oddly, the three main males do turn others to their will, but without wanting to or without even trying.)

But despite my ambivalence, I keep rereading. The scope of the story is utterly astounding. In the story, during the so-called age of legends, people wielding the power that turns the wheel of time, broke the world. Mountains grew where no mountains had been, waters flooded lands, green spaces became deserts. And humans started over. Again.

Interestingly, breaking the world is exactly what Robert Jordon did when he wrote his series — he smashed our world into bits, mixed it all up — legends and traditions; countries and races, clothes and customs; myths and mysteries, religions and philosophies — and put it all back together into his own creation.

I wonder what it would be like to create such a massive fiction world, a world that reflects our world but not. A world that reflects our values but not. A world that exists only in our minds but not. Or, rather, maybe not. If it exists in our minds, it’s possible Jordan’s world exists for real, sort of dream world we all created together, just as philosophers and physicists say we do with the real world.

Assuming there is a real world.

Maybe we’re all writing the story of our world as we live it, creating with our hive mind the very fact of our existence. If we all stopped believing in it, would it disappear as if we were closing the cover of a novel? Would we disappear if we stopped believing all the things we see and hear except with our own eyes or ears? Would we be different if we simply refused to accept the role that has been forced on us?

Maybe, as I study Jordan’s world, I’ll learn how to help build a better version of our own — how to write it or right it, either one.

Meanwhile, the wheels of time keeps turning . . .

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

My Epic Adventure

[image error]I’ve often been seduced by the hero’s journey, an archetypal storyline where a reluctant hero is called to an epic adventure. This quest is at heart a transcendental and transformative journey, where an ordinary person from the ordinary world goes through a series of test, ordeals, encounters, and finally returns to the ordinary world, no longer an ordinary person but extraordinary — a hero — who has the ability to transform the world into something extraordinary, too. You know this story — you’ve heard it, seen it, read it hundreds of times in the guise of tales such as The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings.

I used this same story for my novel Daughter Am I, my contemporary novel of a young woman — Mary Stuart — who goes on a dangerous journey to learn about her recently murdered grandparents. Her mentors and allies on her quest are six old rogues — gangsters and con men in their eighties — and one used-to-be nightclub dancer. By journey’s end, all their lives have been transformed.

I always wanted a taste of an epic adventure of my own, something that would change me — and perhaps my world — into something extraordinary. In a way, grief was such a journey. Grief is not so much a series of stages, at least not the ones we are familiar with. Instead, there are The Mythic Stages of Grief, a process of transformation, taking us from our ordinary shared life into a new life, one we couldn’t even imagine before that tragic “call.”

I thought my cross-country trip would be such a transformative adventure, and as wonderful as it was, I returned after five months and 12,500 miles, essentially the same as when I left.

For many years, I dreamed of an epic hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, thinking that such a journey — a real journey, not just a journey of the spirit — would be the quest I craved. It didn’t work out, and the death of that dream still haunts me.

Well, now here I am involved in a real-life epic adventure — a world-wide ordeal that is calling all of us to be heroic — and what is my duty? What is my quest? To stay home. That’s it. Stay home. Isolate myself. Where are the mentors and allies to help me along the way? Where are the great tests of courage? Without these essential elements of the story, it seems such a tepid — and sad — adventure, though there are enemies galore, whether it is The Bob itself, the conflicting tales we are being told, the fears that are beckoning us.

In the end, though, facing these enemies is no extraordinary challenge. Just ordinary life — or as ordinary as we can make it in our extraordinary isolation.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

No News Is Good News

Where do you get your news? Television? Newspapers? Magazines? Online sources? It struck me the other day that since I don’t have television and don’t subscribe to newspapers, Facebook is the main source of news for me. I know that sounds horrible and frightening, but it isn’t, at least not in my case.

Facebook is one of those sites that everyone experiences differently. For some people, it’s a place to keep up with family and friends, to play games, to see cat or dog photos, to be inspired or amused by the ubiquitous memes, to promote.

When I first joined Facebook, the groups had discussion boards that were separate from links and photos and promos, and those discussion boards were my joy. Back then, authors were joining in huge numbers to make names for themselves but they didn’t know what to do once they got there. So every week, I’d sponsor a discussion, asking one or another author to post a brief article about a particular aspect of writing, and then lead a discussion. It worked. It was fun. Authors had a place to go where they could feel at home as they tried to figure out how they fit into the larger FB scheme.

Then FB, in its infinite wisdom, did away with the discussion boards, and the promos that were once set off in a special area now flooded the group, and discussions became impossible. I finally reclaimed the discussion aspect by setting up a special event every Saturday for promos and sending a group message giving people the link. That, too was fun, with everyone getting together to promote each other’s work. Then FB banned me from ever sending another group message. So I set up a separate group for those once-a-week promos. I kept that going for a long time until I realized that everyone was promoting one another but ignoring my posts. In a snit, I disbanded the group, which was not at all fun — to delete a group, you have to first remove each member, which takes awhile if you have more than 1000 members. When that’s done, you remove yourself. And that’s the end.

I still have the discussion groups, though they mostly sit there with no activity. And I still have a lot of literary friends, most of whom are very smart and very well read. These people span the whole political and idealistic and artistic spectrums, and each person posts links to articles that interest them. Hence, my feed is like a news magazine, though like no magazine you’ve ever read since for every point of view espoused there is an equal and opposing view presented.

This really has nothing to do with FB except that it’s the platform this private news magazine is fed into. People complain about not being able to see everyone’s posts, but that is a simple fix for me — if I notice that I’m not seeing someone, I go to their profile. But mostly, the FB algorithms work in my favor in that the more you view and interact with someone, the more of their posts you will see.

During the past twelve years, I’ve found a way to work around every single one of FB’s ridiculous changes, but there is no way to work around a ban. They do not hear, do not respond, do not care. There’s also no way of knowing if the ban on my posting links is permanent, or if after three months in “Facebook jail,” my ability to post will reappear as silently and as inexplicably as it disappeared.

So far, they have not completely banned me — just my blog — so I can still check in occasionally, but without a need to see who, if anyone, commented and to respond if necessary, there’s really no compelling reason to spend much time looking through my feed.

It might be good for me, not knowing what is going on. I was always much happier living in my own little world and eschewing a broader outlook. Except for books, of course — during all the years of my boycotting the news, I read history. That’s all news is, anyway — history in the making, and for now, I’ve had enough of the making.

Makes me wonder (jokingly) — if I get no news from any source, will that mean all is well? Because as we know: no news is good news.

Speaking of good news: my lilacs are in bloom!

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

And So Ends April

And so ends April. May should be even more interesting for me (a hint of irony there) since I have read all my emergency books, have watched all the DVDs I once borrowed from a friend, and now I am more or less banned from Facebook. (Any links to my blog are blocked, and all previous posts have disappeared.) I can check in and make a few comments, but that’s about it. Oh, wait — I can also post links to my books on Amazon. So, I can’t post links to my blog, which is not spam, but I can post links to my books, which can be considered spam. What a bizarre situation!

For the past twelve years, Facebook was a safe place for me to hang out with people, to chat a bit, and make new friends, but now, not only am I isolated in real time, I am isolated in e-time too. I considered fighting the ban, but I think I’ll wait. It would probably do me more good to stay away from the inane and sometimes downright nasty remarks people make about those who don’t agree with them, and I have had my fill. I’ve also had my fill of following the progression of The [image error]Bob, and especially I have had my fill of trying to make sense of all the stories that don’t add up. But still, not checking in with Facebook and the friends I’ve made all over the world will be make a huge hole in my life.

Adding to the complication, my knee is acting up again. It had been mostly healed, but clambering up and down the very steep threshold to my backdoor (I had to see what the workers were doing!) has exacerbated the injury. I’ve been babying the knee again, going in and out the front door (where there’s a ramp) and it’s doing better, but still not well enough to go tramping around town.

When the garage is done, they will build a walkway from the back door of the house to the pedestrian door of the garage, and when they do so, they will eliminate that treacherously deep step. Until then, not being able to use the back door just adds to the complications of my life. (Though admittedly, by comparison, this is a very tiny complication.)

So, to recap what May is beginning to look like: no books. No movies. No connecting with friends off line. (Although the governor has removed some of the restrictions, seniors are still locked down.) No connecting with friends online. And no walking.

With any luck, the workers will be back on Monday or Tuesday, but for now, there’s just me. And me. And me. And not much else.

As I said, May should be interesting.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Flummoxed

I’m truly flummoxed. Facebook has completely blocked my blog from their site, saying it goes against community standards because it’s spam. Huh? Spam? It’s absolutely acceptable for me to post Amazon links to my books on my Facebook page, but I can no longer post links to this blog, even though I almost never promote my books here. Well, there that short bio at then end of every blog, but that’s more for self-protection than anything else. Certain sites pirate blogs without attrition, so having that bio there at least lets people know who wrote it.

Another thing that’s confusing about this situation is that a few months ago I was boosting posts to see if I could garner interest in Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One, and they very greedily took my money. Now those posts, too have disappeared along with all the rest of my articles. If they weren’t spam then, why are they spam now? If they met community standards then, why not now?

There’s really no recourse. I’ve appealed, but they admit they don’t give any real explanation, seldom reverse their decisions, and won’t respond individually to any request for reinstatement. Which means, except for a brief message saying that my blog goes against community standards for being spam, there’s no way of knowing why. Did someone report me? If so, why? If someone I angered with one of my “Bob” posts complained, why do they say this blog is spam? And even more confusing, if one person who complains can get another one blocked without any explanation or recourse, why would I — or anyone — want to participate?

One friend who got blocked fought them for four months before finally giving up and starting a new blog, which I’m not going to do. Just because FB is now blocking all links to this blog doesn’t mean that anything has changed here. I weathered Google blocking me (that turned out to be a matter of a misplaced piece of code in one post) and I’ll weather this, too. After all, I’m not writing for FB, I write for me and those who want to read what I have to say.

Admittedly, not being able to posts links on FB will make it harder for my FB friends to find me. If you are one of those friends and are able to see this, I would suggest you follow my blog directly rather than waiting for a link on FB that might never appear. To follow, scroll down a bit and on the left-hand side you will find a section labeled, “Follow Bertram’s blog via email.” Click on the link that says “follow.”

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I’ve been on Facebook for twelve years. I joined as a place to promote myself as an author and blogger, and stayed because of all the friends I have made. It seems foolish now, but I’ve always been a supporter. Even when people complained about FB, I stayed. Even when FB changed their policies and algorithms, making my posts invisible to most people, I stayed. Even when they changed the groups all out of recognition, turning them into promo sites rather than discussion boards, I stayed.

Well, no more. If they don’t reverse their ban on this blog, I’m done.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Topping It All

Today’s building show wasn’t quite as dramatic as it was the first couple of days, though the work seemed even more intense. When the framing was being done, the walls going up, the rafters set, every hour saw a huge difference — from a concrete slab to an actual building in progress.

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Even though it was just as exciting to watch the building going on today, the changes came more slowly since the various steps seemed a lot more intricate. Trimming the overhang to make way for eventual gutters. Creating the fascia. Applying the tarpaper for the roof.

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Shingling.

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Even starting in on the siding.

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Tomorrow, a couple of the workers will be back to finish the roof and the siding, and then, oh, woe is me. No more excitement until next Monday or Tuesday when the next phase begins, though I’m not sure what that will be. Doors and window maybe? Electricity?

Too bad about The Bob, otherwise I’d want a huge garage christening party when it’s all done. Maybe I’ll do it anyway, even if it’s just with the folks who have been doing the work. After all, by this time, they’re family, right?

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Moving Right Along!

Last night when I happened to glance out the window to the backyard, I was taken aback to see a huge wall looming in the middle of the yard. It kind of scared me, though I don’t know why except that it seemed so massive. Today, after they cut the door and window out of that wall, it seems to have shrunk to a more manageable size, and now that the walls are finished and the roof is going up, it’s beginning to look like a building.

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It’s amazing to me how much they’ve gotten done in just a couple of days.

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It also amazes me how agile and strong they are, with such a great sense of balance. I wonder what it would be like to be able to build a garage or fix leaky pipes, or concrete a foundation or put up a fence — all things they have done for me while I could only watch in awe.

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Judging by how much lumber and such is still piled up out there, I sense that even though they are moving right along, there is still a long way to go.

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Lucky me! More days of excitement coming my way . . .

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Wonderful Surprise!

Look!

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The workers came to start framing the garage today. Such a treat, having the garage that much closer to being workable, and especially, having something different in my life.

As much of a hermit as I am, it’s still been hard to be so isolated, especially when life has been the same, day after day after day.

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But today, things were not the same. Nor are they the same tonight. While three of the men worked on the garage, one worked in the basement, concreting the floor beneath the water heater and fixing a leaking pipe. I was all set to be without water tonight so that the concrete could cure, which I could have handled — sort of like an indoor camping trip — but they managed to seal off the hot water pipes. So I have water! Cold water, but it’s still water.

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They’re supposed to be back tomorrow to do more work, which will be great. Not just because of additional progress on the building project, and not just for the entertainment value, but to start using up the materials that have been littering my yard for months. It wasn’t so bad in the winter when I didn’t go out anyway, but now that I have a few plants to take care of, I do have to go out, and it’s rather unsafe trying to meander around equipment and stumbling across uneven ground.

I’m looking forward to having my yard back. Meantime, tomorrow should be another wonderful day filled with joy.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Desperate Dealings

My big adventure for the day? A walk to the grocery store!

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Freedom!!

The walk back wasn’t so joyful. The items I bought turned out to be much heavier than I’d expected, mostly because I’d used a cart. Normally, I juggle everything I pick out, which guarantees I won’t be getting more than I can carry, but since I had my trekking poles with me, it seemed easer to use a cart. I didn’t get that much — just things like beans for chili, vegetables and a can of garbanzos for a salad, and fruit for snacks — but it loaded up my pack.

I would say it was too much to carry, but since I am back here, writing this blog, it obviously wasn’t too heavy.

One thing I bought that I had never before in my entire life purchased was a can of Beanee Weenees. Apparently, my desperation for something different to eat made me resort to such an ignominious act. Whether I eat the stuff or not is a different story, but it is there is my cupboard in case I have to deal with an even greater desperation for variety.

That wasn’t my first slip into abnormality, either. I don’t keep desserts on hand because I don’t need the temptation, but the other night I was so desirous of something sweet, I heated leftover rice and added chocolate chips and walnuts. The gooey mess was actually pretty tasty and I could almost talk myself into believing it was healthy.

Today, though, except for that one Beanee Weenee slip, I’m back to normal, with chili cooking and chicken baking and salad making.

The few people I have talked recently to have mentioned foods they have eaten or craved because they, too are desperate for something different. So many people used to eat out a couple of times a week, and now, unless they want to make the effort to get food to go, they are stuck eating their own cooking, and they are getting tired of it.

What about you? How do you deal when you get tired of your usual fare and desperately need something else to eat?

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

At it Again

It seems rather unfair that while we are dealing with isolation and the effects of the current crisis, we are still having to field spam calls and emails. You’d think they’d give us a rest from their machinations, but apparently uncertain [image error]times make people ripe for the picking. And these callers are not minor players, but corporations in themselves — big business.

Something else that’s adding to the burden of isolation is this allergy season. Everyone I know who has been sick enough and worried enough to get tested for The Bob turned out to be negative for any virus and positive for allergies. Is this a worse allergy season than normal? I don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be any information on any other medical crisis. All that anyone talks about is this novel virus, which I have dubbed “The Bob” because of a bit of dialogue in A Spark of Heavenly Fire.

Speaking of other medical crises — whatever happened to the seasonal flu? According to various articles before the onslaught of The Bob, this had been a particularly bad and atypical flu season. It started earlier than normal and with the wrong flu strain. Generally, the A types of flu came first, followed by the B types, but this year, the B came first, followed by a long A and B surge. According to the CDC, as of February 12, 4.6 million flu cases had been diagnosed so far this year. Then came all the talk about a novel virus, and that was the end of the information about this atypical flu season. What happened to it? Did it simply disappear? No one is saying.

Oops. Here I am at it again — talking about the ramifications of The Bob. I was going to stay away from any more discussion about this situation because it seems to upset people, but then came a whole slew of spam calls as well as learning about friends’ allergy problems, and it got me started questioning again.

Well, in for a penny in, for a pound or maybe, since I’m not British, in for a dime, in for a dollar. A friend sent me a link to a television interview with two doctors from Accelerated Urgent Care in California who have studied immunology and microbiology extensively. Whenever they’d say something that echoes my concerns — that isolating healthy people is damaging in the long run because it is the contact with all sorts of pathogens that builds up our immune systems, and that delaying non-viral-related hospital visits will place an undue strain on hospitals after the restrictions are lifted — the interviewers would interrupt and try to get them back on the party line: lockdown good; business as usual bad. The doctors very patiently stuck to their script and managed to say what they needed to, not just about the immune system but about seeing abuse and suicides on the rise.

Although it seemed to make the interviewers nervous, the doctors weren’t wearing masks because, as the doctors explained, they knew the truth how the immune system worked. They also said now that so many people have been tested and found to have or have had the disease, the fatality rate is so very much lower than was predicted. And that hospitals are way below capacity, doctors and nurses are being furloughed, and that anyone who dies with the coronavirus is considered to have died of the corona virus.

Perhaps that’s where all the seasonal flu deaths have gone? Swallowed up in The Bob statistics?

I don’t know, but it is a question I don’t see answered anywhere.

In case you haven’t yet downloaded a free copy of my novel  A Spark of Heavenly Fire about a novel pathogen that caused a pandemic and forced Colorado to be quarantined, click here to get your free ebook: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1842. Be sure to use the coupon code WN85X when purchasing.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.