Cats! (Not the Musical)

OK, the past few entries have been rants about the current state of politics. I could certainly go there, ad infinitum. But I won't, because, frankly, rage is tiring. So...what then?

When I was a kid, I was a dog person. Not that I had much choice in the matter. My parents had a dog. I liked that dog. Ergo, I was a dog person. I will always have fond memories of Baron. Then, about twelve-thirteen years ago (long after Baron had passed) my parents got a cat. Again, I didn't have a choice in the matter. But I was off to college and wasn't really expected to be a part of the decision. So we the family had a small black-and-white tuxedo cat we named Selene, after the mythical huntress goddess. (She was supposed to be a mouser, after all.) I don't know if the mouse situation improved, but we did quickly grow to love her. Then, about nine months ago, my brother got another cat, which he named Axiom. This one, also black-and-white, is a Turkish Van (yes, there is a breed called that) who quickly outgrew the smaller Selene. The two are endless entertainment. Yes, both cats live under the same roof, along with my brother, my mom, and myself. Hemmed in by dogs, I've quickly realized how quiet they are. When's the last time you heard someone complaining about the neighbor's cat meowing too loudly? They're also low maintenance: feed them, let them out, let them in, let them out, let them in... I don't take care of the poop duties (I'm the uncle, after all), but I suspect it's a lot easier than worrying about dog poop. Anyway, now I have concluded that cats are the pet of choice, and I'd bet I'd get one some day. Or two. Or more. Also, I suspect they're a lot lower maintenance than children. I'll leave this musing anti-rant with a poem I wrote about these two kitties:

Cats
by Sean Eret

He, young and restive
flits here and there
never satisfied, he meows tirelessly
concentration never comes to him
not yet grounded, he distrusts and fears the world.

She, mature and at ease
saunters with mindfulness
always content, she lives effortlessly
attention always comes to her
with a firm connection to Earth, the world is hers.

When he dashes about and bounces
his energy's unfettered
happy only for the next big thing
when he plays, he always stumbles about comically
still young, he has much to learn.

When she runs and jumps about
she has an exact exertion
joyously in the moment
whatever her task, she always accomplishes it nobly.
though old, she is young in body and soul.

These two cats, friends and companions
are mirror images of each other
separated only by time.

Oh My God...Wait...We Aren't Dead...Yet...

One theory about how the Oracle of Delphi got her supposed precognizant powers says that she sat atop a volcanic seam that spewed hallucinogenic gases. But I didn't need to huff any gas to see this one coming. In a followup to my blog post Oh My God! We're All Gonna Die!, as predicted, Congress passed a debt ceiling increase in the nick of time to prevent a catastrophe. Or so we were led to believe. We'll never know.

And I don't have the expertise to say one way or the other, except to say that this whole event fit the Crisis story plot almost exactly. The climax was the passage of the debt ceiling in the eleventh hour. The stakes were high. The clock was ticking. It's almost like some action-hero is fiddling with the wires to a bomb, trying to figure out how to defuse it, then finally does so with one second left. Take, for example, our writer-hero Richard Castle who, in one episode, had to defuse a dirty bomb in the heart of New York City. He does it, of course, with mere seconds to spare. I sometimes expect him to reflect that his life works out into clearly delineated action-packed episodes, the fictitious author noticing that his life would make a pretty good TV series. Life does indeed seem like that. Except--at least in the case of the whole debt ceiling debacle--it's manufactured. It suspect that if the debt ceiling had never been raised, sure it would have negative consequences, but it'd be more drawn out. It wouldn't have been a catastrophic point. And that just wouldn't have made a good news story because the fear would no longer be as eminent. And I'd bet the media would've found something else to talk about, some other partially-manufactured Crisis to scare us and get us to stay tuned. Instead, the debt ceiling was increased and the news media is now in the wrap-up, denouement-phase of the narrative. But like any good series writer, the end of one story has hints of the next. The market is still jittery and the FAA is under a partial shut-down. Can anyone say "sequel?"

Zen and the Art of Recumbent Trike Riding

As some of you know, in early June I broke my ankle when my recumbent tricycle hit a tree. Often, when I tell people how I broke my ankle, I get a courtesy acknowledgement that I can tell they have no clue what a recumbent tricycle is. I bet some of those people think I was riding a children's toy, like maybe those trikes with the big plastic wheel up front. I suppose since the rider is reclining in her seat, it is technically a recumbent trike. But no, that's not what I mean at all by a recumbent trike. And if you have no idea what a recumbent tricycle is, well, you're in luck because you have an Internet connection. To make absolutely certain you get a picture of what I'm talking about, google "tadpole recumbent tricycle." Don't ask, "Why the hell is it named after a fish?" I'll explain*. Go ahead. Do it. I'll wait.

You back? I suppose I could've just placed a picture here, but I'm lazy and I know you can look it up almost instantly. Anyway, found a picture of a tadpole recumbent tricycle? See how the rider's feet are up front, leading the way? Now image the rider had one of his feet strapped in because he thought that was the only way to keep that foot on the pedal. In other words, that foot's going to stay with the pedal even in an accident. So, accident happens: rider loses control of trike and slams into a tree. Since the feet are up front, and since that one foot is strapped in (the right one, in this case)...snap! Broken ankle still strapped in to pedel. And Paris** (the ankle fracture) is born.

Enough backstory. Today I got the cast off. Now I'm in a walking boot and am allowed to bear weight on my heel. One step (pun intended) closer to recovery. But recovery from what? After my ankle is healed, there will eventually be something else to recover from. And then something else... I don'r mean to be a downer. Quite the opposite, in fact. What if, instead of focusing on some ideal future that will never come (because the future is never how we expect it to be), we focused on the present, the only time we do have control of? Perhaps if we do focus more on the present, the future that comes about will be more like the one we envision. And if it doesn't, we will have developed the tool of clear present-sight to not care as much. And accept the future that does come about.

*With two wheels in front and one in back, a tadpole trike sorta looks like a tadpole.

**I named my ankle fracture after the mythic Paris, who was infamous for inflicting a foot injury. If you want more details, well, you have the Internet...

Oh My God! We're All Gonna Die!

On a nightly basis, you turn to the news, and the above is pretty much the headline you get. Okay, maybe it's a little bit of an exaggeration. But not by much. Currently the headline might be: "Oh My God! We're All Gonna Be Broke!" Congress is trying to pass a debt ceiling increase. And the talking heads in the news asure us that if they don't raise the debt ceiling, the U.S. will default on its financial obligations, the markets will collapse, government employees won't get paid, and, since the world will lose faith in the U.S. dollar, we will all by extension become poor. I suspect that instead, what will happen is that something will pass in Congress, get signed by the President, and within less than a month we will have all forgotten that we supposedly came so close to the precipice of economic catastrophe. By then, however, there will be another Crisis that will make us feel that Oh My God! We're All Gonna Die!

The United States is a country with a free press and a capitalistic mind-set. Our free press pays its bills by becoming for-profit institutions. Perhaps rightly so, no one wants to watch a news reader dryly recite the day's news in a monotone voice. Well, I guess NPR can get away with it (and I suspect the reason they can is because they provide an "alternative" to the bombastic bloviation the others provide). But most of the other news sources ramp up their stories to Crisis levels. "If it bleeds, it leads," goes the old saying. Such is the competitive nature of the 24-hour news cycle (actually, it's probably more like 12-16 hours, with the rebroadcasting of previously aired programming). If the news producer can instill enough anxiety in their viewers so that they'll stick to the news to see What Happens Next, then that producer has another tick in the Nielsen Ratings and more advertising dollars coming in. Those viewers can always DVR that episode of Dancing With the Stars anyway.

Such instillation of a Crisis or Conflict is common in fiction. In fact, many would argue that fiction MUST have a central conflict in order to even be called a story. Whatever the case, conflict is one of the main engines that make a story a page-turner/clicker. "I must find out What Happens Next." Turn the page. "Oh My God! The Character's Gonna Die!" Click the page turning button. "Whew! I didn't think she'd defeat the alien overlord and save the galaxy till the end." Buy the next book by that thrilling science fiction author.

I often wonder how close the news is to actual reality. News and fiction, sadly, have much in common.

lie vs. lay

I'm going to try something a little different with this post. Most of my blog entries have something to do with personal life stories, or philosophical musings, or rants. Or writing. Being a writer definitely plays a role in many of my posts. And while many of them touch on the craft of writing, none of them deals with nuts-and-bolts grammar. Now that has changed. I present to you the first class in the Sean Eret Grammar School. I promise to make it as painless as possible.

The first lesson deals with the difference between the verbs "lie" and "lay." Before I go further, if you know their is a difference between the two, and know what that difference is, and still get the two mixed up (as I do), I've included a handy chart for reference at the bottom of the post. For those who didn't know there was a difference and/or want help with what that difference is, or have a fetish for grammar lessons, then continue reading.

First off, when I talk about "lie," I'm not talking about the definition: to tell a falsehood. No one ever says, "The politician lays about his record." Just doesn't happen. (If it does, maybe you should brush up on your basic English).

Present Tense
So yeah, the real definition of "lie" that's confusing means "to recline." And in the present tense, it's not that hard: "The politician lies on the bed." It is NOT: "The politician lays on the bed." One way you can tell the difference is to know that "lie" is an intransitive verb whereas "lay" is a transitive verb. Basically what that means is that a transitive verb takes a direct object and an intransitive verb does not.

So if you absolutely insist the politician do some laying, then the proper sentence would be: "The politician lays himself on the bed." Or, more interestingly: "The politician lays his campaign organizer on the bed." In the first, "himself" is the direct object. In the second, "his campaign organizer" is the direct object. The first is archaic; no one talks like that anymore. The second, well, just tune to the nightly news for examples.

Another way you can tell the difference between "lie" and "lay" is by replacing the verbs with synonyms. As I mentioned above, "lie" means "to recline." And "lay" means "to place." So, in the original example, "The politician reclines on the bed," makes sense; "The politician places on the bed," does not. Now do the same substitutions with the other examples on your own. I expect you to turn it in to me on the following day after you read this post.

Present Participle
I soppose since I including them in the cart below, I should say something about present participles. Basically, they are verbs with "ing" tacked on. (There are also gerunds, which are the love children between verbs and nouns, but that's for another lesson.) "Lie" is a bit odd, I guess maybe because "lieing" looks like a menage a trois of vowels. So instead it's "lying." I suppose you want examples. Fine. "Lying on the bed, the politician kicked off his wingtips." "Laying his campaign organizer on the bed, the politician unbuttoned her blouse." I know where your mind's going; remember, they're just examples, just words on the screen, their verb forms the only thing that matters.

Past Tense
Now for the fun part, the part that causes the confusion in the first place. Why? Because the past tense of "lie" is "lay." Can I get a big "WTF?!" from my readers? It still confuses me, and I suspect may always confuse me. So the other verb--the one whose present tense is "lay"--that verb's past tense is "laid." A little less troubling. So, examples (with names this time): "Jack Bonner lay on the bed." And: "Jack Bonner laid his campaign organizer Anna Colt on the bed." Remember the two ways you can tell the verbs' difference:

1) "Lie/Lay" is intransitive (doesn't take a direct object).
"Lay/Laid" is transitive (does take a direct object).

2) "Lie/Lay" means "to recline."
"Lay/Laid" means "to place."

Past Participle
The past participle isn't used much in English (mostly the present participle is used), but for completeness, here it is. The past participle of "lie/lay" is "laid" and the past participle for "lay/laid" is "laid." Examples: "Having lain on the bed, Jack Bonner kicks off his wingtips." "Having laid his campaign organizer Anna Colt on the bed, Jack Bonner unbuttoned her blouse."


So, confused? Probably. I am. Now that I unpacked the chart above, I leave you with it below. By all means, use it, copy it, distribute it throughout the interwebs. Or not. But whatever the case, good luck! With "lie" and "lay," you're going to need it!

The Toolbox Tribe

When I broke my ankle in the beginning of June, I didn't shed a tear. There was a lot of gritting of teeth and groaning, but I never even got misty-eyed from the intense pain. But when I watch a movie or show with anything resembling sentimentality, I tear up. Emotional pain, it seems, triggers the water faucet, even if it is the contrived Hollywood variety.

The water faucet began to flow when I watched Casablanca (for the first time) at Taos Toolbox a couple weekends ago. For that, I was able to control it, think about something else. That's what I usually do when I'm in a crowd: just don't think about the plot! Only when I'm alone do I usually feel safe to let the tears flow freely.

It was the last night of Taos Toolbox, we'd all be parting in the morning. And there I was, in my wheelchair, getting misty-eyed. In the two weeks that our world lines came together, we shared more than a passion for writing and a yearning to further our craft, more than an isolated classroom where we worked our asses off. We became a tribe, a clan, a family who have not strings of DNA in common, but a gestalt to become better writers. Some of our world lines will merge in the future; some, frankly, their world lines will go in a different direction. Whatever the case, the experience has changed us, as any experience does. In each of us, there is a little bit of all the others. The DNA of The Taos Toolbox Tribe. I thank everyone who participated, has participated, and will participate. I am a proud member of The Tribe.

Taos Toolbox--Week 2

It's the second week in the Taos Ski Valley and my life has turned to one of eating, sleeping, going to class, wracking my brain for story ideas, and critiquing, and critiquing, and critiquing... Did I mention I critique a lot? This is a good thing. Walter and Nancy have definitely kept me busy. And my fellow toolboxers have kept the bar high. With so many (apparently) hard workers, I feel somewhat guilty I'm blogging. However, with someone strumming on his ukulele and singing as I write this, I don't feel too guilty. I suspect others have had and are having break-time adventures. I suppose I could ask them what they do on the their down time. But I am shy. And it's funner (more fun?) to invent something. Consider: Taos Toolbox: A Seedy and Exotic Writing Adventure.

It's not all work and no play, however. I went to Taos Pueblo yesterday, which seemed a lot like Taos, except the Native Americans were the proprietors of the tourist shops. I watched Casablanca for the first time and Walter stopped it at appropriate times for analysis. I also watched Memento, a favorite of mine, made back when Chris Nolan was not making blockbusters. Then I hit the rye whiskey a little hard one night. Ah, alcohol at altitude... Maybe one of these remaining days I will have a seedy and exotic writing adventure. What happens at Taos Toolbox...

I'm having tons of fun and learning so much. Who knows? Maybe my next sale will be a New York Times Bestseller. With the way print media is going (Borders Books declared it was going under today), I'll be more likely to get on the Kindle Bestseller List. And Paris the Ankle Fracture has become more an annoyance rather than a pain.

Till the next blog post...

Taos Toolbox--Day 3

So. I'm at Taos Toolbox, the master class for writer's run by authors Walter Jon Williams and Nancy Kress. Originally I'd thought about blogging about this every day, but the wifi connection is fairly sketchy. Plus, with three manuscripts to critique per day, a new piece of fiction to write before next week, and whatever other assignments Walter or Nancy decide to throw my way, blogging has moved to the back-burner. Not that I'm complaining; I need to get a lot more disciplined in my writing habits anyway. Hopefully this workshop will help.

Anyway, to tell a little about the workshop: Walter and Nancy are very friendly and gracious, especially since I have a broken ankle. Luckily, because I arrived fairly early, I had a choice of living arrangements and I think I chose the best one to accomodate Paris (the name I gave my broken ankle). As far a Walter and Nancy's writing styles, they often approach their craft very differently. It's good to get a different perspective from each. As far as the other students, they range from professionally published authors and editors to people whose fiction could use a little more work. On a good day I consider myself somewhere in the middle. On a bad day...well, let's just say that writers don't always have the best self esteem. As far as the Taos Ski Valley itself, it is beautiful. And though the rest of New Mexico may be in a drought, it's rained here every day I'd been here.

I'm glad I was able to make it; I just wish it was sans Paris. And everyone has been helpful. Perhaps I'll blog again during Taos, but that depends on the workload and the wifi.

Osama bin Laden

Imagine a schoolyard fight. Two kids going at it. Perhaps it is a bully and the one being bullied. But for the purposes of this post, that doesn't matter. Now imagine that the two kids who have a grudge against each other, imagine that they don't actually do the fighting. Their representatives, their followers, their lackeys--whatever you want to call them--they're the ones in the thick of it, taking the shots and the injuries. Maybe that sounds odd that the ones who hold a grudge aren't the ones fighting. But isn't that what a violent gang is--with leaders and followers? Or a mob? Or a country?

So often wars are started by politicians and leaders but fought by the citizens or the followers. Those risking their lives and dying often fight only because their leader said so. And because the followers share their leader's ideology, they blindly carry out the orders. These soldiers never are tried for murder, are never a defendant in a murder trial.

On May 2, 2011 a group of Navy Seals killed the leader of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, by orders from the President and his security team. While many think this is a good move, there are some who think that bin Laden deserved a trial or some sort of due process. Why? When a U.S. soldier shoots an Iraqi or Afghani, does anyone ask about trials then? Shouldn't that Iraqi plead for his life in a court before our soldier puts a bullet in his brain? Sure that Iraqi may be a rebel or--even worse--an innocent, but why is Osama bin Laden more deserving a trial? He isn't. In fact, the opposite is true. Osama was the leader, the mastermind, behind 9/11. He was the one with the grudge against us. When we killed him we killed the schoolyard bully, not the bully's proxies. And because he was the bully, it was a more "ethical" kill than killing Osama's lackeys.

Yes, in an ideal world Osama bin Laden would have had a trial. But in an ideal world we wouldn't be at war with three nations. Because killing one and killing a million is still killing.

Procrastination

So...I've been meaning to post something here for some time, get a productive blog going again. But what to post? What about that demon that's been haunting me lately: Procrastination. If he had a form, he'd be a fat, lazy, slovenly man with belly-button lint caking his navel and clothes that haven't been washed in at least a week. I once wrote a meta prose poem about him:

Procrastination melts your time into a river of laziness and lassitude. It’s a sleep without dreams or memory. One minute you’re here, the next, hours later, you’re still…here. You can trace time, tell it, “Yes, I was doing something.” Time will shake its head and say, “Nothing meaningful.” “Nothing meaningful,” you echo, raising your metaphorical fists into the metaphorical air, screaming, “Damn you, Procrastination.” Then you calm, briefly, to reflect, to stop feeling bad for yourself. And you realize, and by you I mean me, you realize in these late hours, “I wrote this poem because of Procrastination.” And so you must bow, bow deeply to all the gods of despair.

I guess he does have some uses. He sort of prompted me to write this blog entry in the first place. And he does make you do interesting things. Earlier today I wrote up a grammar and vocabulary for a language instead of working on the novel I really should be working on. Still, I prefer the attractive woman feeding me ideas (how I picture my Muse) to the fat man slowing me down. Of course, maybe She's not the type of Muse I need:

Science is Awesome!

Just a quick "wow" from last night's Daily Show:

Neil deGrasse Tyson: "When you are on the frontier of knowledge between what is known and unknown, reaching out into that abyss, sometimes you do actually have to make stuff up that might be true so that you can organize a research plan to find out whether or not it is."

Jon Stewart: "That's fascinating. A false bridge that will allow you just a couple of footholds to possibly find the truth."

Neil de Grasse Tyson: "This is the creativity of discovery that not everyone has, but those who do, all of society follows them into those directions."

Now for my own mini-rant: Religion has not, cannot, nor will it ever produce anything meaningful, the way science can. It doesn't have the capacity, because god(s) don't exist. Yes, at one point gods might've been a good hypothesis (stuff made up that might be true), but so far the research plan has come up with nothing.

The K-Word

"I'm going to kill you." Have you ever uttered that phrase? Someone was doing something that you didn't like, something that might've had unpleasant consequences to yourself, and you blurted out, "I'm going to kill you." Most likely, you didn't mean it. You quickly made up with whomever perpetrated the minor offense and the phrase was forgotten. But in certain circumstances, you watch your language. We all know the words we shouldn't use in polite society, though many of us now do so anyway these days. Even when referencing them as words and not expletives we are wary to enunciate them. The f-word. The c-word. The n-word. To some religious, there might be the G-word. Or the J-word. Don't take that dude's name in vain. But where is the k-word?

There are and will continue to be people speaking out against the tragedy in Tucson. And rightly so. They are and will say that the discourse in our society is vitriolic, that we need to tone it down, because the shooter might've been impressed by such rhetoric. Maybe he was. After every tragedy, the media certainly likes that narrative. And while some of that may be true, it goes much deeper than that.

We live in a society of casual violence. In network TV, cop dramas depict violence on a weekly basis. PG-13 movies have some violence, as long as it doesn't cross a given arbitrary line into R-rated territory. But God (oops, I just broke a commandment, sorry) forbid if someone drops the f-bomb.

And then there's...(I take a deep breath as I approach the third rail) War. Yes, War: we make heroes out of people who kill other people for a living because some politician or group told them the enemy are "the bad guys." We demonize "the bad guys" like they are some oppressive evil from hell. For some of our warriors, that may work. But for others, they get shell-shocked into PTSD. Yes, that Iraqi or Afghani our soldier just killed was human; he or she was loved.

So yes, our public discourse should be more civil. Right-Wing Tea-Partiers and Left-Wing Radicals--and the media personalities who support them--should not wish violence toward the other side. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. We should start by never using the k-word and end by being kind to ALL our fellow human beings.