Oops! I'm Late for My Nineteenth Vestibular Migraine Anniversary! But There's Something to Celebrate This Year!

Deliciously Ella has a nice Turmeric Latte to sip while I spin, and I'll be wearing
my shades inside because sunlight makes my eyes burn like a vampire.

There is a BOOK. We have a BOOK for Vestibular Migraine. I was going through a spate of them recently. Sitting on the comfy grandma chair in my office, spinning and bobbing, I started googling "Vestibular Migraine Books". When I first started to get these migraines (and I didn't even know they were migraines), the only diagnosis I could get after a year or so of running to doctors, was that, "It must be a migraine variant.".

That was nineteen years ago and they're an official type of migraine now. Why that makes a difference is hard to explain. Maybe we just like to know the name of our enemy. He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named is so much worse. You do not want to show up in the Emergency Room with an invisible ailment. Back in the Olden Days of 2001 I recall having a raging migraine with aura. My vision was totally blocked with various prisms and flashing, while a nurse in the E.R. tried to give me an eye exam... 

 "Can't you see the TOP LINE?"

"I can't even see YOU!"

From April of 2001 until September 18th of 2001 I had five to six cluster migraines every single day. If it wasn't hell, it was one of the lesser waiting rooms. (Mind you my neurologist appointment wasn't until that October.) An emergency room doctor (after several visits) gave me a prescription for Propranolol. It's a beta blocker with good success as a migraine prophylactic. Unfortunately it made my blood pressure go berserk. (It's a rare side effect.) I wound up self-referring myself to the Cleveland Clinic to see a specialist for a condition called pheochromocytoma. I'd been misdiagnosed as having that condition in my small town. My mad scientist husband thought it was awfully suspicious that I didn't have those symptoms until I started taking those meds.

He was right and he's been insufferable ever since.

No, I didn't have pheochromocytoma. I did memorize how to spell it after that mess. So there's that. What I do have is a body that can't deal with meds very well. Or grains. Or broccoli. When this all started, one emergency room doctor called me a hot house flower. That's not a medical compliment. I suppose it means I'm a pain in the rear for someone who tries to keep me flourishing. Well, I might have a hot house flower body, but I have a tough and stubborn disposition and in nineteen years no matter what amount of Fun House spinning my migraines have thrown at me, I've never returned to the Emergency Room. 

Basically I gave up on doctors. Maybe that was bad, but I was getting nowhere and I think my out of pocket medical expenses in 2001 were somewhere around $20K. So, I changed the way I ate to mostly vegan and it helped. The spinning never went away completely, but it got better and I learned to live with it. Still, after all of these years, I can't tell you how thrilled I as to come across Shin C. Beh, M.D.'s book Victory Over Vestibular Migraine, The Action Plan for Healing & Getting Your Life Back.

You can tell by my copy of the book (with all the Post-It notes sticking out and the cover mangled) that I've gone over it many times already. I wrote in it. I teared up repeatedly as I read it because nineteen years of Vestibular Migraine is a very lonely road. 

As I read this I nodded my way through it YES! YES! YES! All the things the author said, I could relate to. Many of the triggers and organic solutions I'd figured out for myself. I may be a slow learner, but, hell, nineteen years is a long time. What I loved is how comprehensive this book is. It covers everything. I didn't really understand what a migraine even is or what happens in your brain during an attack. I didn't realize it could be more than one problem—that realization may send me back to a doctor after all these years. But I swear to god if all they do is have me touch my thumb to each finger and tap my nose, it will get UGLY.

Sorry, but you do cluster migraines every day for months while waiting for the blessed neurologist and get five minutes with that and only that, and you'll understand the frustration.

Many of the triggers I'd figured out myself too, including diet. Mind you that didn't stop me from gradually dropping my mostly vegan diet and gaining a bunch of weight back, and kicking the whole cycle into high gear again. That's because I PRIDE MYSELF ON DOING ALL THINGS THE HARD WAY. Also, stress eating. Also, cake.

No worries, I'm back on the wagon again.

If you have these migraines, you have my sympathy friend, and you have to get a copy of this book. It covers everything you need to know AND it's like an empathetic hug while you circle one of hell's waiting rooms. 

Ain't nothing pretty about a
Vestibular Migraine.

Links to my other Vestibular Migraine Blogs:

Vestibular Migraine is the Devil

It's my Vertigo Anniversary

Eighteen Years of Vestibular Migraine—Never Ask Why I Cuss

 

Bless me father for I have sinned—life in the time of COVID-19

 

Right now I'm supposed to be in actual Paris for a writer thing,
but reality. It's biting all of us.

This morning I got on the British Museum website to look for a book about cartouches (hieroglyphs of names of Egyptian kings). It was out of print, so I spent nearly £200 on things like a Rosetta Stone wristwatch and a pencil sharpener that looks like a little trebuchet. 

Let's pretend those things are going to be Christmas gifts.

Are they still Christmas gifts if you give them to yourself?

Hubby promised to clean the sink and forgot. When I pointed it out he said he'd do it tomorrow, so I muttered, "You'd better or I'll throat punch you." Let's face it that's not okay. Yes, I apologized, but wrapped up my apology with, "But I meant it."

He's a good man. He puts up with my crap. That's really important in a spouse. It's really important to know your spouse would never actually throat punch you, no matter how much she wants to. Next week is our anniversary. I'm planning to make him those tiny gluten-free cupcakes Wegmans makes and pass them off as effort. I also think I'll gift him a tiny trebuchet pencil sharpener. I'll keep it in my office.

Halloween is next week and what with the virus no one can trick or treat. I decided to offset this rift in the force by making up little bags of candy (and letting them sit for a week to neutralize cooties) and giving them to family/friends/the people who bring my Amazon packages. As I assembled them, I ate enough of those tiny Snickers bars to make an entire Snickers bar. They're gluten-free (unlike most candy) so they had it coming. 

It's the end of the week and we're still having leftovers from the one meal I made this week. I've perfected the fine art of cooking two meals a week. That's not a sin. That's a talent. If one of those "cooked" meals is takeout, it's genius.

Good gravy I should write a cookbook about that.

Contrariness is in the air like leaves falling off trees. I think it's an excellent time for low expectations and not expecting too much from yourself, or others. Bet my expectations are lower than yours. 

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh—a book review

 

I gave the three-year-old a bowl of marshmallows so I could read this.

Don't tell.

You're probably familiar with Allie Brosh's work from her Hyperbole and a Half memes. She's a writer and comic artist with a real gift for capturing the awkwardness of humanity. If you want to see how well your sense of humor jibes with Brosh's, read this free excerpt from her book about her neighbor Richard. 

That's how I discovered her and I immediately ordered the book, in hardcover. She really captures the heart and soul of (and awkwardness) of life. I loved her stories of herself as a three-year-old stalker. Brosh is one of those people who hasn't glossed over her childhood, but remembers it well. 

Her stories reminded me of the less idyllic but memorable parts of growing up and how children behave. The neighbor girl who's so insistent on showing grown Allie her purple bedroom is brilliantly awkward and perfect. If you've ever tried to politely bypass an insistent child, you'll understand. The combination of her writing and her drawings convey both story and emotion. It made me wish I could add such genius illustrations to my own work! 

Think this would help with my Viking novel?

This is a quick read, I finished it in a day. I laughed out loud many times, though there are achingly sad stories woven in here too—divorce, depression, and death. It's a realistic take on the absurdity of life, and easy to relate to. As soon as I finished Solutions and Other Problems, I immediately got online and ordered her other book, Hyperbole and a Half.

It's difficult to rate a book that's both art and story, but I'd say five stars and I recommend you don't miss this one. It's a wonderful bit of escapism during COVID, and a reminder about priorities too. It's both hysterically funny and sobering. A perfect blend, wouldn't you say?

Another one of those times you thought you had COVID—life in the time of coronavirus

 

You know how it goes. You're masked up. There are four tiny bottles of Bath & Body Works hand sanitizer in your purse. You're fine. You don't have a fever. Yet you cough, like an inconsiderate festering petri-dish of end time germs, you cough in PUBLIC. Heads swivel like that alien invasion movie where everyone has been taken over by aliens except one person (who just coughed). They all point at the violator and make that high-pitch alien whine sound. GET HER.

Moral of the story: don't cough in public. I don't care if you have to swallow your tongue to avoid it.

It's allergy season here in the shire (it runs April to December). Histamine is the only thing running through my veins (does it run through veins?). I'm now allergic to all life on earth. My sinuses are Death Valley dry. It's a bit worse than normal Sjogren's Syndrome, but honestly, you can get used to about anything. So, I volunteered to watch my favorite little person, Three, though she has a cold. It was totally worth it because we made a cooking show (pretend) out of a bag of gluten-free flour and water. (Yee-Um.) Priorities. Everyone in the family caught Three's cold. She's a total carrier monkey. I wasn't sure if I had it for sure but it looked bad because a couple days after she left, I sneezed once. It came out like a gust of wind in Egypt. 

Without getting into too many gory details about sinuses—I was having difficulties. Despite the pandemic, I decided I would go see my doctor for my annual physical. I wanted to tell her about my desiccated dryness. Hubby kept insisting I wiggled my nose non-stop, like Bilbo in The Hobbit. (Can't help it, but I denied it.) The best thing about mask-wearing is that no one else can see that so he has no proof.

Then I remembered that last year when I complained about dryness the doctor said buy a vaporizer. Oh, yeah. Fact is I bought two of them. Apparently you have to turn them on. You also have to put water in them. (Ain't got time for that sh—.)

Deciding that before I showed up for my physical having not done what she told me to do LAST YEAR, I turned on both vaporizers and put them at face-level with water in them and everything, and I went to sleep.

In the morning I woke up with a fever and a hacking WET cough. (Not a COVID dry one, but a fever and a cough makes you suspect!) I spent the day hacking and lying on the comfy recliner in my office and befouling tissues, figuring I'd rehydrated some kind of a mummy curse or something. 

Someone said the word COVID test to me. First I said, it's a WET COUGH and I don't have COVID! Then I thought, but WHAT IF...and my writer brain ran with it. Like most of my first drafts, it was awful. (So many plot holes, like where did I catch said virus?) Even then I may have been able to ignore that niggling doubt, but I'm to watch Three again in a couple of days and IF I have IT, or even maybe could possibly have IT, they won't let me. What with her magical carrier monkey abilities, she could infect the entire planet in the time it takes to make one pretend cooking show. Plus, I have leftover water balloons, powdered chalk, neon sidewalk chalk AND grand plans.

Watching Three is like hitting the lotto.

Anyway, the county I live in was doing free drive-by tests. 

Only, the drive-by testing site was full up for the day. So I coughed myself to sleep, vaporizers blowing at me, a fan swirling, and a hat on because maybe I was hot, maybe I was cold. I couldn't decide so planned for both.

In the middle of the night I woke up because I realized how to fix a problem I was having in the Viking book I'm writing. Also, then I realized I wasn't hot or cold or coughing anymore. I checked my temperature and it was below normal, which is where I live. Below normal.

No COVID. Absolutely nothing. The mummy curse has left the building. All is well. And you were so worried. Again.

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. A Novel by Joyce Carol Oates—a book review

This is the first Joyce Carol Oates book I've ever read. Her quotes often show up in my Women Reading Aloud retreats and classes, and they spoke to me.

“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.”

That quote is the perfect illustration for why I wish that Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. hadn't been my first Joyce Carol Oates book. Eight hundred pages was far too many to spend inside the heads of these characters. 

There's no doubt that Oates is a gifted writer. Her style reminds me of Anthony Doer, though Oates has been at this much longer than he has. A chapter might be only a page, or it might be what feels like countless pages. However she writes (and there were many asides in parentheses, which didn't bother me at all), she knows how to tell a story. What drew me into this story was how incredibly current the topic is.

It begins with a man called Whitey McClaren. He is a man of some rank and distinction in his small town and used to be the mayor. He's driving home from a meeting and sees the police beating a dark skinned man along the side of the highway. Shocked, Whitey stops to help. The police beat and taser Whitey until he winds up in the hospital with a massive stroke. 

The story is told in omniscient form. That means we move freely and deeply through the minds of each character. We go from Whitey's head, to his wife, Jessalyn, and painstakingly through the heads of each of his five children: Thom—an apparent psychopath, Beverly—an incredibly petty and horrid woman, Lorene—a high school principal who is like the meanest paranoid mean girl who ever got to be in charge, Sophia—an odd duck who kills and dissects lab animals for a living, and Virgil—a gentle granola soul and closeted gay who fully expects his brother Thom to kill him at some point. 

What drew me into the story (though I'd begun it and set it aside as not being my cup of tea), was that I kept thinking about the first couple chapters and wondering what happens. That's good writing. Like Jessalyn, Whitey's widow, I've been in a long term marriage and can't fathom what life would be like if I didn't have my mad scientist husband making me nuts at every turn. 

On some level I must have needed to suffer alongside Jessalyn. She's a kind-hearted woman who adored her husband and blindly loves all of her children. Other than her husband and family she has nothing and no life or interests of her own. She exists to serve them. 

WARNING: This is going contain spoilers. It already has because I've told you that Whitey dies. 

No one would have known what happened on that highway, except that when Whitey stopped he saved the life of the man the police were beating. That man is an Indian doctor named Azim Murthy. He contacts Thom, the oldest son, and tells him what happened.

Thom files a lawsuit against the Hammond, New York police department. Whitey has been cremated and there's no evidence other than some photos Thom took with his cell phone, because of the discrepancy in how his father looked in the hospital compared to what the police had said happened. Thom, the apparent psychopath, is removed from real human connection and the time spent in his head is horrible. I spent the entire novel waiting to find out what awful thing happened to Thom and his siblings to turn them into such a dysfunctional lot when they had loving parents and a good home. It came as a shock that nothing happened. They were just that way for no particular reason.

I don't buy that, and I do appreciate all of Oates storytelling skills. A novel that delves so deeply into the human condition and takes me along the thought processes of the entire McClaren clan raised my expectations. I trusted and followed each word but in the end I can only salute Oates' brilliance while not appreciating the story at all.

The children were all detached and mostly cruel. Lorene as the high school principal actively hates everyone. She changes school records to make sure students she thinks laugh at her don't make the colleges they want. Thom goes after the one character in the book I liked, the stray cat that Jessalyn called Mack the Knife. He's a ratty feral nightmare and Thom waits outside for him and beats him to death with a bat—don't worry, he inexplicably doesn't get the cat and later we're told it was a raccoon. After that the cat basically vanishes from the story. Thom also, before discovering that the town is settling his lawsuit, beats one of the cops to death with a bat too. 

That's not normal behavior. I hated the cops that beat Dr. Murthy and Whitey too, but you don't get to commit such premeditated vigilante justice without some damaging character flaw along the way. Thom's was never explained. It comes across as boys will be boys. He apparently gets away with it too. 

After a suicide attempt, Virgil is still alive at the end too. It's open-ended on whether Thom will decide to kill off his little brother as Virgil expects. The story didn't end so much as stop. Jessalyn gets an artsy interesting boyfriend who takes her to Galapagos. I kept getting pushed out of the story at this point, because it didn't seem to want to end. I had to go back and reread the ending because I wasn't certain if Jessalyn was dying as she sailed off into the sunset, with the new man who's bringing purpose to her life, or if there was a profound revelation at that point. I'm still not certain, and if there was a revelation it escaped me. If you want to read it and explain it to me in under eight hundred pages, I'd be happy to listen. 

This Summer I made a Greek Alley in my Own Backyard—newsletter

 

This summer didn't go as planned for anybody. It reminds me of that essay about planning a holiday in Italy and winding up in Holland. Only in our scenario there is some pestilence there too, in the form of a pandemic. Holland isn't flashy like Italy, but it's a nice place. Kind of like being home for months and months isn't a bad thing, and since I couldn't take my writer trip to Greece, I built my own Greek alley at home. Lemons to lemonade, right? My big thrill recently was getting a refund from United. Remember they're the airline that dragged that doctor off a flight? Fly the friendly skies my eye. I've spent many hours on the phone with them. They're not my favorite people, so I felt a bit like Rocky doing his victory laps when I finally wore them down. Hope, patience, and low expectations are my superpowers this summer. Okay, hope and low expectations are. I'm still working on patience (and I'm sick of waiting for it). Let's be real here. I only have low expectations when it comes to housework and paperwork. But I've got hope! I definitely have hope! Yeah, hope is my superpower. Recipe for an at-home Greek alley: Use farm stand plants and the sad remnants of last winter's grocery store herbs. Get ALL the clearance sale lavender from Lowe's, potting soil, and new pots. Voila.  It was fun until I got tired of watering everything. So I found them new homes with better plant parents this month, and picked all the herbs.  What's your answer when someone asks you how're you doing? Are you in the It-Could-Be-Worse column? Couldn't-Be-Worse column? Mr. Brightside one? All of the above within a ten minute time-frame?  ME TOO! That said, I don't think anyone's eye is going to stop twitching until we admit at least to ourselves what we're really feeling. For instance I'm feeling anxiety, frustration, fear, disappointment, discouragement, and contentment all at the same time. Can you tell I've discovered the Dr. Marc Brackett/Brene Brown podcast about Emotional Intelligence? If you're struggling (and who isn't), I wanted to share how much it's helped me to carve out time and space to sit quietly. (Away from the news.) Maybe it'll help you too. There's also the classic Oatmeal comic take on why all the conflicting data is driving us nuts. Matthew Inman has a great way of getting to the root of the problem.   When reality takes my words, another thing that helps me is sketching and making collages in my journal. I also do it during ZOOM meetings. Don't tell. This summer I read through old journals. It's been great for spotting bad habits and reminding myself how wonderful life is.

My phone has 63,192 photos on it. I take pictures of beautiful things. That helps too. As Louis Armstrong said, "What a wonderful world." He never said it's an easy world. My little olive tree. An evening walk. A postcard I sent. A sunset here in the shire. It helps me to document every bit of wonderful.

Playing helps too. Sometimes I find a kid to play with and make art with. It justifies all my water balloons, stickers, chalk, and the kaleidoscope collection.  This summer I've rediscovered the library. It makes me read faster because I have to return those books. I also share my books and am gifted more in return. Life is good. My favorite reads this summer have been the often mentioned book Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates,  Madeleine L'Engle's collection of short stories The Moment of Tenderness, and War with the Newts by Karel Capik. I put my reviews on my blog and cannot recommend them more highly. A couple summers ago I discovered Eugenia Gerontara. I love her uplifting whimsical world. This year I ordered a couple more pieces of her art and sent her so many I LOVE YOUR WORK messages that she invited me to visit her studio in Athens! Believe me I will visit ASAP after COVID. When I can get there. If her work speaks to you, check it out online. She has an ETSY store too. I had my pieces personalized. The Little Red Riding Hood pieces are wonderful. I love Little Red swallowing the Big Bad Wolf. I love him sleeping with Grandmother. That one reminds me of Hubby and me. Don't tell. I'm making myself stop with all the photos. We didn't even get into me feeding gluten-free bread to the chipmunks Hubby caught in his catch and release traps. Apparently hundreds of chipmunks are a problem. They like gluten-free bread and I'm pretty sure they run all the way back to my house when he releases them a few miles from here. Hail to the bird using my hanging flowers to build a nest on my front porch. Hail to the hummingbird who sits in my tiny olive tree. Hail to ZOOM classes, books, and summertime. It's not what I planned, but what's not to love? So, how you doing?  "You're only going to be as good as the stuff you surround yourself with." ~Austin Kleon Writer: Stephanie Karfelt/S.R. Karfelt/Saffi Karfelt Specialty: Seeing the bright side  Aspirations: Backing up all my photos

Midnight Sun by Stephenie Myer—a book review

 

On Goodreads Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer has approaching 30K reviews with an average rating of nearly four stars. That's not so shabby. Do you remember that Meyer began writing this book back when Twilight was popular and the partial draft got stolen and posted online? She stopped writing it and said she wouldn't pick it up again until someday when we'd all forgotten about it. Despite having read the online excerpt, and enjoying it, that was so long ago I'd definitely forgotten about it. 

In fact I had no idea this book was out. Once I did, I tried to get a copy but there were none to be had. (I wanted a hard copy.) A kind reader mailed me one. I took it to a local lake house for my one and only vacation this year, and read it sitting by the lake. It took me all week to finish the whopping 658 pages. 

It wasn't just the size that slowed me down. It's that throughout the entire book I kept drifting into the realization that I'd read this book before. It's the entire first Twilight book from Edward's perspective and I mean it's that entire book scene by scene. Sometimes I'd stop reading to hunt down a young adult and quiz them about the Twilight world. I couldn't figure out why I knew so much about the vampire's perspective in Midnight Sun as I read it. Why were the rare bits of new information that weren't in the original Twilight books still so familiar to me? 

The young adults told me because it's the same book, with the haughty disdain of people who don't want to admit to their teenage obsession. A couple of them told me that the Twilight books are popular with women "my age" and not theirs. Years ago I wrote a review for Twilight, admitting I liked the books. I don't entirely believe that millennials don't plan to read the latest book. Thirty thousand women "my age" didn't leave all those reviews on Goodreads. I know this because many of them don't even know how to leave a review on Goodreads.

One of the reasons I've defended Twilight to my serious reader/writer friends is simple. If a book sells millions of copies and spawns fan clubs and movies, it has succeeded in taking readers into another world and is an undeniable success. Picking on the writing or characters feels like sour grapes to me. If you want a higher brow book, read one or better yet, write one. I read a bit of everything—fiction to non-fiction, literary to Twilight. Sometimes I want to be educated and sometimes I want to escape.

All that said, I wasn't crazy about this book. I plodded through the last couple hundred pages, muttering to myself. I had a copy of Glennon Doyle's book with me too, Untamed.  I didn't want to finish it on vacation though because it makes me yell at my husband. I thought there would be more new information in Midnight Sun, but the greater bulk of the book is Edward's feelings and they're not all that different from Bella's. There was also what seemed like some justification of Edward's actions—you know his stalker behavior. Not to mention some justifying Bella's wimpier moments. I didn't care, but sometimes it made me chuckle because he did stalk her (and I'd bet most stalkers feel their actions are justified), and sometimes we're all wimps and we justify those times to ourselves too.

It didn't matter to me. Though there were also times I enjoyed the mental gymnastics of all the justifying. I write and it's great insight to really dig into your characters. But it didn't forward the story for me. It didn't matter. Sure, I could have stopped reading it, but what if I missed something interesting?

The beginning is fun, though I couldn't tell where the stolen online excerpt info ended and the new book began. It seemed like halfway in. The pace is slow. There is some new information, but it felt like panning for gemstones in all Edward's feelings and they can be a bloody mess. The ending gave the greatest amount of new information, yet even the part where the Cullen's are tracking down James the tracker didn't really tell much that was new. I did enjoy the details of the car race through Phoenix to the ballet studio. I enjoyed how Alice's vision works. I would have liked to know more about Jasper's brilliance. Emmett is a great side character, and Rosalie's cussing out Edward at the top of her mental lungs was probably my favorite detail.

Despite my criticisms, if Stephenie Myer's writes all the books from Edward's perspective, I'd probably read them. It's fun. You can only put so much detail into a book without slowing it down and boring your readers, but doing it like this does enrich a story with it's depth. Yes, I said Twilight and depth in the same sentence. Midnight Sun is a nice enough summer read and I enjoyed some COVID escapism. Kudos to the author on that accomplishment alone. We all need to go somewhere these days. If it's a familiar neighborhood we all used to like, what more could you want? Hopefully you'll read it too and come argue your perspective with me. Especially you millennials. Read what you like, and like what you like, no apologies. That's advice from a woman "my age". 

The Moment of Tenderness by Madeleine L'Engle—a book review

 

The Moment of Tenderness by Madeleine L'Engle is a delightful anthology of short stories she'd written throughout her life. Most readers know L'Engle from A Wrinkle in Time. She brought Science Fiction to the YA world and introduced many of us to tesseracts for the first time. 

L'Engle's grandaughter, Charlotte Jones Voiklis, went through her papers after her death and read through her short stories. This book is a result. It contains eighteen of them. Some were from college complete with grades (A- for Gilberte Must Play Bach). It's a brilliant collection and I enjoyed every story. They inspired me to spend more time writing short stories myself. 

It's difficult to pick which stories I enjoyed most. That Which is Left stunned me with the selfishness of the narrator (that's the same reaction Voiklis had when she read it), but the truth of that story also left me reeling because we have only to look around to see examples of such horrible selfishness. The Foreign Agent, Poor Little Saturday, A Sign for a Sparrow, and the story that the book is named for The Moment of Tenderness, are all works that leave no doubt about the author's incredible talent. Much as I want to say more about them, I won't because I don't want to spoil the stories for you.

Let me just say this is a collection of many types of stories, spooky, non-fiction, small town life, big town life, and fantasy. All of them are good and it's short, quick, escapism just when you need it. 

If you haven't read L'Engle, don't let the YA (Young Adult) label on her most popular books fool you. All of her books are for anyone who enjoys good story. They're fast, concise, and brilliant. As popular as A Wrinkle in Time is, and as much as I loved Charles Wallace and Meg, I think my favorite book was Many Waters (it's about the Murray Twins with a touch of Noah's Ark thrown in), at least it was until The Moment of Tenderness. Now I only wish for more of her writing. I hope there will be another collection.

War with the Newts by Karel Čapek—a book review and recommendation

This book by Karel  Čapek (pronounced Chap-ick) came highly recommended by a Czech friend. In fact she sent me a copy with the best English translation she could find. Imagine my surprise to see a blurb on the back cover from none other than Kurt Vonnegut. 

"God bless Catbird Press for calling the attention of Americans to a great writer of the past who speaks to the present in a voice brilliant, clear, honorable, blackly funny, and prophetic." ~ Kurt Vonnegut

War with the Newts is about a Sea Captain who finds salamander-like beings who help him harvest pearls. I love the way it's written. It's fast-paced with the help of newspaper clippings that one of the characters collects about the newts. 

It stunned me to realize how absolutely relevant this book is in today's world. I didn't get very far in before the Sea Captain was deep into racial slurs for pretty much the entire planet. He hits up a lawyer he remembers from the old neighborhood as a "pimply Jewish kid". Captain J. Van Toch had bullied Bondy in school and now he asks for his help with his newt enterprise. They're old men at this point and both remember the old days fondly, which both made me roll my eyes and chuckle a little. 

Blacky funny it is, but also horribly prophetic in turn. Mankind enslaves the newts. They're used in medical experiments, treated with no regard other than economic needs and help in underwater engineering endeavors (something they're profoundly brilliant at). This book made me see on yet another level how absolutely inhumane and disgusting slavery was.

My first impression of the book was knee-jerk judgement for the racist language and the stereotyping comments about Czechs, English, Americans, and pretty much every nationality. That quickly gave way to the realization that this author knew exactly how to get his point across. What blew my mind was that this book was published in 1936, after World War I, but before World War II, yet it foreshadowed the Second World War at every turn. Another thing that shocked me was that the stereotyping in this book is precisely the same kind still espoused about countries and peoples now.

It even had people in the southern half of the United States trying to give the newts religion and occasionally lynching them. What I think you get from this book is how little the world has changed in nearly a hundred years, how selfishly cruel humanity can be, and how exceedingly short-sighted and stupid we can be when we look at everything first from an economic standpoint. 

If I could have one wish after reading this, it would be that everyone in the country would read this book. Karel  Čapek was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. He introduced the word Robot into our language. He and his brother, Josef, were famous for their work. When the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) Karel was considered Public Enemy Number Two. They weren't aware he'd already died of pneumonia, but his brother, Josef, died in a concentration camp. They weren't Jewish, but were well-known to be anti-fascist. 

War of the Newts is a short book and a brilliant read. I'm already hunting up more of his work. It's absolutely that good. I cannot possibly recommend a book more. No amount of stars can do it justice. Read it. You will be blown away. 

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates——a book review and recommendation

Between the World and Me is written by a black man, Ta-Nehisi Coates, for his adolescent son. It's a National Book Award Winner and a #1 New York Times Bestseller. The book is Coates' experience and advice to his adolescent son on what it's like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live with it. This book is visceral and deep, painfully beautiful, and will climb inside you. 

To say it's five stars doesn't go far enough. It's brilliant. It's a short book of a mere 152 pages yet you need to pause and catch your breath throughout it. There are no chapters. It begins with:

    Son,

From there the pages are blocks of words with few paragraphs and no white space. White space is a writer term for what's considered "breathing space" within a book. This book is only broken up by a rare photograph or a quote. It struck me as I dove into Between the World and Me that there was no escape from Coates' words. There was no space to rest and no room to breathe. The entire time I read, George Floyd and "I can't breathe" weighed on my soul. 

Coates is a brilliant writer and there are quotes that I found particularly profound, painful, and perfect. In discussing his friend, Prince Jones, who was killed by police, this has been burned into me:

"Prince Jones was the superlative of all my fears. And if he, good Christian, scion of the striving class, patron saint of the twice as good, could be forever bound, who then could not? And the plunder was not just of Prince alone. Think of all the love poured into him. Think of the tuitions for Montessori and music lessons. Think of the gasoline expended, the treads worn carting him to football games, basketball tournaments, and Little League. Think of the time spent regulating sleepovers. Think of the surprise birthday parties, the daycare, and the reference checks on babysitters...Think of checks written for family photos. Think of credit cards charged for vacations. Think of soccer balls, science kits, chemistry sets, racetracks, and model trains. Think of all the embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams, all the shared knowledge and capacity of a black family injected into that vessel of flesh and bone..."

It's the first thing I've ever read that seemed to come close to what I think of as the fathomless loss of losing a child. 

Another story that struck me with particular severity was this one:

"One afternoon your mother and I took you to visit a preschool. Our host took us down to a large gym filled with a bubbling ethnic stew of New York children. The children were running, jumping, and tumbling. You took one look at them, tore away from us, and ran right into the scrum. You have never been afraid of people, of rejection, and I have always admired you for this and always been afraid for you because of this. I watched you leap and laugh with these children you barely knew, and the wall rose in me and I felt I should grab you by the arm, pull you back and say, "We don't know these folks! Be cool!" I did not do this. I was growing, and if I could not name my anguish precisely I still knew that there was nothing noble in it, that a four-year-old child be watchful, prudent, and shrewd, that I curtail your happiness, that you submit to a loss of time. And now when I measure this fear against the boldness that the masters of the galaxy imparted to their own children, I am ashamed."

Coates' feeling that his son would be rejected is familiar and possibly relatable for most parents. What drop-kicked me was the last line about measuring that fear against the boldness that the masters of the galaxy impart to their own children. What hit me was that I am one of those masters of the galaxy. I imparted boldness into my children, or tried. What hit me was what an immense privilege that is. What hit me was the realization that that could sometimes be a dangerous thing. What hit me was the brutal sadness of that. 

This entire book will hit you. Let it. I could not recommend a book more. 

P.S. Yes, I Quit Social Media and Forgot to Tell You

Why?

It's been about five months now so this is old news. I quit social media before COVID-19 first locked us down in the USA. Can you remember back then? 

Leaving Facebook/Twitter/Instagram had been on my mind for about two years. I'd delete the apps from my phone, and promptly put them back on. I liked seeing what everyone was doing and its an excellent diversion from things I should be doing—like really writing. It's extra tough to stay focused on work when you always work at home. You all probably know this since so many more people now have experience with working at home. 

There was an inciting incident. Someone stole photos of a preschooler in my family and used them online. It was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I thought who knows how many other seemingly innocent interactions happen online everyday that someone takes advantage of? Plenty, I'm sure. 

How?

As a writer I've been told countless times that I have to have an online presence. My online presence helped me promote my first published book back in 2013 up to the more recent  memoir on Alzheimer's. It helped me interact with other writers. Many good things have come into my life online. As far as an online presence helping to sell books, I kept track of my sales and my online social media posts about my books for nearly a year and found absolutely no correlation. So I deleted Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all my YouTube videos despite losing my blue checks. I've kept my monthly newsletter,  this blog, and my website. 

After I left social media behind, COVID hit and I worried about people. I did some online stalking. I wish I could say I spent less time on my phone. Total hours on my phone dropped some. It dropped even more when I deleted my YouTube app and stopped entertaining myself with those via my phone.

What? 

What I can say is that by being off social media I've gotten more productive. I've taken online classes, webinars, and attended countless ZOOM meetings. I've written an entire book since then. It's in its third draft and will head for story edits soon. Every day I walk for miles. Most days I talk to real people, social distancing but still. Not to mention: writing letters, planting herbs, yoga, language and diction lessons, and I make art. 

Recently a friend asked if I miss Facebook and when am I coming back? I miss people I'd gotten to know online but I definitely don't miss Facebook—not even a little. I've never been a good fit on Twitter. I'm entirely too happy and it reminded me of mobs with pitchforks long before we started talking about Cancel Culture. Instagram, dang, I do miss Instagram. What's not to love about Instagram? Do I feel more in control of my life? Hah, I don't think anyone can say that in these times. I'm content and productive. It feels good. 

Time Travel and Screenplays—Life in the Days of COVID-19

The Best Time Travel Movie

The Lake House is on Netflix. It's the one with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. I like to rewatch time travel movies. Trying to keep the story straight is like doing a Sudoku puzzle. It shouldn't be that hard, but neither should daylight savings time.

Usually we're only talking about two timelines. In The Lake House I have trouble following. Wait, she's from the future. Follow. Kate's from the future. *ten minutes later* Hold up! If Kate is from the future by two years and Alex is from two years ago and they share the same dog how does that work? And why are Kate's doctor co-worker friend with the Dutch accent, and her mother with the Israeli accent so easy for me to mix up? The first time I saw it I thought it was the same person and I was so confused.

The thing about time travel movies is some focus on the how and some like The Lake House go for a cause and effect situation. This happened. Is it the mailbox or the magic dog? Don't ask questions. Focus. The doctor friend has great hair, the mom has great lines. Pay attention. After The Lake House I had to watch About Time for the umpteenth time. The time travel isn't fancy. It's dark closet, close eyes, clench fists and voila. That movie is about what you DO with the ability, not HOW it works, or even whatever The Lake House is about. Plant more trees?

My favorite time travel movie is the Terminator. All that action totally wins time travel movies. T2 and Arnold's whole, "Come with me if you want to live," in the psychiatric hospital with Sarah Connor and young John Connor, is stellar. I never have trouble following those time changes and updates but throw in the dog paw prints in The Lake House and I'm all, okay so her dog from the future goes to the past and walks through the paint. No, her dog from the past goes to the future and his paw prints match the old paint ones? 

Is the mailbox a wormhole?

It must be. They never get any mail other than from each other and people still sent mail in 2004 and 2006. I know. I was there. I pay more attention to movie screenplays now that I've been writing them. Screenplays are mostly action and dialogue. They're fun to write but you have to plan them carefully. By nature I'm a pantser. A story idea hits me and I open a new document and start writing. It unfolds in some ways for me as if I'm reading it. I love first drafting a novel.

A few drafts in I want to set fire to it but I'm stubborn enough to keep at it and change things that aren't working. Many writers write a plot outline first. I've done that. The problem is I don't follow them. I like to be surprised and there's a school of thought that if the writer knows what's going to happen as she writes that the reader will know too.

Let's not get into that argument. I figure write the way it works for you. It's your baby.

Screenplays are different 

Screenplays are much shorter than a book. Pretty much every action and word is forwarding the story in some way. Books are supposed to be like that mostly. The difference being they're fluffier. There's juxtaposition. Thoughts. Philosophies. Description. You can have some of those things in a screenplay but they must be lean and purposeful right out of the gate and there isn't enough ROOM to show everything the book says.

I don't get the same meeting of the minds in a movie like I do in a book. There's a voice in a book that's absent in a movie. An author cozies up with you. When it's done right you don't even notice the voice in your ear. That meeting of minds is absent in a movie. It's possible I am missing it. I do get stuck contemplating the dog, the mailbox, and occasionally mixing up actors. I still like The Lake House. I'll bet that screenplay was written by a pantser. I see vast creativity weaving through it that an outline would abhor.

We're talking films here not books

If we were to talk favorite time travel books, I'd lean toward Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. NOT the movie. The book. There's a huge difference. The only thing they didn't change was the title. The book is gritty and punk rock. The movie is practically Hallmark. I say that but I've watched it and enjoyed it several times. It's simply not in the same league or category as the book.

I get why books change when they're made into movies now that I'm writing screenplays. They're being translated and things are lost in translation. Readers go to movies and whine about what is different and missing in the book to screen adaptation. I see why that's inevitable. You're showing showing showing in a movie. In a book you are transmitting feelings with far more words and abstract thoughts than you can use in a movie. Inner monologue is completely gone.

In a movie or television show someone is putting out vast amounts of money that has to be recouped on. Financiers expect a return on their investment. There are more cooks in the kitchen tasked with making that happen. As I see it movies are made for market. Books are secrets, whispers, and revelations. There's older, deeper magic there.