Point Made

Hang On, Snoopy, Hang On  Staying In touch In a recent phone conversation with my son, he gently, firmly, lovingly, and rightfully admonished me for not keeping in touch with him and his sons. I'm aware of this oversight, and it's not for lack of wanting to keep up with them. On the contrary, I love them and their cousins unconditionally.  Anything I say about my deficiencies will sound like a yes-but-excuse, so I will refrain from trying to justify my shortcomings and just promise all of them to be better. If the phone is ringing or your message alarm is sounding, it's probably me. Watching GOT (The making of Cersei, the biggest bitch of all time.) Honesty, she makes Lisbeth Salander look like a girl scout. Good fortune has forced me to watch the last few episodes of The Game Of Thrones. It is difficult to see the end of the series I truly love.   The series shows Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, This Is Us,  and Younger come to mind.  The reason I'm finishing...

 I'm not a weatherperson, one of the few professions that allows you to be wrong often and not lose your job. But I've noticed something I think is interesting. We are experiencing one of the milder, more comfortable summers I remember. Who am I referring to when I say we? I thinking of Southeastern Wisconsin with Milwaukee as my center of reference. Not only have we had fewer days of extreme heat, but we don't have any extended periods of high heat indexes (90's) and high humidity (65+ dew points). Often those uncomfortable days are sandwiched in between very pleasant ones. We have periodic rain storms that might challenge our storm sewer capacity and cause high water levels in the streams and rivers. If there is a problem with rain, it tends to fall on weekends. Surprise!  I reached a publishing milestone this week. Last year I published my novel, 26 Women . My lack of promotion tempers my hope of hitting the NYT bestseller list or even long listing in one of the pre...

  The inspiration for my current painting. This is my great-granddaughter, Jonny Bird Sieve. I love the innocence and wonder this image presents. A Shallow Dive Into The Twelve-Step -Step Program I often joke about starting a twelve-step program for silly things. For example, during the Annual All Saints Used Book Sale to battle hunger, as we sorted and priced the donated books, I would joke with fellow volunteers that I would start a twelve-step program for people who continuously bought books they would never read. The twelve steps is a reference to the Alcoholics Anonymous program or AA. Many people might be tentative in their levity because they know I'm an alcoholic. Truth be known, I did not avail myself of AA in my battle against the bottle. However, I don't deny AA's worth and I advise people to try it f they feel it will help them in their effort.  If you look at the program and how it works, it can and is used as a template to deal with any addiction. The label ad...

Image in Pastels by Carol Rhode Curley Surprisingly, I can't come up with a name for this young lady. When writing my stories, I often name characters on the fly. Often they stick, such as Richard Harrison and Denise Bogard. Sometimes, as the character develops, the name doesn't fit, and I change it as when Antonette Gerber became Cynthia Gallow. I've become drawn to French names. So, with help from friendly Francophiles, I named one alluring woman Valarie Russo. In a new piece, my protagonist is Claudette Rose Dubois. I avoid Bill, Mary, Jane and other stereotypical first names and common last names like Smith, Miller, Johnson and Jordan. However,  I have used two of my ex-wives' names. Eventually, they will all fit in somewhere. None of the characters I name them after are evil or even unlikeable.  Often I apply nicknames that spring from the lips of a younger sibling's inability to pronounce the character's real name. For example, my female character in Lose ...

 First a highly thought-proving look at music. It had to be a cat. Thought Provoking (Continued) My editor, close friend, and confidant Pamela suggested that I consider publishing a book containing my blog entries and my art. This suggestion did not immediately resonate with the normal white male tendency to inflate the ego and float on the vision of success. After all, I have self-published a novel. I know how ego-deflating that can be. It's tempting for a couple of reasons.  Regular readers know that I have an inordinately large family, given my three marriages. I have a small squadron of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. While some of them may have saved some of my blog entries and jpegs of my artwork, I'd like to think a collection of my work would be a better legacy. And so I ponder. First, I recognize that the collection has little or no commercial value. It will not be necessary to mount a marketing campaign. There is no consideration of the content marke...