Category Archives: Blog Post SJ Powers

Sex & the ‘Burbs

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By Guest Blogger, Timothy State

About two years ago, I sold out and chose a life with my partner in the suburbs over the urban lifestyle I’ve been used to for most of my adult life.  It was like moving to the country: occasionally we get public safety notices pushed to our cell phones that read something like, “Possible cougar sighting in the neighborhood.”  Of course there was a cougar sighting — and she was drinking a martini!

In this suburban wilderness, my partner and I seem to have amassed a following of tweens, who show up at our house wanting to tell us all about their boy troubles and girl troubles.  One young gentleman in particular has taken a fondness to me, which I am certain is because of his yet-to-be-realized need to be comforted in life by the arms of another boy. Despite being surrounded by images of gays everywhere, he seems to be trapped. Isolated in the way that every teen seems to be isolated by their own demons.

It’s a bizarre world here in the suburbs, where all the ladies on the street are either going through a divorce, are on the verge of a divorce, or have completed a divorce.  Those that are still married seem to be married to closeted gentleman who suppress their need for male companionship.

We’ve trained these ladies to show up at the front door, wine glass in hand, when we flip on the martini light that we place in the front kitchen window. Given advanced warning of the martini illumination, they bling out, like it’s a special occasion — a tupperware party, a Mary Kay bash…. But here, in the home of two gay men, they seem compelled to trash-talk their husbands who continue to not live up to the exacting and unrealistic standards they hold them to, unwilling to admit they themselves don’t live up to their own expectations.

After pointing this out (as a simple courtesy), they stare blankly over their blush-filled wine glasses, like cougars caught in headlights, paralyzed by reality.

On the other side of the room, in the gentleman’s corner, the husband with one testicle who shoots blanks with the testicle he has, finds an occasion at The Gays as the perfect opportunity to lose himself in a bottle of RumChata.  “Boozy Milk,” we call it. Drunk on the intoxicating cream, his hand slips across the inside thigh of another street husband whose raging homophobia has banned “Glee” from his household, driving his twelve-year-old daughter down the street to watch the show with the budding gay boy on the night that he thinks she’s at piano lessons.  The irony of this over-protection is that he seems to have no cause for limiting his daughter’s exposure to the dangers of FOX News, like the father who leaves a loaded pistol on the coffee table. But I digress.

Palm of hand firmly planted on the inside homophobic thigh, the shock of pleasure reverberates through both their bodies, like an electrical charge igniting the Hindenburg, leaving behind a sticky social residue calling for delicate diplomacy.  They retreat as stunned, wounded puppies, grabbing their wives. They share what happened with their wives, quick to place blame the other party, clearly a move of offensive masculinity. Are we imagining this, you ask?

Well, a few days later, walking through the neighborhood, a glass of wine in hand and the dog exploring on his leash, we spot a cougar housewife as she races out of her home to reveal to us that she and her husband returned home to have what could only be described as, “angry sex.”

“Angry sex?” my partner, Michael, and I ask in unison.

“It was so rough,” she says.

“Oh, so you mean rough sex.”

“No.  Angry sex. It was so hard and rough, filled with so much aggression; I’m bruised. I can barely walk, let alone sit down.”

Michael and I look at each other quizzically, wondering why we’re the receptacle of this over-share.

“He was on top of me and then behind me, then on top of me, and then behind me again.”

“Wait? What?”

She then describes how he penetrated her vi-jay-jay, then went to the vi-no-no, back to the vi-jay-jay, before finally shooting up her vi-no-no.  She doesn’t seem to mind it up the vi-no-no and he seems to really enjoy plugging her from behind when she’s on all fours.

The irony is not lost on us that in this moment of hyper-masculinity, her husband went right for the hyper-homosexual; we suck down wine to keep words from escaping our mouths.

“So you used a condom, and washed up in between, right?” I ask.

“No. That’s why I had to go to the doctor,” she says.

“The doctor?”

“I’ve got a vaginal infection. I’m on an antibiotic for ten days.”

Such is the normal neighborhood conversation while walking the dog.

We turn on the martini light about every other week, which means the cougars on the street are generally on a low-level antibiotic. Always.

Better than Cymbalta or Zoloft, I suppose.  At the very least, we know they’re getting some.

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Timothy State, writer, photographer, producer, has been living in the North Shore of Chicagoland since 2011.  In that time, he’s spotted numerous wild cougars.

Three Days of Drinkin’

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BettyBras Musical InspirationCompliments of Guest Blogger The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer

The lyrics to some songs have helped my writing. Not copying the lyrics into a story, but using the poetry and tempo as inspiration that energized my next writing project.

For instance, I love the song from the Sopranos TV series – “Woke up this Morning” by A3. The beginning of the song features a spoken track:

And after three days of drinkin’ with Larry Love

                  I just get an inklin’ to go on home

                  So I’m walkin’ down Coldharbour Lane

                  Head hung low, three or four in the mornin’

                  The sun’s comin’ up and the birds are out singing

                  I let myself into my pad

                  Wind myself up that spiral staircase

                  An’ stretch out nice on the chesterfield

It goes on for a while before the refrain “Woke up this mornin’/Got yourself a gun.”

With the visual in my head of the man shuffling down the street just before sunrise and the moody rhythm in the background, I begin my story of this man getting shot in a drive-by on a warm summer Chicago morning. I can see the car low to the ground, the bass turned up and pulsing to the song’s refrain as it slowly and deliberately approaches. The left rear window slides down. The muzzle of a gun sparks in a bright red ring followed a millisecond later by smoke and sound. The man sitting at the bus stop, head hung low, slides off the bench. The car moves on down the street as the sun peeks over the liquor store sign. The birds stop singing.

Another song that I feel has a compelling story is “Streets of Philadelphia” sung by Bruce Springsteen:

I was bruised and battered and I couldn’t tell

                  What I felt

                  I was unrecognizable to myself

                  I saw my reflection in a window I didn’t know

                  My own face

                  Oh brother are you gonna leave me

                  Wastin’ away

                  On the streets of Philadelphia

Listening to the mournful refrain in the background, I can imagine a homeless man catching a glimpse of himself in a store window and realizing with startling clarity that he is unrecognizable to himself. And he suddenly can’t breathe, his heart filled with overwhelming regret and remorse. He falls to his knees and cries, his head bowed, his hands useless. He collapses onto the broken concrete.

What song or songs speak to you? Have you followed a song’s words and music into a place in your writing you have yet to explore? Did you allow your imagination to do the work, and maybe found a story in your head you didn’t even know was there?

As for me, I might also try three days of drinkin’….

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The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer (aka Pat Childers) lives in Midwestern flyover country with her dogs. There have been reported sightings of her husband. In between innings of the Cubs game she works on her novel.

This Is Your Brain On…

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Welcome to your brain

Welcome to Your Brain

Compliments of Guest Blogger K. Jean King

Texting and driving – dangerous right? It’s a national campaign: to become aware of the dangers of texting while driving and to end it. But here is the thing about that: texting while driving is actually impossible to do.

Let’s start with the brain, because, like everything else, that is where our problem lies. There are two types of functions the brain uses to complete any given task: the cognitive and the associative.

When the brain is engaging in an associative task, it is capable of doing many different things at once, such as listening, talking, singing show tunes, and driving.

Since driving is an associative function, we have gotten very used to being able to do other things at the same time.  We can listen to music, have a conversation, eat a burrito, have a thumb war, all without compromising the effectiveness of our driving. (You know, as far as our brain is concerned).

This is why it is possible to talk on your cell phone and drive at the same time. Talking is associative. Driving is associative. Your brain can do it.

Cognitive tasks, on the other hand, render your brain incapable of performing any other task while you are engaged with them. Cognitive tasks include things like long division, reading and writing.

As soon as we pick up our phone and begin to read a text message, our brains have become involved in a cognitive task; by nature, a cognitive task needs the entire brain to engage in it.

Therefore, if you are texting, your car might still be moving, but your brain has stopped driving it.

If you are reading a text message, you are sitting in the front seat of a two-ton tank, now speeding down the road at fifty miles an hour with no one operating it.

Texting while Driving

Two Ton Tank Driving Itself

If you are writing a text message, be aware – that is all you are now doing.

Additionally, your brain will not start controlling these things again until you stop reading or writing that text message, either because you’ve finished or because your attention has been diverted by the giant elm tree that is now where your front hood should be.

To call any task “texting while…” would be -and is- completely inaccurate. When texting, your brain can do nothing but text. You cannot text while talking. You cannot text while singing. You cannot text while rubbing your stomach and patting your head. And you certainly cannot text while at the same time driving, even though, in our cars, we are under the illusion that we are doing both.

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K. Jean King has been battling a writing affliction since early childhood. She lives outside of Philadelphia with yet another dog and the rest of her family. For humor and insight by K. Jean King, please visit theirrefutableopinion.com.

Ouch!

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Compliments of Guest Blogger, The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer

Slapped into a Nap

I didn’t see it coming. I was just minding my own business getting my paper and pen together, planning the day, and WHAM I was on the couch taking a nap. In retrospect, I should have been better prepared.

It wasn’t that long ago I was assailed by self-doubt. I re-read my current writing project (a mystery called Intimate Murder) and found it wanting. Or rather, the editor on my shoulder said very unkind things about it; he said my writing was pedantic.

Ouch.

Not pithy?

While I slept that night the parts of my brain that conspire against me whipped up a slide show of previous failings, including that time in college when I took a biology test without reading the textbook. At 2:00 a.m. it was presented to me in great detail and deliberation until in desperation I took a sleeping pill.

I remember I shrugged lethargy off when I got up. It’s not as if I hadn’t seen all the slides before many times. I keep them handy in little brain files for those anxious moments when I’m desperate to feel self-assured but need a reminder why I’m not. Like in Star Wars: “This is not the writer you’re looking for. Move along.”

Okay, inertia got the better of me and wrestled my self-esteem into an all-time low of humdrum, which is just barely above apathy.

But I cannot work under these circumstances. It is unprofessional. I demand respect. Where the hell is she? Oh there she is over there with recognition. They’re working on a new slide show with samples of my work and awards I’ve earned. It’s about time. By my age, I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that I’ll never have a bra that fits, but at least I’m sure that I am a writer.

And to the editor on my shoulder, time you moved along.

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Whether being pithy or irreverent, the Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer (aka Pat Childers), is an award-winning writer and occasional blogger.

I Love Jack Reacher

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Reacher Book Cover

Compliments of Guest Blogger, The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer

I love Jack Reacher, a man with no baggage. I’m not speaking metaphorically; he literally carries only a toothbrush and a wallet. When his clothes are dirty, he throws them away and buys new ones. No ex-girlfriends; actually no immediate relatives at all, Jack is the perfect guy. Well, except for the fact that he’s never home.

What makes the enigmatic Jack Reacher and his adventures so readable is the repeated storyline of deceit and malice fomenting in a small town and ensnaring Reacher, an innocent bystander. He then feels compelled to save those in harm’s way and right wrongs until the bad guys are brought to justice. And the end result is Jack Reacher’s justice alone, which is quick and deadly. And then he moves on.

Most people are aware that Jack Reacher is a figment of Lee Child’s imagination (real name Jim Grant). I had the opportunity to meet Lee Child and hear him speak at the 2012 Thrillerfest in New York City. He is witty and humble, and let us in on how Jack Reacher came to be.

It is a well-known story that Grant worked in television production in England until, at age 40, he was found to be “redundant” and jettisoned from the job. He had seven months’ savings and decided to write a book in the thriller genre and get it published before his money ran out.

He began by reviewing the thrillers on the best seller list, his competition. The protagonists had interesting names, so he chose a simple name, Jack. They were tied to cities and jobs, so he gave Jack the entire United States. They were average-sized individuals, so Jack became 6’5”, 250 lbs, with a 50” chest. They had families and responsibilities, so Jack had none. Then he gave Jack a background in the military to fortify him and sent him out to a small town in Georgia.

With the pseudonym of Lee Child, he sent chapters of the partly finished book to a random agent. He heard that it took weeks and even months for an agent to respond. However, the agent responded within days, and requested the balance of the book. Lee Child put the effort into high gear and remarkably at the end of seven months, he had a publishing contract for “The Killing Floor” and a check.

Of course a character in a book can’t exist without a great story and excellent writing to propel him forward, and Lee Child has accomplished that in his series of Jack Reacher books. And in today’s reality, where  justice seems seldom served and tepidly at best, in the fictional world of Jack Reacher, crimes are solved and absolute justice is meted out to the guilty. Very satisfying to this reader.

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Pithy and occasionally irreverent, the Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer (aka Pat Childers) is a student of classic literature, contemporary writers and writing in general.

Not Famous Yet

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Compliments of Guest Blogger Ben “Bitter” Gardner

Not famous for this.

Not famous for this.

There are millions lot of reasons why I am not rich and famous. I don’t have movie star looks, I can’t act, or dance really well and my parents aren’t famous enough to start a reality show. I’m not fast, I can’t jump high, or skate fast or spike ball at a hundred miles an hour. I can’t spin a record, I don’t have 15 kids, or know an excessive amount of useless trivia. I can’t solve a math problem unless I have a calculator, I don’t have enough scientific ability to find a new element and I don’t have the guts to jump on 4 reds balls in an obstacle course.

I’m not naturally good at anything. I don’t have a rare ability that few people have, or a superpower. What I do have is ideas. Lots of them. Some really good ones that could make me famous. I have great ideas for apps that would be fantastic, or ideas for movies, or books, or businesses. I have vision. I know how to think outside the box. I’m so full of ideas, I don’t always know what to do with them.

But I think I figured out the reason. The biggest inventions or the greatest actors or most successful writer have two things. Not only do they have good ideas, but they had the ability to execute them.

Sure, she was a great writer, and great at executing, but also had a little luck.

Sure, she was a great writer, and great at executing, but she also had a little luck.

For instance, J.K. Rowling had a great idea, but she also had the skill to write it all down, edit it and get lucky enough for someone to read it. Edison not only had the fantastic light bulb of an idea, but was able to actually build the thing and lucky enough that it actually worked. Scott Adams was not only a hilarious person with a great idea about writing about the workplace, but he could also draw, and lucky enough that a comic about the workplace hadn’t really been explored. My theory is that most people have one or two of these things, but rarely have all three.

Don’t get me wrong, being famous would be good for a month, and being rich would be great for a couple of years, but if we had all those things, what would we have to complain about? What would I have to be bitter about?

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Ben’s alter ego, BitterBen, blogs to perfect the stand-up comedy routine he says he will never do. To get a full dose of his sardonic humor, check it out here.

So Little Time

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Tall Book Case     Compliments of the Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer

So many books and so little time….I can’t remember when I didn’t love books. Not only the words housed between the covers of books, but also the heft, color, and fragrance of them. When I was a child my favorite book was “Lorna Doone,” which my grandfather brought with him from Ireland. Every detail of Lorna and John’s trysts in the English Doone Valley was as real to me as my family’s Sunday dinner.

I didn’t read much in college, except an occasional textbook. I remember attending a moratorium to end the war in Vietnam, a sit-in at the student union, and a candlelight vigil held the night of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. Other than that, my interests were prurient and shamelessly self-indulgent. My greatest struggles were opening beer cans without a can opener (in the years before pop-tops) and living in a house with 16 girls and only one phone. Life was good.

As a young mother I read voraciously, but primarily in the bodice-ripper historical romance sex-on-the-plains style of Rosemary Rogers and others like her. The men were lusty, the women were busty, and their personal hygiene was questionable. When one book faded into another, I looked around for something more challenging.

At one time I belonged to three book clubs. They’d send me six free books and I’d only have to buy one more book in the next six months. What a deal! I read “Goodbye, Columbus” by Philip Roth and thought my head would explode. Then, “The Fear of Flying,” by Erica Jong, which everyone knows is about airplanes…

Fear of Flying

A book about airplanes?

My introduction to actual literature was mesmerizing and the more I read, the more I learned about writing. Then I read every book on Oprah’s list.

Is it possible to run out of things to write about? No, there will always be a writer with another great idea. As a reader, I’m thankful for all the writers out there and I look forward to their next contribution. Never underestimate the power of words to make an impact on book lovers like me.

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When not being pithy and irreverent, the Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer (aka Pat Childers) is a student of classic literature, contemporary writers and writing in general.

Frenchman’s (Crap) Cove

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Pirate 1

 

By Contributing Blogger, The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer

 

Many years ago, during my WAA (Writing Avoidance Activities) days, I took three creative writing classes in a row, one I didn’t even register for.  A friend and I decided we would collaborate on an historical romance novel. We figured it should be about 100,000 words, so we could easily knock it out in four months. It would be about a female pirate in the 1800s, sort of between “Frenchman’s Creek” and a bodice ripper.

We then launched a time-intensive search for the perfect names for the lady pirate and the tall, handsome man she would fall in love with. Her name would be Maeve and his would be Claude. The ship would sail out of Charleston, South Carolina. We did extensive research on the ship – it would be wooden with large sails. With these essential details in hand, we began writing.

In re-reading the first page, I discovered that due to missing punctuation or perhaps a dangling participle, the father’s moustache was hugging the rail. Maeve’s startling ultramarine blue-hued speckled eyes were delighting in the wind whipping the sails, and Robert’s leonine sun-drenched yellow mane of hair flapped in the wind. Your teeth are like pearls, he sneeringly said. Gosh, this was harder than we thought. (Apparently, writing a book requires much more than a dictionary and a thesaurus.)

We almost made it to the third page before we gave up.

Not long ago I found a cardboard box in my garage labeled “bad writing.” I’m sure my pirate book was in there along with piles of other poorly written prose. I threw it away without opening it. It takes a lot of really bad writing to get to the good stuff. I should know.

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The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer (aka Pat Childers) is a regular contributing blogger who lives in Midwestern flyover country with her dogs, and the occasional sighting of her husband. In between innings of the Cubs game and contributing to this blog, she works on her web site. She can be contacted at pat@pjchilders.com

The New 60

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             Compliments of Guest Blogger, Fred Esposito, CLM

“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.”
― Eric Hoffer

Like all of us, I’ve had my ups and downs in life. Despite the down times, there are things in my life that remind me of how truly blessed I am and how grateful I am to have these blessings in my life. My family and friends rank at the top, but there is one more blessing that came into my life almost fourteen years ago.

A friend of mine who was visiting LA called me in February 2000 to tell me he found an abandoned puppy who’d been physically abused. The vet, who dubbed the puppy “Scooter,” cleaned him up and prepared him for travel back to New York State with my friend. Upon his return, he called to tell me that this little Jack Russell puppy mix, about four months old, had mostly suffered a head trauma. But my friend already had a boxer and a bichon, and the last thing he could handle was another dog.

I reluctantly went to meet “Scooter” (I so hate that name) and found him trying to hit my friend’s big tall boxer, appropriately named, Oscar De La Hoya, with his little paw. What a little fighter he was, and considering his rocky path, definitely a survivor. It was love at first sight – he was mine!

I brought him home and had my own vet examine him and give him his first round of shots.  I tossed “Scooter” out and renamed him “Jackson Brown Esposito.”  Within the first few weeks of the usual house breaking exercises and puppy hijinks, his wounds were healing nicely and he was becoming more playful and responsive to me.  In fact, he would follow me everywhere.

Within three months of Jackson joining the fold, life changed again. I had accepted another position in a law firm, but we had to move to Philadelphia. I loaded up the car and we drove to Philly for our new start, where Jackson immediately took to the dog parks and the playful antics with other dogs –it really warmed my heart to watch him.

As part of his rite of passage, I enrolled Jackson in obedience school, and it was there that we discovered something wasn’t quite right. Jackson wasn’t responding to any of the whistles for training and the trainer suggested I take Jackson to the vet to get his hearing checked.

Fortunately, my new vet had privileges at the University of Penn Veterinary Clinic and Jackson was immediately scheduled for a hearing test. When the tests were completed, the vet sat me down and started with the good news, bad news scenario. The bad news was they determined that Jackson had lost about 70% of his hearing. They could not be certain if the cause was attributed to the physical abuse, but were inclined to think so. The good news, simply stated, was “Jackson doesn’t know he can’t hear.”

In spite of his profound hearing loss, Jackson is very social. And ever since that day at the vet I vowed his life would be like Disneyland and I think I’ve done a good job at keeping my promise. Jackson is going to be fourteen in December and does have a heart condition, which is treated by medication and special diet, but overall, he is still a puppy in many ways. I know he will eventually succumb to this condition, but not for quite some time.  In fact, his vet now says he’s the new 60!

I sometimes find myself looking back on my years with Jackson. He has taught me so much about unconditional love and the meaning of friendship and self-sacrifice. He is my little boy and always will be. He is the sweetest dog and when I see him playing or sleeping in a little ball or growling at me because he thinks it’s time for bed, I smile and reflect on how fortunate I have been.

Getting Jackson may not have been planned, but he has made all the difference. I often think of the movie “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” in which Judi Dench says “Most things don’t work out as expected, but what happens instead often turns out to be the good stuff.”  I think those of us with pets can’t help but agree with her.

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Fred Esposito lives in Lynbrook, a village in Long Island, NY, where he’s resided for the last seven years. He enjoys traveling, domestic and international, and loves reading, bike riding, cooking and fine wine. Professionally, Fred manages a large law firm and is well-known as a speaker and author on various law firm management topics.