Owner: Diary of a Heretic URL:www.diaryofaheretic.blogs.com Join Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:42:16 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Original, online fiction posted daily, except when non-fiction intrudes.
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Gaping Whiskery Maws 2007-08-30 21:45:00 This excerpt continues the serialization of Diary of a Heretic, the
novel, which portrays the rise and fall of a contemporary spiritual
movement that blossoms suddenly, and briefly, around Malcolm Tully, the
owner of a coffee shop/donut house across the street from a terminal of
Chicago's El tracks.
Tuesday, November 13 (continued)
The outside of the building has high semi-circular stained glass windows, half suns bobbing in whirls of blue. Inside, I’m far from convinced Stephanie and Rafe were ever living here. Only two aquariums are stocked with fish, the rest just water and plants. The tanks glow with internal light. The hum of bubbling filters adds to the claustrophobic air. But otherwise, the space suggests a suite of vacated offices. Boxes here and there, commercial carpeting, fat cables poling out of raw holes in the supporting walls. None of this bothers me. Of course, I’m kidding myself. The place is spectral; the arti
Saint Dymphna And The Lunatics 2007-08-29 21:47:00 After thinking about Ireland yesterday, I naturally recalled Saint
Dymphna, a fourteen-year old Irish girl who lived and died early in the seventh century. She’s the patron saint of headache victims, the nervous, and the mentally disordered. This much is still generally accepted, but if history in general is constantly undergoing revision, the history of Christian saints’ lives rarely pauses in fabulous transformation. St. Dymphna’s life as I understood it now appears sanitized.
Here’s what the faithful agree upon: Dymphna’s father Duncan fell mad with grief when his beautiful wife died. A wealthy, powerful chieftan, he instructed his minions to scour all Ireland searching for an unmarried noblewoman who resembled his lost love as much as their daughter did. His army found no one.
Whereupon an alarmed Dymphna turned to her confessor, who arranged her escape to Belgium. Insane
chief Duncan, along with his men, followed them by noting where the girl, who was now fifteen
Against All Advice 2007-09-25 21:06:17 This is the fifth post in a serialized story. Click here if you want to read the previous post or here if you want to start from the beginning.
After the second week in August, when Colette’s half-day summer camp held its ending ceremony, Jeanne, who had been the camp’s book keeper, saw no reason to stay in her horrible house.
Colette had played with play-dough and finger paints, ran around the tree-canopied toddler playground, and clapped and sang with the other almost-three-year olds. And not once during those weeks, which included Red Cross-certified instructors giving the toddler swimming lessons, had the little girl asked about her daddy.
When she had asked shortly after the accident, Jeanne hadn’t known what to say. Needing to say something, though, she told Colette that her daddy lived in heaven now, where, when Jeanne and Colette were very old, they would join him.
“Was daddy old?”
“Not really. Just unlucky; his life was cut short. But then, from heaven, he
Kansas Is Kansas 2007-09-24 20:11:57 This is the fourth post in a serialized story. Click here if you want to read the previous post or here if you want to start from the beginning.
Jeanne hated living in the house she’d shared with her late husband. She couldn’t sleep and feared for her daughter Colette, who was almost three. Because despite Jeanne’s overwhelming love for her little girl, every day it felt more and more as if she couldn’t continue as a mother, as a person even, not for another minute.
So she had asked her sister Patti months ago if she and Colette could stay with Patti and her boyfriend—for a visit—while Jeanne saw about moving to the same town in Kansas
.
Waiting to hear from Patti was maddening, but Jeanne knew her sister would help when she could. Finally then, Patti called Jeanne the first Monday in August while both were working, claiming this was the best time for her. When Jeanne didn’t believe it, her sister admitted she didn’t want her boyfriend Sam monitoring the call or f
Scurrying Backwards 2007-09-23 22:00:49 This excerpt continues the serialization of Diary of a Heretic, the
novel, which portrays the rise and fall of a contemporary spiritual
movement that blossoms suddenly, and briefly, around Malcolm Tully, the
owner of a coffee shop/donut house across the street from a terminal of
Chicago’s El tracks. Click here to read the previous excerpt.
Monday, December 3 (continued)Every time I see Maggie alone, I chide myself to go talk to her. What’s the worst that can happen? I swing over to her and my hand comes up. But Christ! I can’t speak. “Hey, Malkie,” she cries, “come here and sit down.” But I’m scurrying backwards, halfway down the hall.
She’s up, cupping her hands to her mouth. “What’s that you say? ‘Can’t now? Maybe later?’ ”
--From Diary of a Heretic, a novel by Kathleen Maher, copyright 2007 Read more:Backwards
Fear and Desire Propel My Heart and Mind 2007-09-22 20:56:56 This excerpt continues the serialization of Diary of a Heretic, the
novel, which portrays the rise and fall of a contemporary spiritual
movement that blossoms suddenly, and briefly, around Malcolm Tully, the
owner of a coffee shop/donut house across the street from a terminal of
Chicago’s El tracks. Click here to read the previous excerpt.
Monday, December 3Maggie’s moving to California in ten days and she’s simply, always, in too terrible a hurry to talk to me. Her impending move embarrasses us in a way we’re both desperate to deny. It’s not that we never see each other. We’re both around, the way one hangs around in high school. Remember? The significance of things! (If he wears the dark red shirt, makes eye contact and raises his eyebrows he’s letting me know he likes me, not, of course, as in this total tender fixation I have on him—but enough; there’s hope. If he smiles and says, “Hi Malcolm,” I very well may die o Read more:Desire
, Heart
The Walls Close In 2007-09-21 21:01:00 This is the third post in a serialized story. Click here if you want to read the previous post or here if you want to start from the beginning.
The first day she arrived back at the elementary school, the assistant principal, Anna Ziegler asked if she were okay. Jeanne struggled with a gush of tears. Anna grimaced and said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” Then the woman patted Jeanne’s shoulder, which Jeanne knew, if only vaguely, shouldn’t trigger rage like wild fire.
Blinking and coughing, she trembled taking her seat. A hundred, no, a thousand times a day, she envisioned carrying Colette out one door and then another, into a safe and manageable world waiting for them beneath a boundless blue sky.
Instead, she plodded through her job, typing memos and the official minutes of meetings and answering the phone. At first no one complained if she listened to Schubert on the Walkman. But after a few days, the teachers tapped Jeanne’s back.
Put the portable music away. They contended Read more:Walls
, Close
If She Were A Better Woman 2007-09-20 21:38:22 This is the third post in a serialized story. Click here if you want to read the previous post or here if you want to start from the beginning.
Before Paul’s father returned home to Vermont, he bought Jeanne a new car. Paul Senior would cover the monthly payments, providing Jeanne could make the down payment, then and there. Her father-in-law’s gift was generous, and she thanked him sincerely. “I obviously couldn’t live here without a car, ‘Dad.’ It means…really…so much. Thank you.”
Naturally, Jeanne would cover the taxes and insurance and strictly observe the maintenance requirements as specified in the warranty. This went without saying. But when Jeanne ran through the list—trying to indicate she knew what was what—her father-in-law had clicked in his tongue in annoyance. Her chin dropped reflexively. The new small car amounted to a grand beneficence, and she didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
Since then, she’d driven to the grocery store a few times but
Another Planet 2007-09-19 21:39:39 To read the first part of this story, click here.
One minute she had honestly thought nothing really bad would ever happen to her—and the next minute, the next minute was the same as now: the dire business of living day to day. Of course in those days, Colette had required her unswerving attention. For Colette’s life was brand new. Her two-year old was now fatherless but hardly alone. Jeanne had no choice but to act with the greatest matter-of-factness.
Told of the car-crash and yet careful not to wake her child, Jeanne had drawn up her knees and rocked back and forth. That blank dislocation hadn’t lasted long. People rushed to her aid and then her family and Paul’s began arriving. Yet throughout the ritual, same as throughout her life, Jeanne had focused on one vow—to protect and nurture her child. The corollary developed in the same moment: To protect Colette, Jeanne would tread quietly; she would hide in shadows, hoping to escape the next inevitable c
We All Fall Down 2007-09-18 21:35:17 Or, maybe it’s only me. Squinting through my skewed perspective, I work to keep an always precarious balance. Now and then I fall down, which never fails to embarrass me. I’m speaking metaphorically so at least I’m not contending with all those kind people flocking to my side as I sit stunned, after landing hard on my butt.
Since late July, I’ve strived to balance rewriting one long blustery and overwritten serial story, “Underground Nest,” which I posted throughout December, 2006 and have taken down for serious reconstruction—with the need to write new fiction.
Meanwhile, my aborted attempt at creative memoir, which I had thought might give me more time for rewriting, in fact, taxed me more than the most demanding fiction. But that’s not why I gave it up. I threw up my hands, because the more I aimed to craft a true rendition, using all I’ve got and then some (I’m an incurable over-reacher), the farther my little entries strayed from any semblance to what truly h
So Much Promise 2007-09-17 21:08:00 More than twenty years ago, Jeanne’s husband drove their green hatchback into a concrete safety barrier flanking the exit ramp off Highway 287. It was late June and still daylight at eight o’clock. The evening was not foggy or rainy or windy. The temperature was moderate and even through the sun bobbed on the horizon, visibility was excellent. The accident was beyond comprehension.
Jeanne was twenty-eight when it happened. Colette was two and already asleep for the night. Single-rib lamb chops lay in a marinating dish with fresh lemon, butter, and thyme. Jeanne had turned the meat in the marinade twice in the fridge, before work and then again at four when she and Colette arrived home. They had played a CD of pop stars singing children’s songs. Jeanne allowed Colette to jump on the couch. Why not? When their daughter was older, they would buy a new one. But no jumping while Jeanne showered after her day as the elementary school’s secretary. During
The Éclair Ritual 2007-09-16 22:11:40 This excerpt continues the serialization of Diary of a Heretic, the
novel, which portrays the rise and fall of a contemporary spiritual
movement that blossoms suddenly, and briefly, around Malcolm Tully, the
owner of a coffee shop/donut house across the street from a terminal of
Chicago’s El tracks. Click here to read the previous excerpt.
Thursday, November 28
Let the record show: I am trying. To bring in quick cash, I’ve kneaded bread at every shop, several times a day, followed by the éclair ritual, where everyone partakes; everyone smacks his lips.Jesus, it sounds stupid. But then I realize that’s the thing—I have to get past caring whether I come across stupid or ugly. I have to rise above worrying about my personal purity, my motives, my own precious stinking soul. Right? I have to go on out there and do it. Because it’s—it’s the reason I was born. But shit. I just can’t make that leap. Go on out the Read more:Ritual
As Stupid As They Come 2007-09-30 20:32:51 Wednesday, December 5*Real time, real life, real debt: those things don’t disappear. Sex, love, even prayer have zero impact on financial ruin. But what can I do? I love Carlos and hate him—and can not leave him alone. I mean: long before the NANM, I understood he was dangerous, and basically, cruel. And if pressed, I’d probably admit: that was part of his allure: I have a thing for megalomaniacs! But never once, never in all the world, did it occur to me Carlos was an idiot! That for all his miracles with sugar and flour, and his clever, relentless manipulation of people—he was nonetheless as stupid as they come!Yes, it crossed my mind that beneath his very convincing monastic mask, Carlos was secretly profligate. And no, I never trusted him. But from that first New C. of C. meeting, Carlos assumed behind-the-scenes control so perfectly he seemed entitled, even destined, for the role. But oh ho Read more:Stupid
Warm, Sweet, Surging 2007-09-29 21:33:00 This excerpt continues the serialization of Diary of a Heretic, the
novel, which portrays the rise and fall of a contemporary spiritual
movement that blossoms suddenly, and briefly, around Malcolm Tully, the
owner of a coffee shop/donut house across the street from a terminal of
Chicago’s El tracks. Click here to read the previous excerpt.
Tuesday, December 4 (continued)
For all my shock, I can’t shake this little voice insisting that of course I knew all along—I saw the handwriting everywhere. Carlos would say, “We’re overextended,” and I’d shrug, “Oh well.” He’d ask if I could pull in ten thousand a show, and I’d say, “Gee, what do you think?” And every time he sidled up to me, panting and begging, he wanted me so bad, I’d think: Deep, deep shit if Carlos is crawling to lay his head on my lap. Except—except: I just couldn’t give up on a primary, nameless belief. More than anything I longed to believe that C Read more:Sweet
Going Bankrupt 2007-09-28 21:44:01 This excerpt continues the serialization of Diary of a Heretic, the
novel, which portrays the rise and fall of a contemporary spiritual
movement that blossoms suddenly, and briefly, around Malcolm Tully, the
owner of a coffee shop/donut house across the street from a terminal of
Chicago’s El tracks. Click here to read the previous excerpt.
Tuesday, December 4All at once, banks are calling! (Actually, they’ve been calling for months, without me knowing it. Or, more properly, without me knowing beyond doubt.) But now—no percentage in Carlos hiding it anymore, no point in me pretending imperturbable faith—they’re claiming ownership! “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Carlos tries to explain. “I was going to lay out the sequence for you in a few days, when, believe me, the terms will be much improved. In fact, with any luck, they could turn out for the best.” His jasmine-scented hand presses my shoulder. What a shame I even had Read more:Going
, Bankrupt
The Bad Boyfriend 2007-09-27 21:20:00 This is the seventh post in a serialized story. Click here if you want to read the previous post or here if you want to start from the beginning.
Jeanne woke hearing her sister Patti screaming from the front door at what a monster her boyfriend was, though “monster” wasn’t the word she used. The door slammed. Jeanne and Colette had plans to meet Patti for lunch across the street from the dentist’s office where Patti worked.
Jeanne dressed and woke her Colette who still wore diapers, but only at night. Worried by Patti’s yelling, Jeanne tossed her and Colette’s things into a satchel and hurried downstairs to the first floor bathroom.
But Sam waylaid her from the kitchen, holding half a pot of coffee. “Hold on. Drink a cup with me.” Colette squirmed free and Sam opened the basement door for her. “Let her watch TV. You and me can talk a bit.”
Jeanne raced down the stairs after her child, and Sam called out, “Relax, honey. No moldering corpses tied to chairs;
Beneath the Rainbow 2007-09-26 20:50:02 This is the sixth post in a serialized story. Click here if you want to read the previous post or here if you want to start from the beginning.
Jeanne started down the top step, carrying Colette, who had just been called a bitch for the first time her in short life. Before she closed the car door, her sister Patti flew from the house as Sam disappeared back into it.
“Jeanne, Colette! Don’t mind, Sam. He’s just surly. His football team is losing, that’s all.”
Patti hugged Jeanne and squished Colette, who balked, slapping at Patti’s hand. “Oh sweetie!” Patti pouted the same pout as her niece. “Don’t you remember me?”
“She’s cranky. It’s no fun for her sitting strapped in the car seat for hours.”
“Come in,” Patti said. “I made fettuccini, with cheese sauce.”
Jeanne had already strapped Colette into her seat. “We’ll find a hotel for tonight. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Sam’s already eaten and is drinking in the basement. No way he Read more:Beneath
, Rainbow
Time Is Unreal 2007-10-12 20:52:22 This is a serialized story. Click here to read the previous post or here to start at the beginning.
Jeanne dreamed about a rapper named Butterfly singing, “we’re just babies, man.” The music paused. And after a heartbeat of static she heard Paul talking: “It’s not that I don’t like your sister, sweetheart. It’s that she doesn’t like herself.”
Jeanne heard her own voice, faint with distance and time, “So what should I do?”
She wasn’t sure she had heard Paul’s every word—or her own—but she was definitely awake now. And it was distinctly his voice. He sounded faraway, as did she.
In Colette’s room, the cassette player resumed the refrain, “we’re just babies.”
Colette had climbed out of her portable crib. And sitting by the audio cassette player, she switched it off and smiled. “Did you hear Daddy, Mommy? He thinks we’re just babies.”
Jeanne sank to her knees and hugged her daughter. “We’re just babies compared to the moon and sun, h Read more:Unreal
Poison Blood 2007-10-11 21:00:00 This is a serialized story. Click here to read the previous post or here to start at the beginning.
Jeanne spent her first night in her new home wrapped in a quilted flowered coverlet, Wal-Mart’s best. Curled up tightly on the wrought-iron single bed, she peeked out through the small window and its airy, dimity curtains. She had fixed corn-bread for dinner, and the baking smell lingered everywhere. Her sister Patti had smoked marijuana in the kitchen, which added a not unpleasant top-note. The house smelled and felt like home. The September Kansas sky bestowed the night with a brisk chill, intensifying the blanket coziness inside.
Still, every passing car startled her awake, since she was listening with her whole mind and hoping against all reason that Patti might return; her mind changed; ready to escape from her bad boyfriend.
Jeanne heard rustling leaves trying to shake loose from the trees and Colette’s soft baby snore. For once, being on her own with Colette didn’t fr Read more:Poison
, Blood
Drowning in Memory 2007-10-10 20:55:33 This is a serialized story. Click here to read the previous post or here to start at the beginning.
Exasperated, Patti shook her fist and sputtered her mouth angrily enough to bring fresh blood to her split lip. Jeanne handed her sister the handkerchief damp from her own frustrated tears. Patti spit into it, dropped it to the floor, and announced for the third time that if Jeanne really wasn’t going to accommodate Patti’s boyfriend then she never wanted to see or hear from Jeanne again. “We’re no longer sisters, Jeanne. We’re strangers. And how can you let your stupid selfish prudishness cut off Colette from her only living blood relative except you? Think about that, Jeanne. Who wants to know no one but her damn mother?”
Patti, who had helped Jeanne get here, to start a new life, lifted her middle finger, cursed at her own lame gesture, and left—for good. Jeanne locked the door. She checked on Colette, who was sleeping, despite the disruption, in her portable crib. In Read more:Memory
He Wants You 2007-10-08 20:30:33 This is a serialized story. Click here to read the previous post or here to start at the beginning.
Patti sighed and sat at a small pale wood table and Jeanne took the seat opposite, faint and anxious when two minutes earlier she had felt calmer than she had since early June before her husband had died in a car crash that defied explanation. A white ceiling fan churned the September air and a lamp, fixed to the fan like the center of a daisy, poured out yellow light. Patti insisted Jeanne wake her toddler, Colette, and return with Patti to her angry boyfriend and his house in nearby Eudora. “He wants you there, Jeanne. He said you knew that and you didn’t say no.”
“I didn’t say, ‘no!’ Jesus! I didn’t say yes, either. I didn’t say supercalifragilistic-whatever.”
“You think this is funny.”
Jeanne tugged at her long, fly-away hair, dropping her forehead to the little kitchen table. “Patti, you’ve got to get away from him. He’s dangerous.”
“He’s n
For All My Righteousness 2007-10-07 21:44:06 Monday, December 10 (continued)*
“You won’t get anywhere,” Maggie says as I reach the threshold.
And, much as I hate to, I stop to hear what else she has to say. Because for all my righteousness, I don’t know where I’m going. My plan is just to walk and keep walking.
“You’ll still be you,” Maggie says, “and for a long time everyone who sees or hears or knows of you, will recognize you.”
In bewilderment, I shake my head. “So it’s like I’m paralyzed?”
“It’s like that for everybody,” she says.
Which can’t be true but never mind.
Carlos butts in with, “Don’t put so much pressure on yourself, Malcolm.” And I laugh. “Me? You think I’m doing it, Carlos? You’re the one that’s got me looking at bankruptcy! And probably tax evasion. ‘I know what I’m doing, Malcolm. I’ve wanted this all my life.’ You know shit!”
A paragon of level-headedness, he says, “I wa
As If It Were That Simple 2007-10-06 21:11:42 Monday, December 10*Maggie is leaving in three days, but she says, “Don’t for a second think I won’t stay totally, totally involved.” She taps her chest and purses her mouth in a please-oh-please expression. “You know I believe in you, Malcolm.” I glance at her sidelong. “Has the day has finally come? I’m ‘Malkie’ no more?”She grins and gives me a little shove. “It’s not my fault you’re so cute.” And then, hurt and baffled as I am, I still have to ask, where would I be without Maggie? Why, even as she’s packing her bags, she intervenes on my behalf, insisting to Carlos they lighten my schedule. Too many meetings, with suddenly small, touristy audiences. The NANM, I’m afraid, is fast becoming a curiosity. Last night there were only about twenty people. Mostly dentists was my impression, who’d come from an association dinner at the Hyatt.“Give him a break,” Maggie says. Read more:Simple
A Good Man Found 2007-10-05 21:06:37 This is a serialized story. Click here to read the previous post or here to start at the beginning.
Kevin O’Meara relished his natural good and generous nature. He liked smart, quick, Patti Carpenter just fine, but that was all. Still, because he liked her, he kindly cleared his schedule to help her older sister Jeanne and Jeanne’s little daughter start a new life after their loss. Under the awning outside his offices, he watched the sisters and the toddler cross the two streets and three small parking lots.
Patti was explaining to Jeanne about the suddenly perfect arrangements. The rental house that Kevin owned was walking distance from The Petite Academy, the best pre-school in the state. “It’s got three bedrooms and a nice big yard. Kevin has a three-month trial lease, no deposit, no extras, ready for you to sign. Wait till you see it, Jeanne. $200 a month. And, Kevin’s wife even knows a college girl who’ll sleep over with Colette while you work.”
Jeanne smiled t Read more:Good Man
Ready Set Go 2007-10-04 21:19:37 This is a serialized story. Click here to read the previous post or here to start at the beginning.
Jeanne feared that Patti would say, “Nonsense!” She and Sam had expected her to stay a week, at least. Long enough to find a comfortable apartment, Jeanne imagined her sister saying. “Wait until you find a job. Find a babysitter for Colette. Attend a meeting for ‘Parents without Partners.’”
Driving west on 23rd Street, Jeanne even dreamed up excuses. “You’re such good hosts, but this motel has a swimming pool for Colette.”
After a few miles, she spotted a little strip mall set back from the road. Turning at a grassy dividing island, she cruised to the northern end, past the regular shops, and up to a separate, cinderblock building, with a medical plaque in front, listing Kevin O’Meara, DDS and Patti Carpenter, hygienist and assistant.
Patti was waiting for them under an awning, wearing a white uniform, matching clogs, and big mirror-blue sunglasses. She sug
Terribly Gently 2007-10-03 21:04:34 This is a serialized story. Click here to read the previous post or here to start at the beginning.
The instant Sam released Colette from his bare, vividly tattooed arms, Jeanne hoisted her daughter to her hip and hurried back into the downstairs bathroom, which was opposite the front door to the house. Colette needed washing and Jeanne had fresh clothing in the satchel she had brought downstairs upon emerging from the bedroom. No way Jeanne dared going upstairs now. Rather than bathe her toddler in the upstairs bathtub, which was easier, she would re-enter the shower and clean her blonde, curly-headed little girl with no further encounter with Sam, her sister’s boyfriend, who owned the house.
Quickly she locked the door. Just after the click, thin bar lock fitting in place, Sam banged on the hollow-core door. Jeanne assumed, though she couldn’t be sure, Sam wouldn’t damage his own downstairs bathroom door. Even hollow doors were expensive. Even more definitely, she believed
You Smell Alike 2007-10-02 19:43:43 This is a serialized story. Click here to read the previous post or here to start at the beginning.
Jeanne sat across from Sam, who was taking immense pleasure at having pegged Jeanne’s discreet vocabulary as typical of someone from New England.
To Jeanne’s mind, whatever vulgar word he preferred regarding her almost three-year old daughter’s vagina represented the least of her objections to her sister’s boyfriend. Yes, what he said was disgusting, but Jeanne knew other people who took naked pictures of their babies, thinking their babyness required no respect, since their very young selves were oblivious.
Her late husband’s friends, in fact, new fathers of newborn sons, would express surprised delight at how well endowed their infant boy was. The absurd topic always irked her. A baby’s innocence and helplessness, to Jeanne if no one else, demanded more careful regard, not less.
He was still laughing and trying to catch Colette who was running past him, a giggly lit Read more:Smell
, Alike
Go Ahead 2007-10-17 22:01:40 This is a serialized story. Click here to read the previous post or here to start at the beginning.
Within two weeks, Jeanne counted Kevin and Patrice O’Meara as her best friends. Their daughters were inseparable at nursery school and the O’Meara family invited Jeanne and Colette over on weekends for brunch or to carve Halloween pumpkins.
Jeanne had heard nothing from her sister Patti. She knew the boyfriend’s phone numbers, but not Patti’s own, if she even had one. Jeanne wanted to ask Kevin if her sister had returned to work. But whenever she encountered him, even with Patrice present, Kevin’s compelling vitality confused and embarrassed her. Near him for any reason, she trembled, afraid to ask a personal question.
One evening before her night shift at the call-in center, Jeanne drove to Eudora, bracing herself to drive down the street where Patti lived with Sam. Coasting past the white brick house, she shuddered; it was obviously abandoned. The lettering on a real e
Look Up 2007-10-16 20:46:19 See my new banner? During the past forty-eight hours I’ve taken
one wrong turn after another in the maddening and fabulous labyrinth known as
PhotoShop. After hundreds of false steps, I finally devised a banner that works
better than the old one. Of course, were I willing to devote more time and patience,
more trial and error, and study more attentively the many free on-line tutorials, workshops, and discussion groups, I no
doubt could create a much better one. But this one looks good enough to me for
now. I’ve escaped Photoshop’s tilt-a-whirl and have landed intact on the solid
ground that gives root to my stories.
Thank you to the countless skillful Photoshop bloggers I
found on various directories, and on Google, and StumbleUpon. All the Photoshop
pros answered my questions promptly. They patiently laid out various methods to
get me back on track. Helpful YouTube presentations delved down to the basics a
neophyte really like me needed.
Still: Good thing I
Beginning of the End 2007-10-15 22:34:35 This is a serialized story. Click here to read the previous post or here to start at the beginning.
When Kevin brought his extra TV to Jeanne, the man’s presence in his own rented, furnished house caused her heart to beat so that it sounded outside her chest, and she stepped back.
Aiming for normalcy, she thought to offer Kevin lunch, because Colette needed to eat. The three sat at the little pine table before bowls of homemade minestrone and the last of the cornbread Jeanne had cooked the night before. She didn’t ask if he’d heard from her battered sister; Kevin would tell her first, she harbored no doubt. They drank tap water.
Jeanne kept leaning far forward and then backward, trying to find the right distance from Kevin’s face. Colette distracted them, spilling a spoonful that needed wiping up and prattling about her birthday party. She kept asking what turning three meant. Jeanne couldn’t guess whether her daughter was projecting Jeanne’s own anxiety or wheth
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