New tradition after writing a book

I decided I will post this poem each time I finish a book. Maybe I'll update it from time to time and tweak a word. I like to write poems. I don't think I'm great, but I'm pretty sure I'm not embarrassingly bad. Here you go:

This book will end

my work of some days,

meager collection of metaphor and simile

arks in story that rose and fell

shifted setting and by degrees

faded in strength.

You are derivative of other works, I say,

yet you will shine for some,

a fitting first for sequels spun in inkjet loins,

a child that will bear my name.

Silent, without voice

but full of words, the riddle

I say you were formed in a thinking womb of months or years

then birthed to impartial scrutiny,

released now, fleeing to the world an infant,

fresh into the hands of strangers

to cherish or abuse.

Tomorrow I will place pen on paper,

parent skills awanting,

and create another.

Daily Ambivalence - a telephone used to actually ring

My daughter has a purse. It's big and it's one of those purses that is so ugly it's cute. Not too many things can be so ugly they achieve cute status. Purses and chihuahuas maybe. With women, the uglier a purse or a chihuahua is the more the woman likes them.

That never worked for me in high school. The fact that I was ugly just meant that I was ugly. It sucked, but at the same time, it wasn't confusing. Life was simpler back then. People who were ugly remained ugly, telephones sounded like telephones, and when you saw a chihuahua you kicked it.

Everything's upside down these days.

Today the guy sitting next to me on the train just got a phone call. His ringtone sounded like the tardis. I mean, I start looking for David Tennant but it's just a phone. Right now I can hear both sides of the conversion. It's the dude's mom calling from Florida.

And look, there's a chihuahua in that girl's purse. I almost reflexively kick the darn thing but I've learned from the last time. Too bad. I like kicking chihuahuas.

A telephone used to actually ring . . . eh.

The battlefields are many

The order comes from a man who received his from another man who probably received the same from another and so on up a chain of command you do not know and wouldn't care to.

Doesn't matter. The only order that counts is the one given directly and it is to go and take that hill from the enemy.

Undiscovered country.

You are compelled to move. The hill is a hill, not unlike the hill you took yesterday and the hill you will take tomorrow. If anyone knows the significance of the hill, all you know is that it isn't you. Will this rise in elevation hold significance for some on a distant date? Will there be a memorial marking at least the day, if not remembering you?

A day in fatigues or another day at the keyboard. I am set to take another hill, write another string of words, not compelled by orders any stronger than the incessant clamor in my head.

In the grand scheme of things, will it ever matter? Who will mark this day besides myself? Just another hill.

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Daily Ambivalence - I can only afford breakfast at Melanie's

Not that Melanie's breakfast is all that bad.

She does under cook her eggs and she serves links instead of patties. When she makes her orange juice and the directions say add three cans of water I suspect she adds four. Her hash browns aren't shredded but instead are cubed and she always glares at me when I ask for ketchup. By way of cold cereal the only choices are corn flakes or raisin bran and she won't stock anything else but skim milk. And her cream of wheat has huge lumps in it. I know there are people who prefer it that way but not me.

Dude, I guess I hate breakfast at Melanie's.

I can only afford breakfast at Melanie's . . . eh.

Ran out of milk

I woke up this morning and there was no milk in the fridge.

I'm not sure how that happened but the ramifications of no milk in the fridge are horrific.

I took the train to the station and then ran the rest of the way to work. Then I did a little weight lifting. In today's society what do you cap that off with? A protein drink, of course. And if you don't have milk for your protein drink, what do you use?

Water.

I'm drinking it as I type this and it tastes like death.

So you finish a book

So you finish a book.

Sure there's the fireworks and crowds of well wishers pounding at your door all hours of the night, but when that fades you are left alone again in your mind. Characters that had moved in and taken space have left.

Possibly you killed them and they shant return. Others found their denouement and have no need to ever see you again, lost wholly to their happy ends.

And you alone in your mind.

Some writers are rather loose and will shack up with the next promising protagonist that happens by. Indeed, I know some writers who have hordes of amorous heroes and heroines clamoring to be the next conquest.

Other writers bid adieu to a story and are more like the widow returning to an empty home after throwing a last flower on a casket set to be lowered. A lifetime with a soulmate is over and recreating that same magic will take time.

I am more like the latter. Sometimes I wish I was a little more strumpet-like.

This was a fun book to write

I wanted to write a book where monsters could be real but where the Earth's population is, for the most part, unaware of this minor detail.

I know, other books do this, but you really have to suspend disbelief that all the normal humans live unaware of the body count around them or not once capture the shuffling walk of a few mummies on their iPhones.

I mean, dude, if Lon Chaney Jr.'s Wolfman was real don't you think I would have tracked him down by now and asked for a paw print autograph?

Of course I would.

Well, here is Dream Ender, a couple days from the life of a guy named Vincent. He lives in a world, maybe ours, where anything can happen and usually does. We just don't know about it because we forget.

That dream about the motivational speaker

There was that dream about the motivational speaker and he kept telling everyone to smile until it hurts and there was a guy next to me that was doing such a good job that he was bawling like a baby and I told the guy that smiling until it hurts was just a figure of speech but he didn't believe me and after a while I noticed that everyone was crying except me and I didn't want to smile that hard but peer pressure can eat away at you and I was glad I had my portable paper mache kit with me so I made a smile that was bigger than my face but everybody started freaking out because they said that was cheating and by then the paper mache smile had hardened so I knocked everybody unconscious with my smile and as I stood over their still forms I proudly proclaimed "Now that's smiling until it . . ."

Yeah, I'm not going to finish that one.

Daily Ambivalence - movie theater popcorn isn't health food

You know those morning shows where they interview movie stars just before the movie star's movie comes out and sometimes the morning show even reports on news? Well, I just learned they can be helpful sometimes.

Like today when the tall, thin guy with short hair said that movie theater popcorn isn't health food.

Now, I'm not the kind of person who just hears something and then takes it as gospel. I'm going to do a little research to verify that guy's statement, but he seemed pretty confident when he said that movie theater popcorn isn't health food.

It's a little counterintuitive because the origin of movie theater popcorn is corn and corn is a vegetable or a grain depending on whether you get it out of a can or off a cob. And both of those are good for you. I think they're even part of the pyramid or rectangle. One of those.

Bottom line though, I'm glad I was late for work today and decided to switch on the tube. It's not every day that you learn something new.

Movie theater popcorn isn't health food . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - you get in trouble if you open the back door on a school bus

I've learned this lesson for myself.

When you pull the bar on the back door an alarm goes off and the bus driver stops the bus and comes back and yells at you.

Then he kicks you off because you're too old to be on a school bus and all the kids hang out their windows and laugh at you as the school bus drives away, especially that red-headed kid in the back.

Jerk. When he dared me to pull the bar I'll bet he knew this would happen.

You get in trouble if you open the back door on a school bus . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - you go down a ways and then take a left

Sometimes I have a hard time making a decision.

I mean, don't get me wrong, once I make a decision it is final. Unless I change my mind. But usually a decision pretty much sets my course. Barring new information crossing my desk or if the decision I made turns out to be hard or inconvenient. Or if I get distracted.

You know, maybe I actually have a hard time making decisions.

I've been driving for a while now because that old man said I should go down a ways and then take a left, but what is a ways? It's been hours now and I keep shying away from the lefts that flash by. One after another and I keep coming up with decisions that argue against going left.

I'm getting hungry so I might stop at the next McDonalds that I see.

I'll get a Big Mac. Or a Spicy Chicken.

Crap, I'm in trouble if they have McRibs on the menu.

You go down a ways and then take a left . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - my daughter saw a show where they crash a lot of cars

It was a Hollywood movie and apparently all the good guys and all the bad guys had really nice cars that they liked to crash and go fast in.

Which would make it hard to tell the difference between bad guys and good guys, I would think. I'd hate to be one of the good guys driving my car fast looking for a place to crash it and all of a sudden I kill what I think is a bad guy but later that day after I've totalled my car I find out he was a good guy the whole time.

Would that make me a bad guy?

I don't think I'm going to see that movie, even though my daughter said it was bad A.

My daughter saw a show where they crash a lot of cars . . . eh.