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The Light Under the Door

Author’s Note: I was having trouble with this one as I didn’t like Summer Weaving‘s chorus, but I found other sections of the song that I did like and fit what I’ve been developing (Mac’s subplot) so I went ahead and wrote this.

I focused mainly on these lyrics:

To walk a night into a day that has no reason
Walking past the house of someone else’s season
Gazing at the light on the rim of a tightly closed door
Weave me inside before the winter and I wouldn’t ask for more

The Light Under the Door

Mackenna hesitated in the hallway, looking at the light under the door. By this time at night, Mac was almost always already asleep, so it was strange to see his light still on, strange enough that if it wasn’t this particular time of year, she’d be opening up the door to make sure he hadn’t had a heart attack or something first.

Well, no, she’d be forcing Carson to open it for her, most likely, because she still had issues with men’s bedrooms thanks to her uncle’s suicide, even if it was better now. Carson had helped her over it, to a part, but she still regressed at times, and the idea of finding her grandfather dead—she couldn’t do it. She knew Carson didn’t deserve that image, either, and it would possibly trigger him as much as it did her, but she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to face that twice. Mac wouldn’t be the same, but her uncle’s death wrecked her and her life, and Mac was too important to her now. She could lose it all again. She didn’t know that she could live through that again, for all she could drink the boys under the table and had people wondering about her because she knew her way around cars and other less feminine things.

Someone touched her arm, and she almost jumped out of her skin.

Carson winced. “Sorry. I was just wondering what kept you.”

She gestured to the light under the door. He frowned when he saw it, looking back at her.

“We’re not really keeping him up, are we? I didn’t think we were that noisy, and since I haven’t gone to bed yet, no nightmares. Not from me—or you, for that matter.”

She nodded, taking his hand and leading him away from Mac’s door, back out to the living room. She kept his hand all the way to the couch, where he sat down beside her, letting her use him as a pillow as usual.

“Sorry. I didn’t want him hearing us again.”

“Well, he might have already, but you seem pretty upset, so I’m not so sure I’m worried about what Mac thinks right now.”

She shook her head. “I was fighting my own issues. That’s it. I just… I was concerned by the light, and if it is something else, I’ll hate myself in the morning, but between that horrible day with my uncle and my near certainty that he’s just in there looking at the old photo albums and mourning, I don’t want to disturb him right now.”

Carson nodded. “Right. You said he goes through their entire life together leading up to when she died. That’s… a lot. I—I could go take the heat for you and ask him if he needs anything. Better he’s mad at me for intruding than you.”

“Don’t do that. You don’t have to go making yourself an enemy, not that you are. Mac likes you fine. He just doesn’t show his feelings to many people. That’s why Grandma was special, why it’s so hard for him right now. I feel… guilty, actually. It’s so much easier for me. I loved her, she was my grandma, but I barely knew her in comparison, since my aunt forgot to mention they were still alive and screwed me over like she did. I had a few years with both of them, not nearly as many as I’ve had without her. So I don’t… it’s not as hard for me. And worse… I’m with you. And we’re happy. We’re both giant messes and damaged, but we are good for each other. We have support and love and… he’s so alone. He’s trapped in winter and freezing, but you and me… we’re melting in summer warmth and happiness.”

Carson nodded. “It has been very muggy lately.”

“I didn’t mean it literally.”

He smiled, reaching over to cup her cheek. “I’m teasing. You know I can at least try that sometimes even if I’m not very good at it. I just… You have nothing to feel guilty about. Your grief is not the same as his and never could be. And it’s not wrong to be happy in our marriage even if he’s been widowed. We’ve had enough bad already, we can use some good, and if he were more of the type that talked about stuff like this… he might just tell you that he had plenty of good with her and it’s your turn. I don’t know. I don’t know Mac well enough and he’d hate me putting words in his mouth.”

She curled up closer to Carson. “I think you might be right about it. Though he’d have a different way of saying it.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Carson said. “Still, you might listen to him. He’s a smart man. A good one.”

“So are you.”

He kissed her forehead, and she closed her eyes, knowing they’d probably fall asleep right here like this again and she didn’t mind it one bit. She just wished she knew some way of helping her grandfather, even if he didn’t want it.

by

Summer Weaving

First few times I heard this song, I was like, “I don’t like it.”

Though really what I don’t like is the message in the chorus. I don’t think life has to be like this:

And when it comes right down to it
We’re really all alone
Unless we want someone to own
And run the life we live, oh me

I can relate to the “we’re really all alone,” but I don’t think that having people, even in a romantic relationship and/or marriage means that they own us or run our lives. It should be a partnership, even and balanced where we all get things we need from it.

Still, there is some beautiful parts to the song like this:

To write a lonely night into a poem
Weave me a summer flight into a music
That I’ve loved and haven’t known
Weave me a summer night into a winter fire
For I’m very far from warm

and this:

To walk a night into a day that has no reason
Walking past the house of someone else’s season
Gazing at the light on the rim of a tightly closed door
Weave me inside before the winter and I wouldn’t ask for more

Kabobbles Sing Along is just what I think when I hear songs. I sometimes see images when I hear lyrics, pictures or movies in my head. Sometimes I relate it to stories. My interpretation of the songs and lyrics are probably nothing like their original intent.

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Sentiments On and Off the Road

Author’s Note: The last scene I did for these two sort of almost led into this and ties in a bit I wrote ahead of things. I’ve decided to include that, at the last second, though it doesn’t fit the part I wrote prompted by the second song on the album, Between the Road Signs.

In between the road signs and the white lines
And all of the comforts of home
In between the road signs and the sad rhymes
And all of the comforts of home

They’re not on a car run this time (that would have fit well, I suppose) but out in the Maxwell to see Mac, and this happened and it fit. Mostly.

Sentiments On and Off the Road

“You’re singing again.”

“If you had a problem with my singing, you probably should have told me a long time ago,” Mackenna said, shrugging. She didn’t really think it would bother him, since it never had before, though others would argue they hadn’t had that much time to know each other before they hit the point where they were now.

“I didn’t say I minded,” Carson told her, shaking his head and almost losing his hat. He grimaced. “Remind me next time not to let you talk me into this even if I am riding in the Maxwell with you.”

She grinned at him. “Remind me, and we’ll put a strap on it like Mac has for his bowler, okay? I really enjoy the look of you in hats.”

“I think you have warped taste, but fine, I’ll try and remember to remind you,” Carson said. He took the hat off and set it in his lap. “Not going to let the natural air conditioning take the hat, since you’re so very fond of it.”

She laughed. “It’s not the hat. It’s the man wearing the hat. The one with his car and damaged memories and wonderful taste in socks and music as well as women.”

He snorted. “Oh, I see. Flattering yourself, are you?”

“Someone has to. I don’t get nearly enough of that.”

“Oh, please. If we played a drinking game with the guys at the Legion including where we had to drink for every time one of them praised you, even the battle-hardened marines would be down under the table,” Carson said. “They adore you, and you know it.”

“I do,” Mackenna said. They were sweet old men, and she had given some thought to maybe staying with one of them if anything ever happened to her own grandfather, but now she had Carson to think about, and he already had issues staying in her grandfather’s house despite the fact that his apartment was impractical for them.

She had to have a garage no matter where they lived, and she liked being where Mac and the Maxwells were.

“I just was wondering if you always have to sing in the car,” Carson said, and she looked at him. “I mean, I know you don’t do it as much around Mac, but it seems like if we’re alone, you always have a song, even if we don’t have a radio, like now.”

She grimaced. Mac enjoyed the silence a lot more than she did. She couldn’t. It took her back to the way everything had gone still after that shot but before she opened the door, and she hated it. She could cope with the quiet, but she preferred background noise, especially music.

“I suppose I can admit that’s one of my many issues. I don’t like white noise or silence very much. Mac is firmly of the school of discipline where music is a distraction, especially if you’re messing with the radio constantly, but I need it, so… I sing. And music with lyrics is almost always better when you sing along. Unless there’s something wrong in the lyrics, but that’s an entirely different matter.”

He nodded. “It is. That song was nice, though I’m not very familiar with it.”

“I have got such an eclectic collection thanks to all the random people I’ve met over the years,” Mackenna said. Between her older friends at the Legion, her grandparents, and everyone on the car runs, her music was a very interesting mix. She didn’t mind. She liked variety. “Should I pick one you know this time?”

“I don’t know about that. You know I don’t have as good a singing voice and… well, it’ll be all weird and like some bad movie montage, us driving along singing to that Willie Nelson song or something.”

She laughed. “It’s fun for road trips even if it’s about singing tours and not road trips themselves, but that’s not what I had in mind.”

“Oh?”

She was about to tell him when she saw the Airstream and grimaced. She started slowing down, needing to make the turn up ahead.

“What’s wrong? Why are we going to the cemetery?”

“Because I’m an idiot,” Mackenna said, now aware that she’d been overcompensating for her own feelings all morning without admitting anything to Carson despite last night. She stopped Shadow on the lane, keeping them back and out of view of the man at the grave.

More songs came to her mind, but she didn’t sing them, the reminders already too painful.

“I should have known he was out here,” Mackenna said, grimacing. Carson frowned, and she knew if they were closer, he would have understood completely. For some people, going to this place would be a daily or weekly routine, but some people weren’t Mac Gilreath. Her grandfather was a strong, proud man, and he wouldn’t speak of things that bothered him, even when they still hurt.

“I didn’t—your grandmother, right? I guess I didn’t figured Mac for the type that went talking to headstones.”

“He isn’t, not usually,” Mackenna agreed. “Just sometimes… Well, the not-so-funny and not-so-romantic story about how they met is that it was actually here. Generations of my grandma’s family were buried here long before she married my grandfather. She was here with her parents putting flowers on her grandmother’s grave and he was dragged over to do that to his grandfather’s. She got spooked, ran away from her parents, and bumped right into him. First time they ever met. They didn’t start dating for years afterward, but on their anniversary… he starts way back at their beginning and retraces their years.”

“That is… adorable and surprisingly sentimental for your grandfather,” Carson said, and Mackenna looked at him. He shrugged. “The man rarely does more than grunt in my presence. Sometimes he could pass for a mute. I never once got the impression he liked the idea of me marrying you or moving in here with both of you.”

“If Mac was really unhappy about it, you would know,” Mackenna assured him. She shrugged. “He was different with her. It was like… Well, in cliché terms, she was the light of his life.”

“He change that much when she was gone?”

Mackenna shook her head. “No. He was still taciturn and stoic, all those things that belong to men of his generation. He just… relaxed a bit around her. She got him laughing and smiling and making jokes. You just haven’t seen much of that side of him.”

“He really doesn’t like me, does he?”

She laughed. “That’s not true. He likes you fine. I think the more he sees how much we make sense and how good you are for me, then he’ll start warming up again.”

“I think he’d warm up a lot faster if I had a job and wasn’t—”

“Carson, stop it. Please. You quit that job for a good reason—it was forcing you to ruin lives. You were taking farms away, farms just like ours. No. I can’t support you having stayed there or trying to get that job back. I think you did the right thing, and I don’t care if you don’t make any money at all. I think he respects why you left, even if—and I stress the if—he has an issue with you being unemployed,” Mackenna insisted. He gave her a look, clearly not pacified, but she wasn’t going to argue more here.

She took his hand. “We should go. Mac likes to be alone when he does this. He would never want anyone to know he cried.”

by

Between the Road Signs

This song is a kind of fun one to sing, something we can all relate to if we’ve been on a road trip before, even if we’re not touring singers.

That said, the lyrics are fairly similar throughout the song, so I just have a few to talk about, this end part,

In between the road signs and the white lines
And all of the comforts of home
In between the road signs and the sad rhymes
And all of the comforts of home
All of the comforts of home

And the chorus, of course, the fun invitation:

I’m singing the road sign, white line song
I’m singing, won’t you sing along

Kabobbles Sing Along is just what I think when I hear songs. I sometimes see images when I hear lyrics, pictures or movies in my head. Sometimes I relate it to stories. My interpretation of the songs and lyrics are probably nothing like their original intent.

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Nighttime Comfort

Author’s Note: I was not happy with what I did for the first part of my new album challenge. It’s an important part of the one story, but it wasn’t as fitting with the prompt as I usually do and it was not… my best effort at all. I didn’t even do something new, just found an old piece. So… I have fixed that.

This time we’re back to Carson and Mackenna and the not finished sequel.

This fits with Together Alone and the lyrics I used before even better, I think.

We’ll grow old, we’ll take care of each other
I’ll be your sister, your mother, your lover

and

We’re believers, we’ve been hurt by believing
Needing people, we know looking’s not seeing

There’s even more to it than this, and it fits the other lyrics of learning balance and rhythmn, too.

Nighttime Comfort

“Carson?” Mackenna asked, reaching over to touch him, trying to be as gentle as she could. She knew he didn’t want to admit it, but in addition to his frustration with the job hunting, the nightmares from when his father died were worse these days. Knowing what had really happened then was only part of the problem.

The way his family had lied about what happened would probably always haunt him, even if he had the truth. What they’d done hadn’t helped him, hadn’t done him any favors, and she still got mad thinking about how they could have told him, ended his torment, instead of sending him to a therapist, getting him drugged up, and letting him think he was crazy.

If things had been worse, if he’d really started to believe the worst of himself, he could have ended up like her uncle, and she still couldn’t get that image out of her head. She understood the man was in pain, but she wished he’d asked for help.

Or at least waited until she wouldn’t be the only one there to find him.

She felt Carson trembling and sighed, wrapping her arms around him and holding on, as much for her own sake as his. She wanted to stop the nightmares for him, take them all way, but life didn’t work that way. This was their attempt at happily ever after, but they both weren’t kidding themselves. They knew it wasn’t that easy.

“Admittedly, this might be easier if we’d fallen asleep in the actual bed,” Mackenna muttered, but he didn’t answer, not that she would have wanted him to, not unless he was awake. She rested her head against his chest. “Should I say something profound and meaningful now? You’re too asleep to hear me. Um… I could do the standard lines of ‘it’s over. You’re fine. You’re safe. I’m here. I’ll protect you from any of that.’ How terrible is it I feel like I’m talking to a child?”

“Arguably… my emotional growth was badly stunted as one, so…”

“That woke you?”

“I don’t know what woke me,” Carson said, pulling her closer, “but if it was you, thank you. I… I had the worst one again. No, not the worst one. I can’t decide which is worse, to be honest, the one where it turned out it was me… or the one where he didn’t just… fake that part.”

Mackenna winced. She sat up and reached to run her fingers through his hair. “I was just getting mad at your family for covering it up, and now I’m kind of pissed.”

“Do not go picking fights with him again. Please. It was… he was honoring my grandfather’s wishes, even if they were all misguided and I don’t think it did my mom any favors, either.”

“No, she still believed in your father, and it ate her up inside. It was no better than trying to convince you forgetting it was best and none of it ever happened,” Mackenna said, shaking her head. “It’s frustrating, even if there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

He shrugged. “You’re here, aren’t you? You don’t have to be, but you signed up for it as a friend and then a psuedo-sister and now… a lot more than that.”

“Oh, is that all?” Mackenna teased, very aware of the ring on her finger. He laughed and kissed her forehead. “Face it. You’re stuck with me for life, not that we didn’t agree to that almost from the beginning.”

He nodded. “I know, but back then all you wanted was my car.”

She laughed. “Well, you know me, I’m a sucker for antiques.”

“Which doesn’t explain us.”

She smiled. “I have a weakness for fixer-uppers, too. I like me a good project.”

“Nice. I feel very insulted.”

“No, you don’t. You feel loved.”

“And very unworthy of it, but yes,” he said before kissing her temple. “I think we’d better try again to sleep. You’ve got a lot to do on the new car, and I need to job hunt again.”

“Nope, you’re my slave for the day, remember? It’s Sunday, no job hunting for you. Just a lazy morning for us and the car.”

“And Mac?”

She winced. “He won’t want us to, but we should probably check on him, too.”

by

Together Alone

This is one of those songs that’s very powerful on its own. It doesn’t need much from me to recommend it.

We’ll grow old, we’ll take care of each other
I’ll be your sister, your mother, your lover

I like how that section talks about the roles we take on for others and how we can be more than one thing to any given person.

We’re believers, we’ve been hurt by believing
Needing people, we know looking’s not seeing

I think one of the hardest things in the world is to have someone or something disappoint you, to find your faith is misplaced, and we all can relate to being hurt by believing. And it makes us not want to have people in our lives because they hurt us, but we need them.

We’ll learn living, like the words of a good song
We’ll learn timing, balance and rhythm
We’ll make it music
I don’t want to sing it on my own

This, too, is very relatable because we’re all growing and learning and we need others.

Kabobbles Sing Along is just what I think when I hear songs. I sometimes see images when I hear lyrics, pictures or movies in my head. Sometimes I relate it to stories. My interpretation of the songs and lyrics are probably nothing like their original intent.

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The Wrong Time to Visit the Supermarket

Author’s Note: So I did do this a while back, as part of a long story that is… oh, it’s a mess. I wish it wasn’t, but it has three arcs, I couldn’t pick one, kept thinking no one would want to read various parts of them, and so it’s all jumbled now and I even let myself skip around a bit while writing it, which is worse in some ways. I just… I have shared some with these characters before, but I was reviving the Kabobbles Sing Along Album Challenge again, and I randomly grabbed an album to pull out Melanie’s Stoneground Words. First song up was Together Alone, and I was going to do something with Dillon for this, but it fit to do Quinn, too, maybe even more than Dillon, and I wasn’t willing to start any new stories (tempted, but no) and so I picked out this section as it fit with the lines of

We’ll grow old, we’ll take care of each other
I’ll be your sister, your mother, your lover

and also, much more importantly, this part, as it is the betrayal Quinn’s forced to disclose here that did so much damage to him and his faith in everyone.

We’re believers, we’ve been hurt by believing
Needing people, we know looking’s not seeing

The Wrong Time to Visit the Supermarket

“And eggs. We’re going to need eggs.”

Quinn rolled his eyes, and Candelaria tried to ignore him. He hadn’t wanted to take her to the store, and he was making things as difficult as he could. She could hate him so easily, and most of the time she did, but with the Howells out of town for the weekend, he was the only one in the house with a driver’s license. She knew they probably would have been fine without the things they were low or out of, but she didn’t know that she could keep Quinn in line for a whole weekend. This wasn’t like the hours she had watched all of them in the past, not even the overnight trips. This was different, and she was nervous. Quinn made these times out like a joke, and so far he hadn’t done anything to defy her, hadn’t run off, but if he was going to do it, this would be the time.

“You know they’ll be back in a day, right? Why bother with all this food?”

“Because I know how much Beacan can eat these days, and I know you still like having your food in its own package, so we need stuff. At least this time I won’t have to ask for help with everything on the top shelf. You can get it for me.”

“You can’t reach?”

She gave him a dirty look. He was such a jerk. She always said that, but she kept being reminded of how true it was. “How many times have you made comments about how short I am compared to you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’ve grown a bit. Oh, look, you come up to my knee now. You’re so big these days. I don’t know what we’ll do with you.”

She smacked him, and he just shrugged. “Eggs last. If there’s something else you need, tell me so that we can get it and go.”

“If you go get a bag of flour and bring it back, I’ll take care of the fresh vegetables without you, since I know you hate that.”

“Fine,” he muttered, taking off in the opposite direction. She pushed the cart down the aisle, grabbing a couple of cans of soup before she left.

Turning the corner, she almost smacked into one of the employees, and she winced. That guy was always getting her the stuff off the top shelf, and she felt bad for bumping into him. She whispered an apology and tried to back away, but he saw her. “Miss Howell? I thought I recognized those ribbons. Where’s your mother today?”

She had never bothered to explain that Mrs. Howell wasn’t really her mother, and she didn’t intend to do that now. “Oh, she was busy today. It’s all right, though. I’ve got my—someone—with me to help me get anything I can’t reach or carry.”

“Someone? This wouldn’t be a boyfriend, would it? You’re not sneaking around behind your mother’s back, are you?”

Candelaria winced. She should have said her brother, though she didn’t call Quinn that, and he didn’t let her call him that, either. She sighed. “My foster brother. I’m sorry I bumped into you. Excuse me. I have to get the vegetables.”

“You haven’t gotten them yet? Why does it take so long to do one thing?”

“You had the one thing, Quinn, not me. We need plenty of vegetables and—”

“Quinn. Long time no see.”

Quinn swallowed, dropping the flour in the cart. The bag tore, and she frowned. She swore she’d never seen Quinn this scared before, not in all the years she’d known him. She looked back at the man, biting her lip.

“Not long enough,” Quinn managed, his voice cold. He took her arm, tugging on it. “Come on, Laria. If you need to cook something with vegetables, you can do it with something canned.”

“I didn’t think you were the type that ran. You that afraid to face me after what you did?”

Quinn whirled back, looking like he’d attack the man in a second, and she thought it would be worse than when he fought the jocks. “What I did? You son of a—”

“Watch it. You were the one who attacked me, remember? You were the one who tried to cover up a bad drug habit with an even worse lie.”

“I didn’t lie. You did.”

Candelaria took a breath. “Quinn, why don’t you bring the car up closer so we can load it fast and go? We need to pick up Beacan and Leah in a few minutes.”

“I can’t believe they let you have a license,” Kevin said, and Quinn glared back at him. She looked at the cart and shook her head.

“We don’t need this. We’ll just go. Mrs. Howell can come back for it later.” She wrapped her arm around his, pushing him toward the door.

Quinn pulled away from her just outside the store, going to the trash and throwing up. Candelaria watched him with a frown, not sure how to react to any of this. He’d been ready to panic back there, and she didn’t like what that man had said, either.

He reached into his pocket and dug out the keys, holding them out to her. She frowned, not taking them. He dropped them, heaving again, and she watched, worried. She didn’t know what to think of what Quinn had done back there or what that man had said. If Quinn was sick—

“Go get the car. You’re driving us home.”

“I don’t have a license,” she hissed. “Just a permit. I can’t do that.”

“You have to. I don’t think I can get my stomach calm, and I can’t drive like this. It’s coming back. Not again. Not now…”

She reached down and grabbed the keys, ducking under his arm and letting herself support him like she had after one of his fights. He leaned on her, and she tried not to think about how he’d just puked. “Let’s get you to the car before you collapse.”

“The colors are all funny and everything’s spinning—no, this isn’t funny—not the monster, not again…”

Candelaria cursed, realizing what he’d meant by it coming back. He must have been in one of his acid flashbacks, and if he was, he wouldn’t be driving anywhere. That just wasn’t happening. She knew that. She didn’t want to do it without a license, but she had to get him home. “Kevin was the one that gave you the drugs, wasn’t he?”

Quinn shuddered. “Don’t… Can’t talk to you like this.”

“Yes, you can. You know I wasn’t a part of any of that. Use my voice. Stay here with me and forget the acid. Forget the colors and the monster. All that’s here is your watchdog. I’m here. You’re not alone.”

She stopped them against the car, going to open the door before she pulled him over to the passenger seat. “Think you can manage to put your seat belt on?”

He looked up at her. “You are way too small to take on the monster. When I was that small, I couldn’t stop it. It got what it wanted. Always. I tried to fight it, but it was stronger, and it would use those claws on me. Claws and teeth…”

“The monster won’t get close to you again,” Candelaria assured him, shutting the door and running around to the other side. She hoped that she could do this without wrecking the car or getting caught.

“Did you really attack him?” She asked as she pulled out of the spot, somehow managing to dodge the cars around them.

“I just wanted him to admit what he’d done to me. He… He wouldn’t even acknowledge that he’d given me the drugs, kept saying he didn’t know what I was talking about, and I thought I could get him to tell me the truth if I scared it out of him, beat it out of him… You heard him. He still says the whole thing was me.”

“You don’t know what he did to you?”

“No. I told you… I don’t remember what really happened. I remember before the acid kicks in—Kevin was the only one there besides me, and he was the one that gave me the food—and then it’s this monster and it’s trying to kill me… I could take it if he had knocked me around. He could have put me right back in the hospital. I don’t care about that. That’s upfront. I understand that part. I can handle it if I understand it. I don’t know why he had to mess with my head, make it so I’m stuck always wondering what happened. I thought I was going crazy the first few times it happened. I didn’t think I was high—I thought I was losing my mind. I just don’t get it. Why do you do that to someone?”

“Power? Control? He’s some kind of sadist? He liked watching you suffer when you were confused and having you doubt your own mind was… a bonus?”

“I hate him so much. I wish I’d killed him. I still wouldn’t have my answers, but I’d feel a lot better knowing he was gone.”

“You don’t want to be a killer.”

“Yes, I do. Him I want dead. I came close. If I hadn’t hesitated…”

Candelaria swerved, jerking the car back on the road with people honking around them. She didn’t believe what she was hearing. “Quinn…”

“Thanks to him I have probation ’til I’m eighteen. And they think I’m deranged. I hate him. I wasn’t good, I wasn’t perfect, but drugs were one of the lines I didn’t cross. I didn’t do that, and I didn’t… I didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“No matter what anyone says about me—I never turned tricks. Ever. Not even when I was desperate for something to eat. I stole, and I’ve vandalized places, but I didn’t do that.”

“I never thought you did.”

“You’re going to have to watch me close, watchdog. Now that I know where he is again… I don’t trust myself.”

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So I May Need to Write a Bonus Story

So we’re thinking that part of the reason why Just a Whim’s cover is not cooperating is the size of the spine and if the book were longer it might not be a problem, or maybe not in the same way.

So my thought was maybe including a little bonus story. I’m trying to figure out what to do, though, as I’ve had a hard time writing much, Whim and I have a complicated relationship, and I have a hard time writing short.

Any thoughts?

Feel free to leave them here or on facebook or twitter or even on the tumblr.

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A Brief Summary of Experience as a Language Student

Mine, mine alone, and I’m not an expert but I saw a post again that irritated me by assuming that people did things wrong by doing what I did daily and had to say something for my own peace of mind.

I took French and Spanish in school. I’m an English speaker by birth but I’ve wanted to learn other languages since I was a kid. Mostly French, but I once had grand ideas about knowing them all. I was going to take my French and Spanish and learn all romance languages. I learned a bit of Dutch because of the guy I was dating. I taught myself some Irish and some Italian for stories. I tried hard to learn Ojibwe/Chippewa as I am of that descent.

Now I’m older and I know I won’t be learning everything, but here’s what I know from my experience…

I was at a point where I would and did think in other languages. I would mix all three of them in the same sentence even though I knew the words in English. I would dream in the other languages.

Even today I will randomly ask “ou est mon -?” Like with my phone, even though the last word is almost always in English. I speak bits and pieces of things in other languages no matter what I’m doing or who I’m with, and yes that can be embarrassing but just because I’m around all English speakers doesn’t mean I won’t mangle some French or Spanish in there.

I am someone who doesn’t use bad language as a rule, but believe me, I abused the heck out of knowing the curse words in my other languages, especially in French at work, I swear.

I read a lot of French in the past, sight translating it. I went crazy and collected French music and sometimes randomly sing it.

My friend is learning Spanish to communicate with her step-mother-in-law, and it has sparked a reawakening of both languages in my mind, not just Spanish. I’m mixing in more words in thoughts and spoken sentences than I have in years.

I find it irritating to be told people don’t act like I did myself and that shouldn’t be in the story. I lived it like this, so it shapes my writing. Maybe I’m not the most popular example, but I’m not invalid, either. I exist. I did this. So people do it.

My point with languages like everything else is that it’s unique to the individual. Someone else’s experience as a bilingual/trilingual will be different from mine, and I accept that. I just wish I wasn’t seeing a very popular post going around telling me what I lived was wrong and telling thousands of writers not to write like I lived.

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The Tragedy of the Hats

So I made a mistake.

I ordered some hats online. I had good intentions. I had ideals. I had these notions that if they were going to sell hats, they knew what they were doing. I figured the hats were pretty and the thing I had to worry about most was them fitting my head, right?

Oh, no. No, I was wrong.

I waited. Waited. And waited.

And then I finally come home after a really rotten day of work, see packages in the mailbox and on the porch and get excited.

The porch one was Whim’s proof, wrong again and making me feel like burning it in frustration.

Still, that was somewhat less of a let down than opening up a bag to find it is full of hats. Yes, my hats came in a bag. Three of them in individual bags, placed in a larger bag. This had the effect of knocking off their decoration, if it was ever on, causing one to look like a bird had died, with its feathers all mangled. Still, I could have lived with broken decorations.

The hats themselves have been smooshed so badly they’re bent with a permanent crease and several indentations that won’t come out. I’ve tried to fix that, but I can’t.

My hats are misshapen lumps. Worse still is that I bought one to replace one that was already damaged/misshapen, and now its replacement is misshapen, too.

I am so depressed by this. I love hats. I never managed to do the hat challenge I put to myself years ago, but I still love my hats.

Only… these are ruined and I can’t wear any of them tomorrow like I would have.

And I keep asking myself, “who ships hats in a bag???”

*sigh*

I need new hats. I wish it was worth trying to return these, but it’s not, so I am stuck with misshapen lumps of hat and a very strong need to cry.