The F-Word

Recently I had to listen to a series of tapes for something.  While I can’t quote from them, I’d like to present a fictional bit of dialog that gives the general flavor.

“Did you close the fuckin’ door?”

“Yeah, baby.  I closed it.  Don’t fuckin’ worry about it.  Could you help me put away the fuckin’ groceries?  I got your favorite fuckin’ ice cream.”

“Fuckin’ A!  That’s great, sweetheart!  We can fuckin’ eat it while we’re watching that new fuckin’ movie by Micheal Bay.  Think that’d be some fuckin’ fun?”

Now, I’d be the first to say that my general speech is not drawing room fashion at all –at all.  But after listening to several hours of the aforementioned dialog, I just want to limit my vocabulary to the mildest of Mauve Decade euphemisms. No, not out of prudery, but because the Heavy Seven have been overused to the point of not delivering their original intent – shock value.  The f-bomb[1] is no longer shocking or anything in many contexts.  It’s just boring and tedious.

As a writer, I’m all about using language to deliver an emotional impact, mind you.  The thing is, shock value of any sort requires judicious usage.  If I called someone “cupcake”, ferinstance, every single time I’d been vexed, it would have no impact.  However, it’s a well-known verbal tic of mine that people know gets used when a serious line has been crossed.  The rarity value gives it its power.

I’m not saying swearing doesn’t have its place.  It does.  But after the last few weeks, I sure have decided I want to do it a bit less!


[1] Not that I’d never use the word, but how often would you use it if you limited yourself to discussing copulation, in which case, it might be le mot juste.

Back in the Pool

I’ve been psycho busy today. Taught a class this morning; had a meeting this afternoon. Fortunately it was at the gym and right before lap swim started for the afternoon. So I wore my bathing suit as my underwear before the meeting at the gym and brought my gym bag. You see, I was feeling grumpy and stressed and achy, so I thought I’d go ahead and work the kinks out in the water. I’ve been trying to get in more exercise and my joints were hurting. Hence, the swim.

Ahh, swimming, why I have neglected thee?

It’s been too long since I’ve gotten my butt into the pool. I’m weak as a cat. It took me half an hour to swim half a mile. That’s really kinda slow for me. My upper body isn’t as strong as once it was. That’ll change soon enough, though I expect I’ll be sore in the morning.

But, oh swimming feels so very good. There’s something almost magical about slicing through the water, concentrating on the breathing rhythm, and feeling the bubbles slide past. I generally get out of the pool after a good swim feeling an enormous sense of satisfaction, bordering on afterglow.

Now why was I not swimming again?

At the Foot of the Throne

I’ve released At the Foot of the Throne as a Kindle book.  It’s 99 cents, so not a huge risk if you wanna check it out.

Rags to riches and finding True Love is not always all that the fairy tales say. In AT THE FOOT OF THE THRONE, two countries stand on the brink of war, and a young villager finds herself thrown into the center of the conflict.

A small shepherding community on the border of Lotharia and Sudra is destroyed leaving Marra the sole survivor. Pitched into the unstable politics between the two nations, Marra finds herself ordered to rebuild the strategically-important town in the hopes of preventing a war between the two nations.

If you don’t own a Kindle, but want to get it anyway, keep in mind that Amazon has e-reader software for its book in many formats — PC, MAC, and many mobile devices.

Efficient Wood Stove Heat

A fan in a window with duct tapeI have a wood stove, and while I love it, it has some of the drawbacks of something that uses ambient heat to raise the temperature in the house. The heat tends to stay in a single room.

When I was a child, our wood stove was in the basement in the laundry room. Sure, sure, there was a straight line from the wood stove up the stairs to heat the house, but still, when it was 90 in the laundry room it might be 60 upstairs.

Daddy rigged up a fan system that was controlled by a temperature switch to help with this. I never did pay attention to the details, other than knowing it existed, but that was enough to help me solve my own problem in my house.

My wood stove is in the jungle room, a plant-filled entryway to my house that leads into my kitchen through a large open doorway. It also has an open window frame leading into the dining room and living area of my home. Without a fan, I can heat the jungle room to around 80 without significantly warming much more than the kitchen. I like hanging out in the jungle room, as it has comfy chairs and it’s nice to be in a room with lots of windows and plants, but I’d rather get more efficient heat in the rest of my house!

I have a fan with a temperature control, though I can’t just set it to, say 65F. It’s just a wheel with no actual gauge, but that’s okay. I can put a thermometer next to it and set it to come on when the temperature gets where I want it, manually. Then, if I put the fan in the window leading to the rest of the house it automatically will blow the warm air from the jungle room into the living and dining room, making the wood stove a much more efficient source of heat for a larger part of the house. It’s also nice because we don’t have to turn it off at night. When the fire goes out and the temperature drops, it’ll turn off all by itself.

Yes, this is rigged with duct tape. Possibly next summer I’ll build some sort of fancy frame to insert into the window for it, but hey… it has a light side, a dark side and it binds the Universe together.