A year ago, I posted this memory about my Mother, on what would have been her 73rd birthday.  In that entry, I promised to find another photograph that appeared in Better Homes & Garden.  It took me awhile, but I finally found it and scanned it in.  I packed the magazine away in her memory box and didn't get a good fix on the date; I won't pull it out now because it makes me too sad.  It's sometime in 1963.  I'm glad, however, to be able to show it here.  I also have an 8x10 of just her, as seen in the cover here, hanging on the wall downstairs.  In this one, it's just her, shot against one of those blue screens (the cover below is a composite).  There aren't many pictures of when she was younger because everything she had was lost in a house fire in January 1999.  Click on the image for a close-up.


Happy birthday, Mom.  Sleep peacefully, wherever you are.

Late last night (11 p.m.), the world lost a bright spot, one who should have been around for many, many years to come.  Our dear friend Les Reese passed away in New Mexico, from complications sustained from an ATV accident earlier this month.  I am crying as I write this, so I can't think to write very eloquently.  For that, please visit The Husband's LiveJournal -- (westonochse) -- and read what he wrote about Les.  He leaves behind a wife whose heart is surely broken and many, many friends who will miss his easy smile and cheerful ways.  Below is a picture I took of Les with The Husband in May of 2001, at the World Horror Convention in Seattle, Washington.

I have been in yet another training program all week and buried in homework each night, so I haven't said much.  armoire_man left us on Monday, and then when I thought I'd do a quick email check late this evening before bed, I found emails from two people back in Chicago telling me that my former boss, David Kayner, died yesterday.  Even though I left the firm in 1999, we'd kept in touch.  David absolutely loved to talk to anyone about everything-- he was just that kind of person-- and he loved to laugh.  Like everyone, he also had his "moments," which after leaving the firm, I could look back on and laugh about (even with him).  In fact, I'd just talked to him about two weeks ago.  He'd been ill for a long time, bouncing in and out of hospitals and rehab centers, and he had just gone back into the hospital after what everyone thought had been a great leap forward in his health.  I didn't get to say much more than "Hi," because he told me he had people who were there to visit.

David was a good friend to me while I worked for him, and he stayed a good friend afterward.  I spent 10 years of my life sitting at a desk within ten feet of his office door, five days a week.  I sure will miss him.

I had other things to say today, but saying goodbye to armoire_man is much, much more important.

Rest in peace, Richard.  Many people miss you.

I suppose I have many of the usual resolutions that everyone else has-- eat less, stress less, exercise more, be nicer, yadda yadda, yadda.  I won't bother with listing them because as far as I'm concerned, there is only one in my life that really counts:


As 2006 has proven repeatedly, I am not happy if I don't write.  While there are many wonderful things about my life, I am empty and unfulfilled, I am miserable, if I can't squeeze writing into my life.  There was once a time when everything revolved around my writing, but it has somehow evolved to the opposite: now my writing revolves around everything else and as a result it takes a backseat to everything else.  I have to turn it back to where it was or face and accept that fact that this means I am no longer a writer.  This has been going on for so long that, indeed, this may already have become fact, and I can't fathom continuing this way emotionally year after year after year.  The last novel I managed to complete was a tie-in, Ultraviolet, in March of 2005.  The last solo novel was Mirror Me, way back in December of 2001.  Here and there between March 2005 and now were some stories and essays, but they, too, have dribbled away to no output.  I blame part of this on my former agent, who I think took much of the momentum out of my career by lying for several years about submitting Mirror Me (which was finally published by a small press in January 2004, but never made a paperback sale), but let's be honest: a writer certainly can't sell something that hasn't been written.  The responsibility for the switch in priorities rests solely on me-- I let other things and people and circumstances in my life smother the thing I love the most.  I, and only I, allowed this to happen.  And it has to me who unhappens it.  So.

Here are those who are gone but not forgotten with the passing of an old year and the birthing of a new one.  In fact, as I get older, I seem to remember-- and miss-- these wonderful spirits more each year.
Relatives:

Yvonne Spraggins, Rochelle Holmes, Debra Pique, Kay and Andrew Kish, Garlon and Virginia Sanders, Eddie and Mazie Buechel.

Friends:

Patty Wold, Dorothy Harrington, Charlie Grant, Mark Siegel, David Gemmell.

Pets:

Frisky, King, Coco, Daffy, Chanci, Lily.

Happy 2007.  Let's get on with it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

End of the day word count at 10:51 p.m.:

4,343 / 120,000 (3.6%)