Author: Jonathon

It’s been a good news; bad news kind of day. Good news; I’m out of my leg brace. Bad news; it’s not healing up the way the doctor would like, so I’ll be needing an MRI. There maybe something torn in my ankle, or not. We’ll find out. She said something about needing to be "repaired". Isn’t that doctor speak for surgery? That gentle hint is going to make me hit my physical therapy with renewed vigor, and get that last piece of exercise equipment the doctor thought would be useful.

Good news; Jon and I have finished the edits all the way to the new more punchier end line that I came up with today. Bad news; I still have three brand new scenes to do. They have to be done tomorrow. They have to be good, no, amazing, and done, and it all has to be e-mailed to New York before close of business tomorrow. Oh, and there are like a list of research questions that are still outstanding. Military radio protocol, what rank would most likely be in certain jobs, armored vehicles, and the difference between military and civilian humvee; just some of the questions I need answers to tomorrow. Most of them are yes, no questions, or just one last chance to try and get it right before it goes to New York.

Oh, and why am I needing all this military research on a Merry book? I got to do a lot of fun stuff with SWALLOWING DARKNESS, that I’d never gotten to do in a Merry book. In fact, I really thought Anita would get to play with the National Guard first, but nope, my fairie princess has beat my vampire executioner to the military back up. Surprised me, too.

Jon and I are finishing up the edits for SWALLOWING DARKNESS for the day. I’m so tired my eyes burn. What is Jon doing? Acting as sounding board, and typing in my handwritten notes. Though, on long notes, I am actually typing them on the lap top and he’s importing them to the desk top. It is the first time I’ve edited where I found typing on the computer worked better than just writing by hand. Maybe I’ll embrace this whole technology gig some day.

I’m hoping we can finish tomorrow. It would be really, really nice to enjoy tomorrow’s date night, by doing something other than working through it.

Jon and I went to an introduction Krav Maga class today. We’d done our research, and this is one of the best fighting styles for personal defense. It’s a real world martial of the Israeli Defense Forces. It’s also very popular with professional bodyguards. So, all and all, a good pedigree, so why are we probably not going back for the foreseeable future?

One, I’m still in a brace for my ankle and will be for all exercise until my doctor says otherwise. There are just loads of Krav Maga moves that I either can’t do, or the discomfort level is pretty high. Jonathon discovered at the end of the lesson that his bad knee was giving him fits. We both agreed that we have to be in better shape to do this martial art. But, for me, there was also the feeling that my dexterity score does not cover this. I felt completely out of my depth, and the instructor, though very nice, and competent, didn’t seem to make much allowance for the fact that some of the class didn’t know what the heck was going on. I suspect strongly that he is one of those natural athletes, the only problem with anyone who is a natural at anything is that they aren’t as good at explaining their art to those of us who are so not naturals. I would need private instruction, which they offer, just to get up to speed enough to be comfortable in the class. But also, I found that my years of doing one martial art or another had taught me bad habits. I kept trying to punch as if it were Karate of some flavor, and it’s more like boxing for the hands, and even the feet. My foot work was okay, because the stance is closer to Judo, my favorite martial art, though the movement is more jujitsu, though not.

Anyway, Jonathon and I have to get off the injured list before we can reasonably hope to do something as physical as Krav Maga. Frankly, until we build up some muscle around our joint injuries, I think we may have to put the martial arts on hold. Weight lifting maybe boring, but I think it’s like building a house. You have to put the foundation on, before you can build the more interesting parts higher up.

We’ve done our research, and if you’re serious about real world self defense, and you aren’t on the injured list, or put together in a fragile manner, then Krav Maga would be a good martial art to look into. We’re waiting for Jon’s orthopedic knee brace to get fitted, and me to get out of the ankle brace. But for right now, we’ll keep going to pilates and adding yoga. And we’ll up the weight lifting. For the near future, more gentle exercise is going to have to be the order of the day.

Saw Dark Knight. I’ve been hearing people brag about it, so maybe nothing could have lived up to the hype, but . . . Jon and I both thought it was slow at the beginning. Heath Ledger saved the movie for us, and he certainly deserves all the praise he has been getting for his performance. It is very sad that he will not be alive to receive the acclaim in person. His Joker is closer to the villains of horror films than comic books. He was as scary as Jason, or Freddy, or a host of others. In some ways, it was as if he was doing a slightly different and more disturbing movie than the rest of the cast. Christian Bale does a fine job, but the Caped Crusader is a hard act to make as interesting as the villains. All the actors that play Bat Man have to struggle with that age old problem of how to make good as fun to play as bad. Especially when you’ve got Heath Ledger’s Joker to play against. When Ledger was on screen, no one else really existed. Though the actor who played Harvey Dent, Aaron Eckhart, did a wonderful job, too. His hospital scene opposite Ledger’s Joker was a chilling moment. There are many fine performances, and great stunts, and lot’s of special effects, and money on the screen, but . . .

Go see it, if for nothing else than Ledger’s Joker. Amazing. But, for us, it just didn’t have the impact of Batman Begins. Not sure why, really, but it just didn’t. In fact, if I was listing the summer movies in order of preference, this might be last. But then, it’s been a great summer for movies. Wall-e; Kung-Fu Panda; Wanted; Indiana Jones; Iron Man; Hancock;The Hulk; a great summer for movies. I guess, if I was listing movies that would be my order, but as I type this, I realize that I might put Dark Knight ahead of The Hulk. The Hulk is a more satisfying movie, but I don’t know when I’ve seen a more satisfying and disturbing character performance than Ledger’s the Joker. Jon would put Iron Man higher on his list, and it is a great movie. We saw it twice, which I cannot say for anything else on the list. We will own it when it comes out on DVD.

Oh, and the fact that I put Hancock ahead of both The Hulk and Dark Knight . . . Hancock was a flawed movie, I won’t argue that, but the story line was ambitious, and after days of thinking about it, I can’t figure out how to fix the big twist in the movie, without giving it all away. If I can’t figure out to do it better, I try not to bitch. Also, Will Smith can carry a movie on his back, up a hill in a snow storm; and make you applaud the whole way. Sadly, Heath Ledger was becoming that kind of star, too. With his early passing, we lost a lot of potential screen magic.

Still editing SWALLOWING DARKNESS. The line by line edit is always the most time consuming. It’s always more fun to work on first draft then the painstaking polishing. Though, there are writers that prefer the polishing to the first draft. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Today is also Lammas, which is a festival for our religion. It’s the celebration of the first harvest. Some Wiccan traditions celebrate it on the first of August, but one of the benefits of being eclectic is that if the second of August works out better, then you can celebrate on that day. Traditional for us is to look at what we’ve harvested at this point this year, and celebrate and be thankful for it. I usually end up including all the usual things, marriage, husband, kid, pets, and the latest book, or project. What have you harvested so far this year? Lammas is the first check of the year, to get you paying attention to what you’ve accomplished, and what you still hope to accomplish this year, and celebrate what you have already brought into your life. Celebrate what you have already harvested for the year: friendship, money, new car, whatever means something to you. No judgments on that. Be honest with yourself, what are you grateful for, what do you want badly enough to put work and effort into it? The next time to check your hopes and goals for the year will be Autumn equinox, also known as Mabon. Wiccan year, actually ends for our tradition on Halloween. All Hallow’s Eve is the end of the year for us, so by Mabon, whatever we’re planning to accomplish better be close. The idea that the year ends then, is based on the old idea that you better harvest everything you can by then, because Winter is coming. This day and age, you can have fresh tomatoes in February, but they don’t taste as good. We bought some heirloom tomatoes today, organic and pure as we could find them and not grow them ourselves (though we’re thinking about trying that next year), and we tasted the sun in every bite. More than any other fruit or vegetable a good tomato is the taste of summer for me. I’ll leave you with a blessing:

"When we eat the good bread, we are eating months of sunlight, weeks of rain and snow from the sky, richness out of the earth. We should be great, each of us radiant, full of music and full of stories. Able to run the way clouds do, able to dance like the snow and the rain. But nobody takes time to think that he eats all these things and that sun, rain, snow are all a part of himself."

-Monica Shannon (1905-1965)

The quote is from the book, BLESS THIS FOOD, ancient and contemporary graces from around the world,, compiled and edited by Adrian Butash.

I’ve worked on the rewrite of SWALLOWING DARKNESS all day. I’m damn near cross-eyed from it. Got to take a break. I’ve just finished walking my office back and forth until I got my pedometer to go over 5,000 steps. I find that it’s better to keep track of your step count than your time walking. I’ve really missed my treadmill time. Today was the first time I actually allowed myself to "exercise" walk. My ankle is letting me know that it’s still not well. I see the doctor later next week. Still wearing the brace most of the time, but I’m much better. Not nearly as painful.

But the walking, though making my ankle ache, made the rest of me feel better. A little more clear headed, and not so fuzzy. Rewrite is due next week, so probably will work some this weekend. Not a lot, but some. I found a quote that I’ve put near my computer on the main desk: "There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want, and after that, to enjoy it." Logan Pearsall Smith.

I’m pretty good at the first part; it’s the second part I’m not so good at. But you know what they say, the first step to learning a new habit, or getting rid of an old one, is to acknowledge the need for change. I need to change. Because if you don’t allow yourself to enjoy your success, you become a sort of slave to it. There are days when I feel like Marley from Charles Dickens’s "A Christmas Carol," you know when he shows up with all the ghostly chains. Now, his chains are formed of greed and cruelty, and that’s not my problem. But chains can be made up of anything that weighs you down, and my lack of enjoyment does just that. A work ethic is great, but you also need to enjoy yourself, or what are you working for?

Remember when I talked about us watching the movie "Real Genius" last weekend? This next bit is a spoiler, but the movie has been out since 1985, and so, I guess it’s not like I’m doing spoilers for "Dark Knight", but be warned, the next part is a spoiler. Ready?

There are two main characters of the movie. Val Kilmer’s character, Chris Knight, was once the best and brightest at a college that specializes in geniuses, but now there is a fifteen-year-old wunder-kin, whose supposed to be as bright or brighter. But Chris isn’t jealous, he asks to room with the kid. Why? Because, he feels that once he was Mitch, the kid, played by Gabriel Jarret, and he wanted to room with his old self. The kid is very buttoned up, and very, very serious about his work. Chris is not. In fact, he’s a party guy, and the life of the party. He spends the early part of the movie trying to get Mitch to lighten up, and uses another older genius that broke under the pressure as a warning to Mitch, and himself, that if you don’t lighten up, you break. So far, so good, but then Chris’s character’s behavior endangers his entire future. His partying ways, and his neglect of his work threatens to loose him a chance to graduate and the job he thinks is already his after college. It takes Mitch’s help to save Chris’s future. By the end of the movie Mitch is enjoying his life more, and has a girl friend. Chris is still having a good time, (look for the bunny slippers at the end), but he’s also realized that maybe a little work and seriousness has it’s uses. The message that I took away from the movie was that if you’re too serious, you go nuts, and have no fun, but if you have only fun, you throw away everything, and end up with nothing. It’s the middle ground between the two extremes that is successful, and enjoyable.

I have to say, I finished the movie and wondered if I was Mitch? I’ll never be Chris. I’m far too serious for that. Besides, I knew guys in high school and college that were like Chris (without the genius part), and I found them shallow and insincere. Or that’s how they hit my radar. Truthfully, like the two characters in the film I found that the party guys needed a little of Mitch’s sincerity to make me be interested in them, but the Mitchs of the world needed a little of that lightness to keep the two of us from being so serious it wasn’t any fun to date each other. I need a man who makes me laugh, and can take me out of myself, because I live in a world that can get very dark, and very, very serious. Some people think that’s what being a grown-up means, but it doesn’t. If you’re careful, you can be pretty much the same person as an adult that you were as a child. I was a very serious child. I am a grown-up that gets paid for sitting alone in a room and playing with my imaginary friends. I just write down my games now, and share them with you guys. But, in the end, I get paid to play let’s-pretend. I was doing the same thing at seven, though admittedly, with a less adult content.

But somewhere in all that "play" I’m struggling to have fun. When did my "play" become just work? When did I cross the boundary from Chris-land and slide back into Mitch-world? Where is my middle ground? One of the reasons that Jon and I work is a couple is that he is better at having fun than I am, so he helps me lighten up. I help him be more serious, and work better. It’s a balance. But lately, he can only lighten me up so far, and I’m left with the thought: am I Mitch at the beginning of the movie, and if I don’t get a little more Chris Knight in me, will I break?

Phouka is home and she’s fine. There was lot’s of work done today, but frankly, in the grand scheme of things that our Phouka-dozer is home and gazing up at me, hoping for treats, is the best thing of the day. Tomorrow I’ll talk about writing, or maybe ring tones, and other technology, but today, it’s all about the dog.

Oh, why the nickname Phouka-dozer? Because since she went blind she will barrel along full tilt until she hits something, then stagger back, shake it off, and keep going. She’s darn near taken us all out individually by hitting us in the legs at just the wrong moment.

Deep into the rewrite of SWALLOWING DARKNESS. By next week it should be done and back to New York. I’m about 380 pages into the next Anita book. I hope to have a title soon. Let you know when I know.

I’ve written and rewritten the bottom half of this blog four times now. I give up. I keep over sharing, or letting my mood drip all over the page. I’ll take my mood to bed, and leave you with my worry. Phouka goes in for her operation tomorrow, and I can’t convince myself that it will be all right. Hopefully, when I blog tomorrow it will be in a lighter frame of mind, and my dog will be downstairs recovering.

Phouka is sleeping beside my desk chair. This is the longest she’s been in the new office at any given time. Maybe she’s finally getting used to the new landscape. When she first started coming up here, her tail would uncurl, (a sign of an unhappy or over heated pug) and she’d be very tentative about walking around. For those who don’t know, Phouka went completely blind before the edition was put on the house, so she is totally unfamiliar with the new office. She would stand in the middle of the floor with her unhappy tail, and wait to be rescued. But today, after I carried her up the scary stairs, she settled into one of the dog beds, then began to wonder the office, as she usually does. But, her tail was up in a happy curl, and she bulldozed her way into and through obstacles. There was nothing tentative to how my very solidly built little dog moved around the room. It was more the way she barrels through the main part of the house. Now she’s asleep beside my chair, and it is the first time she’s gone to snoring sleep beside me in the new office. I’m glad she’s finally settling in, because on Thursday she goes in for an operation. There’s a mole on her tummy, that we were worried about, and of course, it’s nothing to worry about. It’s the lump on her leg that is something to worry about. We knew that was there, but the first time the doctors looked at it, they weren’t worried, now they are. They’re removing both the mole and lump this week. Phouka is twelve this year, and pugs can have breathing problems anyway, so I’m a little nervous about her going in under anethsia. All right, a lot nervous. It probably has something to do with Pugsley, my first pug, dieing during a routine operation. She was only eight. What killed her though was an undiscovered heart malfunction that she’d had since birth. That is why all of our dogs get a full heart work up as puppies, just in case. Sasquatch actually did have a heart murmur as a puppy, but it healed itself, as small ones sometimes do, on people as well as animals.

So, I’m sitting here with my dog beside me, a little anxious. She’s got her head resting on the leg of my chair, and though I’ve done eight pages, and would love another cup of tea, I’m reluctant to get up. I don’t want to disturb her the very first time she has settled into my office as if it were the old office, and she was at home again. She’s snoring away, as a well bred pug will do, and I really, really want her to be around as long as Jimmy was. He made it to seventeen. That would be like five more years. That would be cool. The only real downside to dogs is that they don’t last long enough.