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Yeah, I guess so. Thanks to the world’s longest-running respiratory crap, the death of our beloved dachshund, Riley, and a generally bad attitude, I’ve left you all unburdened by my jaundiced point of view for far too many months.
Riley the WonderDog
“Self,” I said to the blurry shape in the mirror this morning, “it’s time to climb back onto the horse.”
“Trite,” whispered Self.
“Self-righteous, critical bitch,” I muttered.
“I’m more of a pedant.” Self wrinkled her nose at me as I switched off the bathroom light.
Here’s the problem: My imagination has been lying in a bone-dry arroyo at the edge of a desert for a while now. Not even vultures fly over the spot anymore. But, I keep having these bizarre dreams and my long-suffering husband has described some of the things I’ve been saying while I sleep. The least embarrassing was my rendition of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” at about three in the morning. (I got all the words right.) You can take the creativity out of the writer but you can’t take the patriotism–oh, never mind.
The upshot of this situation is, I have to write whatever comes to mind, as sparse as that might be, until I stop these serenades. It’s too unsettling to think of some of the things I might say while under the influence of sleep. Hmmm, there’s the germ of a plot idea in that. Okay, I might give that some thought.
I hope all of you–the eight regulars who breathlessly await my ponderous insights–have launched upon a shiny new year. Really, I do. I’ve been in a funk long enough not to expect that for myself, but I genuinely hope you are finding life fruitful and absorbing. I hope the writers among you are producing vast quantities of clever words and compelling ideas. I hope kindness and reason fill the spaces among our thoughts so we might foster creative ideas.
My sentiments may be overdue, but they are, nonetheless, heartfelt: Happy New Year.
No, I haven’t died. I’ve been in a funk–what Holly Golightly called the Mean Reds. It happens sometimes: the fountain of insane notions in my head dries up and I stumble around thinking about such killer ideas as grocery lists and Things I Must Do. Also Things I Haven’t Done. Guilt stew with sad on the side.
for 99 cents, and Book Two, A Signal Shown, is selling for $1.99. 
I first saw The Wolf Man as a kid, watching it on one of Denver’s TV channels, probably presented as a “Fright Night” special. The story is basic, about a man newly returned to his British home, at odds with his father, the lord of the manor. Lon Chaney, Jr., son of silent movie acting sensation, Lon Chaney, plays the son, Larry Talbot, as a sad outsider who soon falls victim to a nasty malady in the county: a werewolf bites him and thereafter he is forced to terrorize the area each month in search of blood. He searches for information–from the doctor, from the villagers, including the old Romani woman who finally tells him the truth. He is now a werewolf and there is no cure but death. His personal horror at what he’s become is what I best recalled from my early viewing of the film. He fights to avoid hurting anyone, particularly the young woman who’s interested in him. He can’t connect with his father, leaving him alone with his terrible secret. It was that existential loneliness I remembered, heightened by its being filmed in black and white. Though the special effects were low-tech, the movie continues to have an emotional impact on me to this day.
So, emotional horror as opposed to physical horror…There’s a place for both, no doubt, but I was struck, as I compared the two films, at how much more affected I was by the old black and white movie over the shiny, bloody one. I’m sure it says something about my esthetic state, but I’m damned if I know what. Both films are worth watching, especially during the month of Halloween.
For decades I’ve lived in an old three-story house in an older section of Denver. The first night I spent alone in it I was reading in bed, eyes growing heavy as the sounds of traffic and passersby ebbed. I was nearly asleep when I heard footsteps.