Even Writers Must Clean House Sometime!

March 28, 2023August 12, 2023 ~ JSpoon ~ Leave a comment

When I am not backspacing the black keys with whited letters and deleting an error that I find essential to be wiped out; a letter, word, phrase, an entire sentence, or paragraph, the dust is piling up. I can NEVER bring myself to delete an entire page or document––that is asking too much. I hit save and forever in cyber space, up and into the cloud it floats. It floats until I go searching and demanding its return. Errors float upward and dust floats downward.

I, the industrious error-saver, need to refer to former mistakes. That is how I learn to do better. The problem lies within black font on the white page: How do I know it is indeed a mistake, or just what someone says is? One must ponder many hours for an answer, and I don’t have time. (I have dusting to do.)

A good place to begin trusting is the red squiggly line in the body of text––who can miss it? Or the blue double-underline. Thanks to a nefarious software update, I now must fight the purple line indicating a grammar usage error. Au contraire my friend! I sit before the screen . . . smug and self-righteous knowing this program is not always correct! I wonder what Tolkien, Shakespeare, or Hemingway would have done with this purple monster. I wish to write outside the box, of sentence structure extraordinaire. (Hmm. Maybe I should wait until I’m famous because no one seems to appreciate this flair.)

These colors bring as much anxiety of the returned, red-inked homework in grade school. It is the first clue that someone, rather, someone ‘out there’ believes it to be an error and must be obliterated like the dust off an entertainment center. Whoosh! Gone with the wind.

A clean household requires furniture and objects resting on them be dusted with a puff of ostrich feathers. While performing this sneeze-inducing chore, I pretend that I am deleting phrases, misspellings, dangling modifiers, and comma splices with the flick of my wrist––believe me, there are plenty of both. Yet the feather duster sends it to the cloud and unlike The Cloud, dust returns all on its own––no searching for it finds me!

In my white-glove post-dusting test, a phenomenon had come to light. Perhaps it was the white of the glove trailing through the overlooked dust upon the black table that invoked the revelation: I love black upon white and vice versa!

I love problems that can be solved with black and white precision. I love a white page on the computer screen filled with black text. (Unless it is an unpaid invoice.) I love white vehicles (like my Toyota) trimmed in black. I love my house of white with windows trimmed in black. I love my kitchen cabinets painted white with black pulls on them. I’m guessing that you, dear reader, can guess the color of the countertop.

It is safe to say, “Janet loves white things trimmed with black.” Most theorize it reflects her tendency to interpret life in black and white. Who am I kidding? No one ‘out there’ is sitting posed as the thinker sculpture ruminating the psychology of my idiosyncrasy.

I do tend to take things quite literally. Yet I have learned life is not that way. Everything is gray and covered in dust.”

All My Pets are Named Peeve

June 22, 2022 ~ JSpoon ~ Leave a comment

This is my dog Jett

It’s true. Mostly. I have a cute little puppy named Jett. That’s short for his registered foo-foo name of Jett Sun’s Joie de Vie Song. Pretentious, pompous, and hard to spell. His registered name reads Jett Sun’s Joie de Vie Song. Joie de Vie is a French phrase meaning Joy of Life.

But I digress.

But all other pets are named Peeve. I was asked to list them once not so long ago but ran out of time and space.

I don’t claim to have an all-time top favorite peeve; about the time I decide to name it as such, another one comes along and pushes it out of place.

For instance, anyone who melts food in Tupperware in the microwave really gets my goat––my goat named Peeve. For a long time that one took home the Blue Ribbon; and a close second was the disappearing lid. Like socks gobbled by the washer, where do lids go? I suspect the washing machine or the garbage bin. There’s a possibility they are in cahoots.

For years these were the only true peeves I thought I owned. Then I encountered my first Costco parking lot. Ugly plastic dishes move aside, parking lots are numeral uno. Peeves shape-shift.

I suppose ye ol’ grammar complaints of the misuse of you’re/ your and the improper use of there/their/there are common peeves, but the most annoying to me is the mispronunciation of important said as impordant. Highly educated people say it all the time. I don’t even enunciate the first t clearly; I just kind of skip it. But I never say the t as d. I don’t know why it bothers me; it just does. Grammar peeves are not just for grammar tyrants.

I know someone who has a peeve named Litrally. I tell her how I interpreted her message litrally and she replies how impordant it is to not do so.

It’s possible that I grate the nerves of listeners when I Oklahoma-fy the washing machine. I never wash the clothes. I warsh the filthy critters.

Other peeves include but not necessarily in order of importance:

Wobbly table legs.

Having to listen to a public one-sided phone conversation. Most people talk extra loud too. UGH!

People who talk in slow-mo.

People who talk in warp-speed. (Yes, call me Goldy Locks).

Slow internet.

People who stare at my face while I talk then ask me to answer a question that I had just explained.

People come to visit you and spend the entire time texting or scrolling through social media.

Speech givers who promise to make a point but go down a gazillion rabbit holes and never return.

People in proximity that sneeze without covering the mouth. YUCK!

Kissing sounds. (shudder)

People who keep walking behind my car while I am backing out of a parking space, sounding off alarms.

People who walk down the middle of parking lot drive space.

When the spacing feature bugs out on my word processor program.

People who have more than 14 pet peeves. They are grumpy gills.

A Chansonette

February 25, 2022 ~ JSpoon ~ Leave a comment

Here begins this chansonette.

This may be higgledy-piggledy,

A verse prone to rejectamenta,

A bit of flapdoodle-doo,

With lots of squiggle-diggle-ty.

I nearly spewed my mawkish tea,

While expanding my vocabulary,

The word-of-the-day’s speciality,

This assignment is now

quite ready to go, you see?

yet I have mispronounced thee.

Please forgive.

Most of this piece

does not rhyme.

But if I can do it,

I will find and make

the thyme

for this silly little

chansonette.

Please forgive.

Quest

October 27, 2018 ~ JSpoon ~ Leave a comment

Letters float and bubble up,
they string on weathered thread,
like popcorn strands on Christmas trees.
I clutch and nick and chomp and chew,
subsequently disintegrate,
with painful, funny, contorting moue.

Letter float and bubble up,
black on white in cytoplasmic fill,
they string and coil as DNA that replicate
I mush and mash and press and pound
a finger-tip from coherence,
little faith, am I not to be crowned?

Letters float and bubble up,
with orange threads of goo
like momma’s lava lamp.
Before my eyes I mesmerize,
I hook and hasp and snap and clasp,
Exasperated, I bowdlerize.

Q hovers and glides aside.
Me thinks Q is longing for U.

Dirty Deeds Done on Spoon Lane–– Part Two

August 11, 2018 ~ JSpoon ~ 2 Comments

crime scene do not cross signage — Photo by kat wilcox on Pexels.com

It’s strange to think how selective memory can be: I remember details leading up to, during, and following this event, but I cannot remember what my punishment was from the courts. I must have been let off the hook legally, but rest assured parental punishment was indeed plotted, planned, and executed.

After the story’s conclusion, you’ll find a list of details that are true events and what was added for the resolution of the story’s sake.

Dirty Deeds Done on Spoon Lane–– Part Two

Mom’s philosophy is that if you’re not early, you’re late. It’s 9:15 a.m. and we pile into the ‘65 Belair and make the five-minute drive into town. She says nothing, thankfully. My stomach bubbles like a volcano of baking soda and vinegar.

The makeshift courtroom, in the Cottonwood Library, scant of furniture and dimly lit, is empty but for us two silent souls. Teary-eyed teenagers with stern-faced and weary parents shuffle in two by two. The air, stale, still, and thick with tension suffocates. Judge McCabe swaggers in and slides into position. The “all rise” does not come, but we stand anyway. I am surprised that I am first on the docket. I can’t detect his mood.

“How do you plead?” he asks.

I say I am guilty. Every muscle is shaking as I speak.

Mom stuns the room with a request that I be sent to Juvenile Hall. I want to burst with laughter at the thought ––me decked out in pin-striped prison garb. But I tamp the urge down deep. I think the request is ridiculous. The looks on the faces of everyone in the room echo my sentiments. No one breathes. The judge stares deep into my mother’s eyes and questions her.

“Does she meet her curfew? Does she do her chores? Does she get good grades?” he asks. He looks annoyed.

Mom answers yes to all three.

“Lady, you don’t have a problem,” he announces, “Request denied,” as he whacks the gavel onto the wooden table and calls for the next law-breaker.

The already stale, dull air fills with the sound of air escaping our lungs. Everything is blurry. I smile at the vindication, and we file out and into the car.

Mom is fuming as she informs me David Wilkerson (a religious leader) will hold a meeting in Redding next week and we are going. I say I’d have rather gone to juvie. She adds that maybe I’ll learn to appreciate her. I say I don’t know why she thinks her own daughter is so bad, when clearly, even a complete stranger can see differently. This escalates her anger to a level never seen in all my 16 years. She drives me to the school and I am grateful to escape. Exiting the vehicle, I wonder how I’ll survive the summer months at home, this being the last week of classes. I consider summer school.

It is dusk as I sit at my cheap, particle-board desk, writing my essay on World War ll for American History. A melancholy ballad about the Edmund Fitzgeraldplays on KRDG, the local pop-rock radio station. Mom and Dad discuss the events of the day rather loudly in their bedroom. The phone rings and they quiet. I think I am in a déjà vu. Mom says into the phone she thinks that a great idea, thank you and she will make the arrangements. I hear the click of the receiver. They whisper. I strain to figure out why. Mom and Dad say they are sorry to each other. I imagine them hugging and sicken at the thought they might be kissing.

Dad opens the door of my room without knocking. He tells me his sister, Aunt Carol, who lives in Marcola, Oregon, is sending me a bus ticket and I’m to spend the summer with her. I don’t know who is happier to hear the news: Mom or me. I ask if he thinks that is a good idea since the Oregon family is much more liberal than we Cottonwood straight-laced conservatives.

He answers, “Yes, I know, but this is what your Mom wants. She’s adamant about that David Wilkerson meeting, so you’re not leaving until that’s over.”

He stretches his arms out in a big bear hug, a rare event, and whispers he only wants the best for me. As he leaves, he tells me Mom loves me. I say she has a funny way of showing it.

“Janet, she’s my wife and your mother. You know she comes first with me but that doesn’t mean we agree on everything. I may not agree with her on this latest episode, but we stand together, and I support her regardless,” Dad says with a wistful tone and a sad look in his green eyes.

I close the door, turn up the radio, and do a happy jig to the current tune, Paul McCartney and Wing’s upbeat song, “Band on the Run.”

To satisfy the reader’s curiosity, I have listed below the details as I remember them.

These details are true:

Bus #94.
My Aunt Pat really was my bus driver at times, although I’m not sure if she was on this particular day.
I have 56 first cousins, 46 or so on my father’s side.
My father made me dig in the mud.
I lived in a yellow house at the end of Spoon Lane, and our area was referred to by utility companies as the Bermuda Triangle.
The courtroom exchange between my mother and judge.
The conversations between mother and me.
My Aunt Carol rescued me from a summer of misery.
My favorite song at that time was “Band on the Run.”
I really was required to suffer through a David Wilkerson meeting
My mother really did love me, but she had a funny way of showing it. (I probably made it difficult for her.)

These details are not true:

Anyone who knows my father and the older generation of the Spoon family will know that they never say or do that!

Happy guessing. Hint: it’s in the third to last paragraph.

Dirty Deeds Done on Spoon Lane

August 8, 2018 ~ JSpoon ~ 7 Comments

back bus education school — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I can’t even. Think. I’ve never this stumped before. Writing prompts are not improving the flow of creative energy through the synapses of this brain. So, I decided to post this essay that won second place in my university writing contest in two parts.

Dirty Deeds Done on Spoon Lane
(Part One)

Anderson Union High School bus #94 squeals to a stop and the yellow double doors swing open. The bus driver, Aunt Pat, wishes me good luck as I drag and stall my exit. I dread the half-mile walk home, more so today than any other in my 16 years. I glance at her over my right shoulder and tears begin to sprout from the corner of my blue eyes. I wipe them away.

“You got to go, Janet,” she says, “Get it over with.”

I step out onto the dirt. Five mailboxes line the road; all are labelled SPOON. I grab envelopes from the box reading Tim Spoon. I deliver their mail (it’s on my way home) and go inside for a chat with my cousins and enjoy an ice-cold Coke––staving off the inevitable.

The telephone rings––Mom wants me home.

I have spent my entire life in the tiny town of Cottonwood, California. I say I am from Cottonwood. In truth, I’m not sure. I have a Cottonwood address, Anderson phone number, attended Cottonwood elementary schools and now am at Anderson High School––a Bermuda Triangle. I am in a sea of cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents. No action escapes notice––ever. I am safe from reproach only with my cousins––my cohorts in crime––33 of my 56 first cousins live in Cottonwood proper.

I trek toward home, kicking small rocks from the dirt and gravel with the toe of my black and white Converse tennis shoe. I approach a muddy, slushy pond, divided in two by the road. I grab the contraband from the right front jeans pocket and toss it among the cheerful daffodils, planted years before by my grandmother. I think of her as I stare at the flowers, belying my mood.

Half-way home the surge of a diesel motor snaps me into reality––it’s my Dad. I slump my shoulders and slow my walk to a crawl. He waves, and I am grateful he doesn’t stop for me––that’s his way––no special treatment just because I happen to be his daughter.

I trudge heavy feet up the porch of the yellow house at the end of Spoon Lane. The sliding doors open; Mom’s face is the color of gray ash as she tells me she had an interesting phone call from Mr. Litaker, the school’s principal. I say I know and look around for Dad. His chair is empty, and I know he is still outside. I stomp to my room, slam the door and throw myself down on the squeaky springs of my bed.

Within moments, Dad roars, “Janet Lee, get out here. Now.”

I think how I know I’m in trouble when both names are called. I explain to both parents what happened, holding nothing back. Daddy wants to know what I did with the rest of it. I tell him they are in the pond. Sharp pangs stab at my intestines but it is my elbow he grabs and marches me in silence to the scene of one of my crimes. I dig in the mud. By now a cold spring rain is drizzling then increases in intensity. I wonder if God is weeping over my sins.

“Dad, I’m telling the truth. I threw them in there, but I can’t find them. Please, can we go? I’m freezing,” as I extend muddy hands before him.

I wash the muck from my hands, relishing the water’s warmth. I wash the tears stains, change into pajamas––pink with large, white polka dots––and crawl under bedding. Mom and Dad are arguing in their room, next door. Mom says I ought to be flogged. Dad says just take her driver’s license and keys for the next month. Their bedroom phone rings––twice, before Mom says a weak, timid hello.

A knock at my door drives me from my cocoon. My mother’s shrill voice squawks that my arraignment is set for 10:00 the next morning, in Cottonwood. She shakes her index finger and launches a tirade, a litany of my evils. For the umpteenth time, she asks what kind of mother people will think she is for all my bad behavior. I say she should worry more about what I think. Doors slam. I retreat to beneath the handmade quilt Gramma Spoon willed me. I position the goose-down pillow over my ears and close the baby-blues.

I dream my mug shot, on over-sized posters––Wanted––decorate the walls of the Post Office. Morning comes. My brother and sister get dressed for school. Dad left for work in the woods at 3:00 a.m. Mom reminds me I have other places to go. No one asks if I slept well.

The Woman in the Wallpaper Part Three

July 29, 2018 ~ JSpoon ~ Leave a comment

Today’s post is the conclusion to the short essay titled “The Woman in the Wallpaper.” The piece was composed in response to a course requirement at Simpson University.

This true account was originally written in past tense. At the advice of my professor, for the purpose of this blog (and other future publications) it was rewritten in the present tense, as it is presented here.

The Woman in the Wallpaper Part Three

I’m stretched full-length on a soft, pillowy gray couch. My head rests on a small bolster near the arm and my stockinged toes touch the armrest opposite. The room is dimly lit with lavender scented air that lends to the serene, safe atmosphere. Gail, my crisis counselor, is seated in a plush, charcoal colored, high-backed chair opposite me.

I begin the session with the encounter with my mother. I also tell her of the quiet voice that went unheeded that day. I add that I have never mentioned this to anyone before. I tell Gail how I wanted to tell my mother that God had been trying to keep me from being hurt that day. I say that even though I ignored the voice, God still kept breath and life within my tortured body.

I ask a rhetorical question: “Did my mom forget the phone call to come say good-bye as I was not expected to live through that night?” Gail doesn’t answer.

“You didn’t mention any of this to your mother?” she asks.

“No.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t believe it anyway.” I envision my mother scoffing at the idea that God wanted to keep me safe.

“Why didn’t you get out of the truck?” she questions with a soft and gentle tone yet her steel-gray eyes drill through me like an awl that seems to touch my spine.

My head and shoulders droop, my eyes focus on the fingers of my right hand resting on my lap and clutching a battered tissue as I anguish.

I explain that there were a lot of reasons: the lack of a ride––no one to call to pick me up–– and my desire to spend Independence Day with my love. I tell her how I wanted to avoid my sister, Lisa, who was staying in our house––we had been bickering. I didn’t want to spend my holiday arguing with her. I tell her that’s just how me and Lisa are: we get along great for about two days, then the tensions roil into ugly scenes. It was our third day together and I was fearful things would turn. I lower my voice and add that maybe that’s what I told myself in the moment to justify my staying on the truck.

* * * *

I am like Gilman’s woman in the yellow wallpaper; searching and longing to escape my self-imposed prison. This prison of shame since that blistering-hot July afternoon. This voice of shame––a frenemy carrying the false claim as protectorate of my soul––is squawking in my ear like a parrot belting out mimicry.

Platitudes such as ‘beauty is only skin deep’ and ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ fail. The game continues, still, 19 years of you take it––no you take it. Why should I take on your gift of shame? This is only something that happened to me.

fullsizeoutput_38c5

The Woman in the Wallpaper, Part Two

July 21, 2018July 21, 2018 ~ JSpoon ~ Leave a comment

Today’s post is a continuation of an essay written as a university assignment. Every detail is true, except for the name change of my then fiancé, known here as Frank.

The Woman in the Wallpaper––Part Two

Months later, while roaming the aisles of Target Stores, I note a young boy of about 14 years stalking me. I am decked out in all my protective, full-body compression garments, that includes a clear facial mask. (This is medically required that I wear these twenty-three hours a day. The purpose is to help compress the scars from raising, and to reduce bumps and ridges.)

It isn’t a sophisticated style of stalking but spawned by curiosity. I am bone-weary of these encounters. I turn the corner and hide behind the end-cap of bottles of Arrowhead water. I hear the smush-smush of tennis shoes approaching. I jump out and yell BOO. The gloriousness of his terror pervaded, faded, then a squawk, the voice of shame in my ear like a parrot belting out mimicry. Yet I laugh as the boy runs his 100-yard dash. I wonder at my maturity.

Burns scars are external––I can’t hide them– yet they leave a different kind of scar. I see it in the eyes of others. I detect it in the eyes of misogynists especially, who think a woman’s only purpose in life is to provide beauty and slave to their every need. I see it in the soul’s window of other women: a thankful gleam for their retained beauty and a twinkle of superiority. Other times, it is pity that reflects back to me.

They proffer a shiny-gold, gift-wrapped box tied with a pretty pink bow: take this gift and accept the shame enclosed. They say things like “People can tell you used to be a beautiful woman” and “If I were you, I wouldn’t go out in public, I’d be a recluse.”

I accept the gift of shame at my appearance. It is a mill-stone weighted necklace causing my head to hang. I think this talisman will protect me, but I deceive myself. I attempt to return it and rid myself of the weight. We play the you take it––no, you take it–– game.

* * * *

I sit across from Jim at his gray, metal desk, a desk piled with paper; coffee-stained and tinged with pale yellow. Jim, my trainer, is teaching me to box like a butterfly and sting like a bee. He drones on about something––I am multitasking, listening with one ear (my good one) while composing a text message on my gold, iPhone 5. Then he gains my full attention.

“You know, my father-in-law is a burn survivor. I remind him when he is down that this is only something that happened to him. It is not who he is: it doesn’t define him as a person.”

I stare back into the dark, brown eyes, a brown so dark they are nearly black. Images come of an encounter the day before when a fellow burn survivor reproved me for hiding my left hand behind my back. I look down at the now-still fingers of my right hand and think about the mismatched set I now own. The sight of my “lucky fin” fills me with shame.

Yet I sit silent. I don’t tell Jim my mother said God had done this to me because I wasn’t going to church and was living in sin with Frank. I don’t mention how our blue eyes locked––I had my mother’s eyes–– how my own blues eyes were filled with venomous fury at her accusation, nor of my fiery retort.

The internal dialogue runs through my mind like a Dow Jones’ ticker tape: “No, Mom, he didn’t. I’m his child. Would you do this to your child –– would you do this to me?”

But I sit silent remembering the slammed doors, gravel spewing, how I varoomed my black Dodge Ram away.

Me in my mask, circa 2000, and pictured with Frank’s nieces and my daughter, Christa, in the background.

Quiet on the Blogging Front: The Happy Soul

July 12, 2018July 12, 2018 ~ JSpoon ~ Leave a comment

IMG_0010_2 — It’s tricky navigating through the junk.

I’m back after a hiatus full of funk, junk and many deliveries to the local transfer station, formerly referred to as THE DUMP in childhood days.

We mark our days by events. Having surpassed the 19th anniversary of the worst day of my life, I’ve been in a funk, a funk dark and deep enough that writing didn’t seem to bring joy.

In an attempt to prod my way out, I’ve been clawing and pawing through useless junk in my home.

Sorting through things I once valued, I find the hardest part is making decisions: stay or go? Sometimes it’s really tough.

Asking myself two questions helps speed the process and eliminates much hedging: “Has this thing served me?” and if the answer is in the affirmative I ask: “Will this continue to be beneficial to me on a regular basis?”

Murphy’s Law says that the thing I stored for 15 years and never used, will be the exact item I need in two weeks’ time. Such is life.

The new rule is that if I bring something new into my home, something old has to go.

Paralleling this physical activity, I’ve encountered meaningless emotions, thoughts, attitudes, perspectives and memories tied to these things. I am actively exposing the crap to daylight, dusting them off and asking the same two questions above. These things haven’t always served me well. Thus, the rule applies: bringing a new (positive and edifying) thought, emotion, etc., into my soul requires the old must go.

This requires active, purposeful and constant care. I suspect it’s going to take a lifetime. A healthy soul is a happy soul.

A Polarity in Self-Awareness

June 29, 2018August 12, 2023 ~ JSpoon ~ Leave a comment

Oh, the faces I make while moving through the events of an ordinary day. Something tells me I am not alone.

My trail-walking face: smile, wave, greet passers-by with a cheery “Good Morning.”

My traffic face: scowl, growl, and glare with shoulders scrunched up to my ears and hands raised, outspread to each side, greet fellow drivers with a screech “What the hay are you thinking?”

Stop. The. Insanity. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

My Little Town––My Earworm

May 26, 2018 ~ JSpoon ~ Leave a comment

My father, 81, still lives on the property he acquired from his father in the mid 1950s. I visit him on a weekly basis, typically Sunday afternoons.

On my most recent Sunday visit, I decided to listen to some oldies, via Pandora, on the Simon & Garfunkel station. My current town is about 20 miles from my childhood home, so I was enjoying quite a few oldies and the pleasant memories associated with each song. As I turned into the long drive way, “My Little Town” (Simon & Garfunkel) began to play. That song has earwormed its way into my head for the past week.

A midweek visit was necessitated–– Dad needed my help with some banking back in my little town. Coincidentally, “My Little Town” repeated in splendid reverie, as I turned onto his little lane. As I wailed the lyrics of the chorus, “nothing but the dead of night back in my little town,” my curiosity compelled me to Google the lyrics to the full song. (I’m a lyrics kind of girl.)

I was stupefied to learn that for the past 43 years, I’ve been belting out incorrect words. According to lyrics.com, the correct lyrics read “nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town.”

My bad.

Dead and dying seems to be more appropriate of late, as in the past two years my little town has lost my mother and three aunties, two of whom I was especially close to.

The lyrics of the song seems to imply nothing productive comes from their little town: whereas, my little town has lost four bastions of strength, grace, faith and character.

I prefer to keep my version. Maybe its born from habit of 43 years. Maybe it’s plain stubbornness. So, I’ll keep on keening “nothing but the dead of night” safely within the confines of my little black car on my way to my little town.