On Saturday, Partner & I went to a drag show at the gay bar. Since then, these words have been in endless replay mode in my brain:

"I dug my keys into the side
Of his pretty little souped-up four-wheel drive.
I carved my name into his leather seats.
I took a St. Lous slugger to both headlights,
I cut big holes (?) in all four tires.
Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats."

Strange. I'm not craving that kind of revenge on anyone at the moment. Not now. Still, I remember when such fantasies qualified as porn & brought on a similar response.

Yesterday, I got the first installment of my inheritance. Amazing. The phrase "unearned income" now has a personal meaning for me. (& in Canada, this money is not taxed.)

Partner, the good socialist, says I did actually earn it from the Universe by:
1) surviving, and 2) striving to live up to my own moral code, and 3) not striving to end my father's life before he passed away of (presumably) natural causes. Oh how a leftist world-view can accommodate personal exceptions.

Okay, I probably deserve my inheritance as much as any other heir deserves pennies (so to speak) from heaven. I'm certainly not giving it all away.

Yesterday we dined at The Creek Bistro in our neighborhood (also known as Dyke Heights & the local Greenwich Village). The Creek serves the most scrumptious Nouvelle Cuisine. Unknown to us, Monday nights are when the chef experiments with new tapas and entrees. We had a fish theme: mussel/lime cakes as an hors d'oeuvre followed by grilled fish that melted in our mouths.
My side dish was cider-braised root vegetables. Awesomesauce, literally.

Good food is like other good things: you don't know what you've been missing until you get it.

A local movie theatre, the GALAXY in the north end of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, hosts live broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera (The Met: Live in HD), always on a Saturday at 11:00 a.m.

For some reason, I can't find the schedule on-line. When I asked for it at the Galaxy, someone had to find someone else to photocopy it for me.

A complete listing of the 2009-2010 Metropolitan Opera season can be found here:
www.metopera.org

I seem to have started a mini-buzz by mentioning local showings of the opera series on Facebook. So here, as a service to opera-loving Reginans, is the list of upcoming shows:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DECEMBER 19, 2009: Les Contes d'Hoffmann
Composer: Jacques Offenbach

JANUARY 9, 2010: Der Rosenkavalier
Composer: Richard Strauss

JANUARY 16, 2010: Carmen
Composer: Georges Bizet

FEBRUARY 6, 2010: Simon Boccanegra
Composer: Giuseppi Verdi

MARCH 27, 2010: Hamlet
Composer: Ambrose thomas

MAY 1, 2010: Armida
Composer: Gioachino Rossini.

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

You're welcome.

:)

Well, there has been another flurry of emails amongst my middle sister (Executor of our dad's will), my youngest sister, my daughter & me about our inheritance from our deceased parents (grandparents), probate court, etc.

Much of this stuff is of no interest to anyone but us, but I'm disturbed that our mother's handwritten sonnet by Robert Frost has gone missing. My brother-in-law (Executor's husband) thinks it disappeared from our parents' house before the house was sold, where it hung on a wall in a small frame.

The poem, a sonnet named "In-Gathered Apples," was written by Frost some time in the 1930s and mailed to an editor of The Saturday Review in New York. (Apparently Frost didn't type.) The editor accepted the poem by the fairly unknown poet (at the time), it was published, and editor offered the poem to her teenage nephew, who collected such things. Apparently the nephew didn't want to keep it but couldn't bring himself to throw it away, so he offered it to his poetry-loving friend Jane Ward, who kept it. (She was a lifelong pack-rat, which had both good and aggravating effects.)

Many years later (1970s, I think), I was leafing through a hardcover poetry anthology belonging to my mother, Jane Ward Hillabold, and out fell the poem, sandwiched between pages for many years. I could hardly believe it.
When my mom confirmed that it was indeed handwritten by Robert Frost (who died in 1963), I urged her to save it behind glass.

Mom wasn't willing to spend $$ on a custom-made frame, but luckily, she found a cheap one of the right size. (The poem is on stationery, smaller than a sheet of typing paper.) The poem was thus safely framed and hung on the wall of the living-room near the built-in bookcase where it had been stashed out of sight.

Unfortunately, I didn't take the framed poem myself. None of my fellow-heirs claims to have it. I don't know how many people knew it was there or how much it might be worth.

My other sister the lawyer (with a Master's degree in art history) estimates that it would fetch $5,000-$7,000 (US? Canadian?) at auction in today's market.

However, I'm not sure there is another exact copy of that poem anywhere. I've seen a version of it in an anthology, and the printed version is NOT the same as the one my mother had. I assume an exact copy was published in The Saturday Review, but how many fans or scholars have access to the archives of that magazine going back to the '30s? 

If the sonnet that hung on my parents' wall is unique or even close to it, I assume it would be worth more than $7,000 in any currency.

It was worth more than money to us heirs. (Of course, its disappearance saves us from squabbling over it.)

Who the %#@(* has it?? And does the current holder plan to keep it hidden for another generation?

Literary historians, take note.

I might have had a productive day. Possibly, sort of.

I now have a half-developed idea for new class proposal so I will have an alternative to my one second-semester class on  The Female Bildungsroman that I have taught since before I got my current status in 1999.

I have good ideas for my review of The Sealed Letter, thick historical novel which I finished reading last week.

I have good ideas for my December column on the Erotic Readers & Writers Association site ("Sex Is All Metaphors").

Two paperbacks mysteriously arrived from Cleis Press. I suspect they are my next books for review for "Erotica Revealed" (www.eroticarevealed.com), so I've written the editress/head honcha to ask.

I started reading the e-anthology I said I would review.

I've caught up with grading of student assignments until the next avalanche.

Have I written a word today? Nope. 

Still, I don't feel blocked, useless or drained of words. For better or worse, there are many more inside me, waiting to come out.  :)

I would really like to come up with an appealing proposal for a new English class and run it by the relevant committee.

So far, the theme I have in mind is novels about monsters (deliberately broad category) written by women. Frankenstein by Mary Godwin Shelley and Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice both qualify.

Please send me your favorite titles! Anything published between Frankenstein (1819) and Interview (1978) would be especially welcome.

Please note: I don't think I could afford to teach anything with explicit sex scenes. Passing references are fine.

The overturn of same-sex marriage  in Maine is insane & depressing.
Here in Sask, the right wing wants Marriage Commissioners to have the right to refuse to marry couples if it's against their religion. Queer folks & our allies have to mobilize & outshout them. At least so far, Canadian federal law is on our side.

I revised a story & sent it off in response to a call-for-submissions.

I went to dinner in a restaurant with a crowd of near-family to celebrate the 12th birthday of Friend S's younger grandson. Egad. I feel old.

My class today was comatose - maybe because I was discussing poetry. It's a requirement, imposed by the English Department, but I would probably teach poetry even if I didn't have to. Dear Goddess, what do students want?

Tomorrow I need to finish my review of The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue. It is an awesome historical novel about an actual divorce case of the 1860s (when divorce was shocking). Stay tuned.

To get the sense of my current state of mind, read `The Glass Tower` by late Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas (in English translation if you can`t read the Spanish original - or not well enough, like me). Hilarious & sinister at the same time - characters haunt an author who hasn`t allowed himself time to do them justice.

Maybe all hauntings are really self-hauntings.

Accomplishments:

1) On October 8, I gave my talk on censorship at the local Seniors' Education Center. (Talk included 2 free handouts for the audience: a list of events and a reading list. These are available by email to anyone here who contacts me privately.)  A reporter from the newspaper interviewed me right afterward, and there was a nice writeup with a photo that was actually fairly flattering. (Now I know that my new mint-green knit top looks professional under my reliable old black wool suit-jacket, whose frayed cuffs don't show in the photo.)

2) Despite having a heavier load of student assignments to grade this semester than before (due to increased  vetting of syllabi by a new committee), I am keeping up. I only have a few essays to grade before Tuesday, and then I will be completely caught up until the in-class quiz on Oct. 27.

3) Adrienne of the Erotic Readers & Writers Association loves my new column piece, "Gardens of Earthly Delights," which will go live in my column, "Sex Is All Metaphors," on November 1 here: www.erotica-readers.com (in the Smutters Lounge gallery). She asked if I would please stay on as columnist on the site for 2010.

3) I am a child of the universe & am therefore beautiful in my own way, etc.

Why, then, do certain circumstances make me feel crazy and worthless? (Or if circumstances can't actually make anyone feel anything, they have a very persuasive effect.)

Partner was interested in the Body, Mind & Spirit Fair at the Exhibition grounds today, so we went. Quite a diversity of booths, featuring everything from fancy cookware to organic beauty products to jewellery featuring gems to stimulate various parts of the psyche, aural photography with readings, fortune-telling in various forms, consultations with angel guides, etc. There was much talk about healing the injured, poisoned earth & the injured, poisoned people on it.

I tend to agree that we all have the power to heal ourselves, but spending an aft. in this atmosphere actually did not make me feel healed. It made me feel sucky.

Despite the common wisdom that Love Is the Answer or Love is the Heartbeat of the Earth or some such thing, I'm not convinced that love always produces good results. If I love some who despise me, for long-standing reasons that seem unavoidable to them, doesn't my love resemble water running down the drain from a  tap that someone should turn off to prevent waste?

Proclaiming love for the universe at large, or the whole human race, is easy to do. I should probably learn to do that convincingly while learning to turn off wasted love for individuals. That kind is so much harder to cope with.

It's a dark, cool and  sullen night, threatening rain. Seasonal weather has caught up with mid-Canada. In the last few days, the sky has been filled with Canada Geese honking goodbye as they fly south. The weather matches my mood.

Yesterday I went to the banquet of the big local AIDS conference to hear CLEVE JONES, who was awesome. I was there to sing with the choir.

If you haven't read my October reviews, find them here:

- Brand-new review of The Low Road by James Lear and new review of free collection of stories/poems about kisses, A Slip of the Lip, on the site of the Erotic Readers & Writers Association here:  www.erotica-readers.com (in the Smutters Lounge gallery).

- New review of Flesh and Bone (lesbian erotica) by Ronica Black here:  www.eroticarevealed.com

- Reprinted reviews of Leathermen (including mention of story by Xan West of this list) and Enslaving Heaven in local GLBT print magazine, Perceptions.

You can follow the thread of my thoughts after being offered a Scottish beer with a name that sounded like "Innocent Gun" in "Sex Is All Metaphors" here:
www.erotica-readers.com (in the Smutters Lounge).

Today I finished reading a novel, Arusha, to review for lesbian site. The book is well-written, fairly well-plotted, with the kind of low-key verbal humor I tend to like - but where on earth could one find such asexual women?? Does Protestant faith really kill the libido to that extent? A mother and daughter have experienced no tickle of horniness in adolescence & are stunned by it later. Reviewer is stunned too.

Today I learned that my bondage story, "Down Below," was accepted for Best S/M Erotica 3. It first appeared in Slave to Love: Sexy Tales of Erotic Restraint, edited by Alison Tyler. This is one of a set of stories told by my academic domme (usually) character Dr. Athena Chalkdust, also including:

"Splitting the Infinitive" (in Best Lesbian Erotica 2001 and Best of the Best Lesbian Erotica 2)
"Mourning Becomes Athena" (published in Philogyny, a journal edited by Amie M. Evans, now defunct)
"My Debut as a Slut" (in Best Lesbian Erotica 2005)
"The Placement of Modifiers" (In Best Lesbian Erotica 2009)

Here is a taste:
------------------------------

"Do your students like Poe?" asked my department head, Dr. Dorothy Kipperwell. She generally discouraged modern informality in the English Department, but she had asked me to call her Kip. "Do they understand the language?"

"They do when I explain it to them," I told her. "A lot of first-year students are still teenagers, Kip. They understand extreme emotions. Adolescence is a gothic period."

[There follows a digression about Kip, and Athena's feelings about her.]

[Athena explains the appeal of the Edgar Allan Poe story "The Cask of Amontillado":] "They get the irony of the host's concern for his friend's health as the two men go deeper and deeper into the crypt of the family castle. Each time the host asks, 'Are you sure you don't want to go back?' the guest tells him to lead on. The guest ignores the cold, damp air of the place because he's drunk and trusting and curious. And he's dressed as a fool or jester, in a cap with bells. Students get it."

"It's one of your favorite stories, isn't it, Athena?" asked Kip. She was almost openly laughing at me. "This is interesting. What's your favorite part?"

I felt as if the answer must be written on my face, or maybe in the modest cleavage that showed above my neckline, the little valley that led directly to my heart. I knew that I couldn't ignore her question this time.

"That moment when the host chains his friend to the wall," I told her. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Kip's gaze dropped to my small, perky breasts, and her smile widened. "It's so intimate. He fastens his victim's wrists to bolts in
the wall that have been used to secure captured enemies for centuries. Then the host chains his victim's waist. They must be physically close for that, and the fool doesn't fight back at first because he trusts his friend. It's only when he realizes that he's not going to be released that he struggles. 'For the love of God, Montresor,' he begs, but he gets no mercy."

I shifted my butt on Kip's sofa, and she looked down at my hips in sleek black pants.

"It's horrifying, of course," I said, "but think about it: Montresor wants to keep his old friend there forever, with the bones of his own ancestors. No one makes commitments like that any more." I was trying to lighten the mood. I thought I sounded young and foolish.

"So you think the story has a homosexual subtext?"

"Yes," I told her, forcing myself to look into her shrewd chocolate-colored yes. "No one names it, but it's there."
-----------------------

You can probably guess where the story goes from here, and where Kip leads Athena with her leading questions. (Hint: Kip has a well-outfitted basement that makes a fairly convincing crypt, esp. when lit only by candles.)

The memorial service for my dad will be on Friday, Sept. 25. This gives all the relatives who plan to show up time to get here.

Note: some hotels offer significant discounts to people travelling for a family funeral. I checked this out and sent my 2 sisters & daughter Liz the information.

There has been a blizzard of emails re the event itself, plus the scholarship we all agreed to set up in our parents' name. However, we haven't even started to discuss the criteria, administration, etc.

Our parents left a will, but I've been told the process of parcelling out the property tends to be long & complicated. Luckily, one of my sisters is a lawyer - I'm thinking that will help.

I feel like sh*%#*t, but I have to go teach tomorrow. Our semesters are short here, and I can't leave the students dangling much longer. I acquired a tickle in my throat on the day my dad was found deceased, and it steadily grew worse until I felt I was swallowing razor blades. I went to the doctor yesterday, & he prescribed penicillin for a bacterial infection and told me to rest at home until Wed.

I realized that 2 ebooks from Circlet Press that I promised to review for the Erotic Readers & Writers Ass'n site never showed up in my inbox.

Bleahh.

On the hopeful side, I was sorting through paper for recycling this morning, and finally read my birthday horoscope (syndicated column in the local newspaper) for Aug. 25. Holy moly. Apparently I am destined to move mountains and achieve the near-impossible in January 2010. This I have to see.

Onward & forward.

Yesterday (ninth day of the ninth month, 2009 - make of that what you will), my 88-year-old father was found on the floor beside his bed in the nursing home where he lived.

He was dead.

The theory is that he had a heart attack in his sleep and fell out of bed, but why did this happen (the bed has sides which could be raised), and how many hours was he lying like that before he was found??

The home supposedly provides 24-hour care. It's a private facility, and fairly expensive. (Luckily, my parents had enough in savings and investments to provide for the fees.)

The body was taken to a local hospital for an autopsy, and then it will be released to the same funeral home that we used for my mother's burial in March 2009.

There isn't the same urgency to dispose of the body right away as there was then, so the survivors (my 2 sisters & grown daughter & I) have been discussing plans by email. Proposed dates for a memorial service are Sept. 23, 24 or 25.

It's ironic. I was very disappointed that I couldn't afford to go to Toronto for my grandson's second birthday September 5, and now I'll be able to see him & his parents sooner than expected. Eventually, my share of the inheritance will prob. help Partner & me to dig ourselves out of debt.

But I didn't want these good things to happen for this reason.

The head of the English Department was gracious, and encouraged me to take as much time out of the classroom as I need, but I want to save most of that time for when the relatives arrive and we have things to do during working hours.

So I've started a new semester: 2 classes of absolutely green students who have never taken a university English class before.

As I wrote on the blackboard yesterday, I remembered 1982, the year I was first hired to teach a whole class by myself, at the 90 level (a college-readiness class for people who hadn't finished high school) in a room adjoining the room where my dad was teaching Economics at the same time. When I paused for breath, I could hear his voice coming through the walls between us. Sometimes when I wrote on the blackboard, I could hear the scritch of his chalk on the other side.

How I wish I could hear that sound again.

One of his favorite pieces of music was "The American Quartet" by the classical composer Antonin Dvorak (DVOR-zhak), who visited the U.S. in the 1890s & found American folk music fascinating. (My dad was born there in 1921, and loved his country.) I think the quartet is part of Dvorak's New World Symphony.

If you can find and listen to that piece, please think of Art Hillabold and wish him well, wherever he is.

I've been considering ideas for possible future pieces for my column, "Sex Is All Metaphors," on the site of Erotic Readers & Writers Association.

Votes, comments, suggestions all welcome.

1. Is "Interracial" Still a Fetish?

- To start with, I'm not sure I have a firm grasp of "fetish" sexuality in erotic writing or real life. Sure, feet/shoes can be sexy, so can hair, so can breasts (duh), asses, lingerie, leather, silk, fur, etc., but surely one can't avoid noticing that all these things exist on or as part of an actual human body inhabited by (for lack of a better word) a spirit or a personality. So I don't really see how the fetish item can completely replace other sensory stimuli.

"Interracial" (or "interracial sex") as a fetish is even more problematic. Sure, racially-specific physical characteristics (straight/curly/kinky hair, lips, noses, eyes, skin of various hues) fascinate sheltered types who haven't had direct contact with them before. (This would prob. apply to anyone living in Mississippi circa 1920.) But how long do characteristics different from one's own hold the sexual charge of a "fetish"?

Can anyone even be sure they are purebred or uniracial?? "Passing for white" is a time-honored tradition in white racist cultures. Check out the pedigree of a "white" person (esp. one who protests too much or whose ancestors didn't all live in the same inaccessible village) , esp. in North America, & you're likely to find a few other ingredients (somewhat like the "unidentified fibers" listed in some clothing.)

A documentary on makeup for stage & cinema that I watched in England in 1974 claimed that the average "white" (or European) complexion in the U.S. is a shade darker than in Britain. Guess why?

Besides which, people tend to mate with others of approximately the same social status unless there are strong cultural taboos against it, so "People of Color" can include a whole kaleidoscope. 

Yet "interracial" is still listed as a category or genre of erotic films & stories. When is a plot erotically "interracial"  and when it is just a realistic story about a relationship in an urban 21st century milieu?

2. "Getting Paid for It"

- the true story of my life in sex work in the 1980s, formerly published in a local leftist magazine (March theme issue on the status of women to coincide with International Women's Day).
I don't find this fascinating myself, but would rerun it if there's any interest. (This is not a smirking comedy subtitled "The Best Little Whorehouse on the Prairie.")

3. "Kiddie Porn" as the Boogeyman

- The sexual abuse of children by adults is clearly perverse in the most nauseating sense (esp. for reasonably sane parents). But does the ban on "kiddie porn" really require that autobiographical writing about early sexual experience (the babysitter with her boyfriend, two girlfriends sharing a bed, two boys on a camping trip, all under the age of consent in their jurisdiction) be banned from publication everywhere on earth, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law? Does this response really protect anyone's innocence?

And what about the photos of naked babies and children taken in earlier times? (Such as the whole embarrassing photo gallery of me, the firstborn in my first year, that my doting parents used to show their visitors, or Lewis Carroll's 1860s photographic studies of little girls "in the life.") Should the putti in paintings by the Renaissance Masters be covered by black stripes or deliberately blurred in reproductions? 

Why does the age of consent vary from one jurisdiction to another if we can all agree on who is and is not a "child"?
Will two unsmiling people in uniform show up at my door if I write this piece & post it in public?

4. The Acronyms Revisited

- Some folks complain that both the LGBTQ (gay/les/bi/trans/genderfuck/whocares) community and the 
BDSM (bondage/discipline/sadism/masochism/slaves/masters) community have become or are becoming too fragmented into different sub-communities or cliques. 

Yet in both cases, earlier, simpler definitions of "the community," its history and who belonged in it were problematic, and no one seems eager to go back there (e.g. to when "gay" meant closeted, male, "effeminate" and usually white).

So does "community spirit" need to be whipped up, so to speak, in either case? Is either "community" growing stronger or falling apart? Is either "community" assimilating into the "mainstream," or is assimilation a pathetic illusion? 

5. Utopia

- What would a sexually healthy society look like? (Most folks I know agree that this is not where any of us live now, in what passes for Real Life.)

6. Topic X

- What hasn't already been discussed enough?

Yes! My front lawn has been mowed and somewhat weeded.

I didn't take photo of it first. Too embarrassing.  Partner watered and did some weeding. I mowed (with manual mower - had to stop every so often to remove long tough weeds from blades).

When I had to stop mowing, I was able to see how the weedy ground-cover was dodging the blades of the mower, so I got down to its level and did some serious pulling-out of roots. Partner complained that I was pulling up innocent grass as well. I thought this was unavoidable collateral damage.

Now the lawn looks spotty - dull green (mostly a fern-like spreading weed with areas of a different weed that looks more like Swedish Ivy) with spaces of bare earth. It's hardly a well-maintained park or golf course, but our property no longer looks abandoned.

Partner says she would like to cover our front yard with wildflowers next year, and I like that idea. It sounds attractive and low-maintenance.

I finished writing my piece for my column, "Sex Is All Metaphors," October edition, and sent it in. No response yet. I would be willing to revise somewhat if asked.

The moon looks full tonight. Partner & I went to a Latino restaurant to hear her son play drums with a pair of guitar players he knows & likes. Son later said he was distressed because the congas were out of tune due to changing weather & exposure to too much humidity. I didn't know how sensitive drumskins are until Stepson explained it.

We found our friend S and mutual friend C in the restaurant with her grown daughter. It was a good time.

A lesbian story I submitted for an antho (deadline Aug. 31) has already been rejected. This doesn't set  a time-record, but close to it. The editor said it was because my story is too long (close to the word-limit of 4K) and she already had enough long stories. So now I have to decide where to send it next.

We have warm summer weather at last, with an infestation of fruit flies. It's unbelievable. This morning, Partner warned me that she sprayed the kitchen counter with Raid to kill off the bugs, so I spent most of the morning washing everything she sprayed. They're not completely gone, so she plans to do another blitz.

I need to mow the lawn, which is an embarrassment of high weeds. It looks as if it belongs on an empty lot. I'll try taking a photo before trying to get it under control.

After the restaurant, we went to the Back to School party at the gay club. More people than usual for a Friday night.
Several people who hadn't seen either of us for awhile commented on the attractiveness of our silver hair. It seems to be a reward for hanging in for the long haul.

I somewhat look forward to the beginning of semester on Tuesday.

My little grandson turns 2 tomorrow! Wish I could afford to be there, but we plan to visit during my break from teaching in February 2010. By then, Grandchild #2 should be born.

I'm working on my next piece for my column, "Sex Is All Metaphors," but prob. won't get much chance to write on a weekend.

My review of Writing Skin by Adriana Kraft is up at Kissed by Venus (www.kissedbyvenus.ca), which posted here.

My review of Love Notes (theme antho on sex and music), edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, is up here: www.eroticarevealed.com

My latest opinion piece, "The Distracting Smirk," went live today in my column, "Sex Is All Metaphors," on the Erotic Readers & Writers Association site here: www.erotica-readers.com. (Look in the Smutters Lounge gallery.)

I've already been told that I misquoted U.S. Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Very likely.  I heard responses to her original statement - but not the statement itself - before I wrote my piece.  She's not the focus of my piece anyway, so it doesn't make a huge difference. I still don't know the full context of her controversial statement. And Google is not helpful today.

Does anyone here remember a vintage song often featured on bubblegum-rock stations, "High on a Mountain of Love"?

I sometimes feel I'm standing on a mountain of paper much taller than I am - & it's all non-fiction, some typed on a manual typewriter and faded with time.

I've always liked writing articles, reviews, essays - heck, I just like to play with words. From time to time, I'm recruited by an editor (or volunteer my services) to write a regular column or series of fillers. For awhile in the 1980s, I wrote at least one review per issue for a short-lived general-interest newspaper-style publication for residents of the small city/large town I live in. For 2 years, I had at least one review in every issue of a monthly leftist magazine, Briarpatch. At about that time, I was hired for a 6-month project to write a series of articles for a federally-funded feminist org, and the articles were run in the monthly journal.

About 10 years ago, the Saskatchewan Writers Guild (to which I belong) wanted a list of my writing, including non-fiction, to add to my page on the website. I realized that no one could list all the long & short pieces of published non-fic I've written, including me. Many of them pre-date my acquaintance with any computer, & some that I vaguely remember couldn't be found at all - prob. lost in a move or a purge.

I'm now within sight of what my employer, the local university, calls "normal retirement age" (i.e. 65). What have I accomplished?

Contributed muchly to the glut of printed words in the world.

I've often blamed myself for not writing enough, not writing Real Literature, not spending enough time on one genre or another, but I've been writing fairly steadily all my adult life. Thank the relevant Muse, I've never had a form of writers' block that could shut me up completely. When I felt too self-conscious to write poetry, I could write fiction (to use the word broadly). When I couldn't find enough time to finish a story, I could always write a review or a news item. And a surprising quantity of the stuff has been published, at least in labor-of-love grassroots rags.

By the time I die or become too dysfunctional to write anything, my imaginary mountain of paper will be the size of a town dump.

I sometimes wonder what's the point of it. I enjoy writing, paid or not, so maybe that's the only reason to keep going. 

Will anyone ever try collecting my complete ouevre of non-fiction and analyzing it? I can't see it. What has become of the various journals that contain snippets of my writing - such as The Credit Union Way (for which I wrote a legal column - digested & pared-down articles by a local lawyer - at age 20)? Or Span, journal of the Canadian steelworkers union, for which I wrote an article on the new (at that time) mezzanine in the public library, after interviewing the architect who designed it?

Since I don't get paid for my reviews, I try to circulate them as widely as possible. When I get word that some editor somewhere is looking for reviews, I send on any of mine that might be suitable. In the last few weeks, I've prob. sent 2 dozen reviews to paranormal/fantasy/sci-fi venues. I haven't heard back, & I might never know if or when any of my reviews will appear in/on any of these sites.

I sometimes wonder how many other writers, like me, are building a mountain that will prob. be treated as waste material after their deaths, if not sooner.

Good news!

After a fairly long wait, my non-erotic story, "Spring Fever" (expanded version of the one that was a near-miss for Best Lesbian Romance) was accepted by lesbian website Khimairal Ink and is on schedule to appear there for 3 months starting January 2010.

It doesn't pay much, but I'll be in good company.

This news encourages me to finish the new story I have to send in by the end of Aug. 31.

The part of Canada I live in has had a gov't-sponsored health care system since 1962, modelled after the British health care system that was brought in by PM Clement Attlee in 1948.

Have we EVER had "death panels" here? Nope.

Do these bodies exist anywhere else in Canada? If so, show me the evidence.

Do they have "death panels" anywhere in the UK? (The imaginary world of George Orwell's novels doesn't count.)

Some days I'm embarrassed to admit where I was born.