BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

On any given day my life could be a sitcom. Or a soap opera. I guess it just depends on the day. Personally, I prefer the sitcom days because I don’t do drama. I laugh at drama. I shoot spitwads at the llama. But I don’t do drama. I even send friends packing when they bring their drama to my home.

Rule number 1437.5 – If you bring drama to my house, leave it in the car with your llama.

But, sometimes drama sneaks in the back door when someone leaves it open, and you have to chase it out with a broom. Been there, done that. But let’s run around a different block. As I said, I prefer the sitcom days, and I have way more of them than I have accidental soap opera days.

Now, if you follow me on Facebook (there we go with The Zuckman’s social network again… talk about drama…whewww…) Anywho, if you follow me over there you hear me mention E S. No, not E K… E S. No, E S is not Evil Stephanie, EKay’s heretofore unknown half-sister just announced on national TV. (How’s that for a gratuitous Oprah reference?)… But back to the story – E S stands for Ethical Society.

Yes Virginia (Fred, Joe, Sandy, Arlene, Bob, Carol, Ted, Alice, etc…) I am a Secular Humanist. Thought I was Pagan didn’t you? Not for quite a long, long time now… I have my reasons, but that’s another blog. Suffice it to say, I’m not anti-pagan, just like I’m NOT anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, etc. I’m good with all of ’em, but I’m not any of them either.

But, like I said, different blog.

So, anyway, the O-spring has friends at E S, as do Her Supreme Evilness and I. And we hang out at E S on Sunday’s, and even at other times. Like recently. Right after that foot of snow dropped on us. We even had some more falling from the sky to top it off a bit. Get where I’m heading? Good, because I don’t either.

Wait… Maybe I do. You see, after E S this past Sunday, the O-spring went home with one of her friends so they could hang out and do tween o-spring stuff. What with all the snow they did sledding and all that general wintry fun crap we used to do when we were young enough to be able to get back up off the ground after slamming into a snowbank at the bottom of the hill. Anyhow, as will happen they ended up snow covered, and as the snow melts the coat, etc ends up wet.

Fast forward to that evening. This is actually where the sitcom moment comes in. The Redhead and I hop into the Evil Mobile and head over to retrieve our kid. We arrive, business as usual, our friend – we’ll call her Alison because I promised I wouldn’t use her real name –  invites us in and calls the girls down from upstairs. While we wait for the kids to actually make it to the main floor, what with them being tweens and all, we stood around in the sitting room – yeah, I know – chit chatting.

Alison eventually says, “I’d better get o-spring’s boots. They were wet so I’ve been drying them out over here.”

The Hottest Thing In Kids Shoes

She takes a step over to the fireplace and when she turns back around she is holding a suede girls boot. Nothing terribly odd about this, except that smoke is rolling out of and off of it. Literally. In fact, it looks just like one of those smoking shoes that is left behind after Larry, Moe, Curly, or Shemp is blown out of his socks…

We all looked at it. No drama. No excitement. No nothing.

After a moment of us all staring at the smoking boot, in a calm, even voice Alison said, “I think I burned it.”

I replied, just as calmly, “Burned? Actually I think it’s still burning.”

It was. Smoke was still rolling off of it. Out of it. Around it. There even appeared to be some glowing embers spreading along the side around what used to be a buckle. And the rubberized sole was looking just a bit drippy.

The smell of a tire fire was beginning to permeate the room.

We all looked at it again. Calmly. No exclamations. No hurry. Just standing there staring at the hottest thing in fashion footwear for kids, so to speak.

“Yep,” E K finally said with a nod. “It’s definitely on fire.”

Alison said, “I think I’d better put it out.”

“Well, at least the kid’s feet will be warm on the way home,” I offered.

“Well, the other one didn’t burn,” Alison said as she headed out of the room with the smoking shoe with no more urgency than if she were just going to  grab a drink. Over her should she added, “Just this one.”

I shrugged. “I guess we need to move it closer to the fire then.”

I guess that makes me a bad parent.

Moral of the story? There isn’t one really. The kid ended up with a new pair of boots, and I ended up with a story. Of course, I guess I need to remember to ask Alison the next time I see her if the house still smells like someone tossed a steel belted radial into the fireplace.

More to come…

Murv

It’s interesting what you can find when you are randomly surfing the net.

Say, for instance, you are running down something that someone told you about, so you type in some logical, key search phrases. You don’t necessarily find the thing said individual was talking about, but you might just find something equally interesting (or disturbing, as the case may be).

That would be what happened to me today.

You see, I was chasing down something I had been told about a movie someone had seen. They told me that in the credits it has said “Based on the Rowan Gant Investigations Series by M. R. Sellars.” Well, having never received any sort of royalty check for such I was interested in finding out if this was true. As it turns out, I have been unable to find this movie (the person couldn’t remember the title), nor have I been able to find anything remotely indicating that such exists. What I did find, however, was a rather interesting blog.

Now… In the interest of not getting sued for unauthorized linking, I will simply put the URL here and if you are so inclined you can cut and paste it.

taac.us//blogs/Jennings/2007/06/13/wiccan-truths-can-be-found-closer-to-home

You will, of course, want to preface that with a www.

I suppose I found this particular blog interesting because it is about me, and the Rowan Gant Investigations. On top of that, it is written by Father Jennings of The Ancient Apostolic Communion, that being a new Independent denomination in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ.

First off, I was surprised to find that Father Jennings had taken the time to read a book in the RGI series. He comments about the particular antagonist being featured in two books, however his commentary starts with something on the order of “Reading THE book in M. R. Sellars’…” (I capped the THE, not him…However, I am left wondering at the choice of THE over A, or even the and the plural, BOOKS…Oh well, in his blog he wonders about me as well, so I guess we are even.)

So…Father Jennings first seems to have a bit of an issue with my departure from “standard” literary conventions– those mentioned being punctuation and capitalization. I have no problem with that. It puts me in a category with one of my favorite, recently deceased authors, Kurt Vonnegut. He eschewed standard literary convention as well, choosing to create punctuation (such as I sometimes do with the ?! found in my books) and to use non-standard capitalization for emphasis (this is the item that seemed to set Father Jennings on edge the most). As a side note to Father Jennings, I hate to burst your bubble, but most novelists do take license with some of the conventions. And, we have these things called style sheets…

The first MAJOR thing Father Jennings takes issue with, however, is that I never explain “why” Rowan is Wiccan. He goes on to outline that if Rowan were Catholic, it wouldn’t be a problem since it is so close to Protestant Christianity that it would simply be accepted by the reader without question. However, since he is Wiccan, apparently the reader is owed an explanation as to what drove him to that faith.

I thought that to be just a bit amusing.

No, I am not poking fun at Father Jennings. I actually enjoyed his blog. It is well thought out and intelligent. However, I still find this observation of his amusing. Why? Because I don’t make a habit of asking people “why” they became Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Asatru, Secular Humanist, Agnostic, Atheist, or even Wiccan. I simply accept the fact that they are (if I happen to find out, because I don’t make a habit of asking a persons religion either). I also simply accept that they chose the path which best enlightened them spiritually. Perhaps I am a bit behind the curve with that, but the truth is I believe all religions should co-exist in some sort of harmony. I don’t hold any belief that such will happen in my lifetime, but for some of us we look upon religion as a personal quest, and our faith as something which bears no explaining to anyone but ourselves.

However, the good Father points out that one reason it is easy to accept someone being Christian is that they are born into it. Well, in the very first book of the RGI series, Harm None, Rowan points out that his Mother was a Witch. So, following his logic, it has been explained. Of course, I suppose that means I need to write a prequel explaining WHY Rowan’s Mother was drawn to the Craft, but I won’t go there…

Secondly, Father Jennings points out that the Christians portrayed in my books are all so narrow minded they can look through a keyhole with both eyes. Father, I love that metaphor! Reminds me of some of my own. Either way, this is not something I take issue with either. Truth is, he probably hasn’t read ALL of the books, because not EVERY Christian is portrayed as such. However, YES, some of them are. The one he points out most prominently is the ANTAGONIST. Well, you know, there is this thing called CONFLICT. Conflict makes a story and drives a book. Since the antagonist in the volume he references is Christian, and bent on reviving the Inquisition, it simply wouldn’t do for him to be generally accepting of other faiths, IMHO. It should also be noted that the antagonist is NOT portrayed as a typical Christian, but as a very disturbed sociopath. I also seem to recall Rowan  (remember him – the Wiccan?) points out far more benign meanings behind scripture than what the antagonist skews it to be.

Sooooo…this leads me to Father Jennings question of my personal open-mindedness where religion is concerned. To that I say, rest easy. I don’t hate Christians, Father Jennings. I take people on an individual basis, regardless of religion, race, politics, or personal philosophy. I treat everyone with respect until they treat me otherwise. Once they have shown ME disrespect, then I have no use for them.

However, since you have questioned my “broadmindedness,” I will pose this question to you– Did you ever think that perhaps I created the characters based on personal experiences? Like maybe the time my house was covered with banners in the middle of the night, all of them reading “Witches Live Here – Burn In Hell”… Or, the Christian Charity that refused to accept a sizeable donation from me because, and I quote that which was said to my face, “Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch To Live…”

But, I’d rather jump down from the soapbox. I am not here to preach hate. As I said, I take people on an individual basis and many, MANY of my good, close friends are Christians who adhere to the philosophy of live and let live, just as I do.

We ALL have things to learn, and we all have our crosses (pentacles, thor’s hammers, etc) to bear. That is just part of life.

So, lest anyone think otherwise, I took no offense at Father Jennings blog. I found it interesting and entertaining. As I said, it was intelligent and well thought out. However, the comment section was closed so I couldn’t reply there, so I thought I’d just write my own little diatribe for the masses in my own blog…

Oh, and by the way, like it says in the front of my books–

The are FICTION…

More to come…

Murv