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 |  It's who we are. It's what we stare at in the middle of the night. It's a bug zapper. |
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My friends, When we were young and newly hatched—also young and in love—my husband and I lived with our four young children on the Space Coast of Florida. The massive propulsion of rocket and shuttle launches from Cape Kennedy often rocked the windows and doors of our little love cottage. We were always properly respectful and impressed by the reach of mankind’s achievements. It was a point of pride to stop whatever we were doing (dishes, dinner, dancing, sleeping, fist fighting, etc.) to watch the eastern horizon—hands on hearts, tears in eyes—as the United States of America raced into the frontier of space. One deep, dark morning (about 2:00 am) I shook my husband awake to watch yet another triumph of human advancement. “Get up,” I mumbled to Sherwood, “the shuttle’s going up. We gotta’ watch.” Sherwood moaned, “The garbage is out all ready. Let me die.” He did not open his eyes. “Come on. We should watch. Night launches are amazing.” He dragged himself upright and clung to the window ledge behind our bed. We knelt, with our chins braced on the ledge, our bleary eyes fixed on a blazing light in the eastern sky. We watched. The light did not appear to move. We stared some more. The light remain fixed. We struggled to focus. The light blazed away. We waited for the light to fade into the blackness of space. It did not. We watched and watched and watched. The light stubbornly refused to move. At last, collapsing back into my pillow I said, “Honey, go back to sleep.” Sounding confused, miffed, and a little whiney Sherwood asked, “Why?” “Because for the last eight to ten minutes we’ve been staring at our next door neighbor’s bug zapper.” He went back to sleep. And I lived to worship at the altar of space exploration another day. This story pretty much sums up who we are, and how we got this way—excessive staring at bug zappers. And this is my blog, a space-age way of recording one’s thoughts, ideas, embarrassments, and foibles for the entire known world. Once upon a time, I would have made this record on papyrus, rolled it up, stuffed it into a ceramic jar, and asked to have the whole thing buried with me in my sarcophagus. I still might. Disclaimer: Some of the stuff you will read here is true. Some of it is not. Some of it is the result of wishful thinking. Some of it is the result of too much thinking, and some of it is the result of too little thinking. But all of it will be written with joy and laughter, because the alternative is despair and weeping, and isn’t there more than enough of that stuff out there? Thank you for your support, Linda (Zippity the Zapped) Zern |
| Sandhill Cranes are big, tall birds. Some of them are big enough to look me in the eye—almost. They have a wingspan of almost seven feet across. Having them hang out in one’s yard is close to being in an episode of “Animals are Better than People” on the National Geographic channel. (Note: There’s no such show on the National Geographic channel, so don’t look for it.) In the spring Sandhill Cranes have a funky sex dance they do that resembles teenagers dancing at a high school homecoming. It’s delightful. Sandhill Cranes are way cool. Except when they aren’t. We had a family of cranes start dancing around our front yard; we were so thrilled we started throwing money into a ball cap for them. No, not really, actually we started throwing bits of bread into the grass. The Sandhill Cranes loved it. We loved the Sandhill Cranes. Except when we didn’t. Over time, feeding the cranes became something of a family tradition. The cranes grew used to finding bread littered across the ground, seemingly from Heaven. We grew used to providing manna to the cranes like creatures of heavenly love and mercy. We laughed when the cranes met us at the car, trumpeting for bread. We chortled when they began to wait for us at the back door, expectant. We joked when they began to stalk the smaller members of our family: the children, the old people, me. There was uncomfortable giggling when the cranes began to surround the house at odd hours and holler for bread. On the day that I ran out of Sandhill Crane bread and the birds threatened me with outstretched pterodactyl wings and nightmarish screams of rage, I ran back into the house. I began to search the pantry for something else to feed the gigantic birds. Birds whose knife sharp beaks lined up with my eye sockets perfectly. I found some stale coffee cake shoved behind a bag of powdered sugar. I grabbed it—the cake not the sugar. Standing behind the screen door I threw the coffee cake at the demon cranes and made a run for the barn. They rejected the coffee cake, registered the bait and switch, and came after me like Navy Seals pursuing Somali pirates. I ran and screamed. The birds hollered and ran. Throwing myself into the tack room I slammed the door shut just as the beasts careened up onto the stoop. Through the dusty glass of the door, I saw the cranes tipping their heads back and forth, their beady eyes glistening as they worked out a way to destroy me. Sandhill Cranes like bread. Except when it’s coffee cake. So this is what I learned from the Sandhill Cranes: free bread makes for mean cranes; handouts do not breed gratitude and patience; cake is no substitute for bread; getting Sandhill Cranes off the dole is dangerous. They tend to object. Strongly. I’m just glad we didn’t start throwing tuna fish to the bobcats in the back pasture. Linda (Wild Kingdom) Zern |
| Note: This is a classic ZippityZern post. In honor of this fine, fine election season I'm re-posting. Happy Election Day. According to a special documentary on “body language” over ninety percent of all human communication is non-verbal. (As I type this, my shoulders are very pinched and close to my ears.) Everyone lies. I am told that this is true, because people have seen it on a t-shirt and a fictional character on television repeats it a lot. (At this point, my lips are pursed, emphasizing the fine lines and fissures into which my lipstick tends to pour.) Therefore, if everyone lies and ninety percent of communication is non-verbal then forget about what’s coming out of people’s lips and concentrate on what’s happening between their eyes. (A wrinkle shaped like a cavern just deepened near my left eye.) I hate lying. I love liars. (My right eye is twitching so hard I can hear it.) That is a lie. I don’t love liars. I try to love liars in the “love the sinner, hate the sin” way, but it’s hard, because liars tend to lie, and they can’t be trusted with your automobiles, wallet, lawn mower, good name, daughters, or your female cat, and she’s been spayed. I continue to try to love liars, but it’s a struggle. No, it’s not a struggle; that’s a lie. It’s more like a wrestle—Greco/Roman style. Liars are exhausting, because you have to listen to them lying and “read” their body language all at the same time. Or if you’re not around when the liar is lying then you have to hire someone to watch the liar lie, and if you live in a particularly dishonest society, eventually you will run out of people, to watch the people, who are supposed to be watching the people—in case the people are lying or plagiarizing or faking important governmental reports. (See? It’s exhausting.) So, if it’s true that everyone lies then we’re screwed. My favorite story about liars is a story my husband likes to tell. (I use it here with permission—no, not really. I totally stole his story.) At a father/son campout, my husband and others continually warned one young boy to cease and desist putting a sharp, pointy stick in the campfire, igniting the end of the sharp, pointy stick, and then wandering about the campground while waving the now flaming, sharp, pointy stick in the air. He agreed to stop—verbally. (The body language test results have been misplaced.) “Put that stick out,” they demanded. He put it out. Sherwood retired to his tent, only to emerge later to see the young boy standing in the middle of the campground holding the flaming, sharp, pointy stick aloft—apparently in tribute to the pointy stick fire gods. “Son!” My husband calls all boys son; it doesn’t necessarily mean a blood relation. “Son! Did you put that stick back in the fire?” The young boy said, “Nope.” We have boys. Sherwood knew what he was up against. “Are you holding a stick?” “Maybe.” “Is your hand in a curved position around a former tree branch?” The phrase “former tree branch” tripped the kid up. “Yes,” the boy said. “Is that stick on fire?” “I don’t know.” A shower of sparks made the boy flinch. His body language gave him away. I know it’s old fashioned. I know it’s considered a simple fix for a simple mind, but I like the Ten Commandments. They were written on stone, thus saving paper. They’re short. They’re numbered. They’re to the point. I especially like the one that read: Thou shalt not force me to have to learn body language to be able to tell if you’re a big, fat liar when I ask, “Who busted the loveseat?” and you tell me, “I don’t know.” And then six months later, I find broken bits of loveseat hidden behind our wedding picture and all over the house—Sherwood Kevin Zern! And all the grandkids were in on it, including Reagan and she doesn’t have teeth. (I am now leaning toward the computer screen in a combative, aggressive posture.) Yep. That’s my favorite commandment. Nah, I’m lying. Actually, I believe that there are really only two commandments and they’re my favorites. Thou shalt love God and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself . . . because people who love their neighbors don’t lie to, steal from, lust for, cheat over, shoot at, curse up, or covet their neighbor’s good looking donkeys. Nice people only need two rules, in my opinion. Linda (Read My Lips) Zern |
| The world has become a morass of shifting social demands, drifting personal rights, and twirling national fibs. In other words, the world is going to Heck Town in a rotten hand basket. I blame scientific studies and the social scientists that sit hunched over their graph paper, coming up with new ways to apply for grant money. “A recent study shows . . .” are the most dreadful words in the English language, because, once, we knew what we thought, but now we have to wait for a recent study to know what we think. And what we thought we thought is completely not what the recent study indicates we thought we were thinking. I think. And the studies keep rolling in . . . And the grant money keeps rolling out . . . And I want some. Grant money, that is. So I’m developing a proposal for a study I’d like to conduct. Hey, it makes as much sense as the study last spring where scientists found that (and I quote) “women with larger breasts make bigger tips, as do those who are slender and blonde. Also, men always want sex, and many want it more often than they get it.” Here’s my working plot . . . I mean proposal . . . my working proposal to get grant money: I intend to show that the faster the world spins down the toilet of crazy town, the more cats there are on your computer: pictures, posters, videos, actual pictures of actual cats sitting on actual computers. I estimate that for every single disturbing moment in the news, there are 3.76 to 5.5 depictions of cats on Facebook. The news doesn’t even have to be all that bad. It can be semi-upsetting or mildly itchy and wham—cats galore. It’s a pattern. Patterns are pictures that can be graphed. Graphs are like math. Math is close to science. Science can be studied—with enough free money to make the pictures called graphs. See? Bottom line: I want free money to study pictures of cats on Facebook and their correlation to bad news: wars, rumors of war, disasters, tragedies, earthquakes, and escalating out-of-control governmental debts and deficits due to the unrestrained doling out of free money. Kittens? Don’t get me started on kittens. My study will also attempt to prove that when the number of pictures of kittens spikes on social media then a dirty bomb attack is 1) imminent 2) pretty darn close 3) old news. My study will prove that Americans would rather stare at pictures of cats and kittens then discuss the end of the world. Apparently, the fog of war has become the fog of cats. Give me money. Or I’ll make you look at pictures of ‘possums. Linda (Cat Scratch Fever) Zern |
THIS TIME THEY GAVE ME $70 BUCKS; IT MUST BE SERIOUS!! [Subject:] Linda L. Zern Wins 2nd And Is Named A Finalist Winner In HumorPress.com <http://humorpress.com/> 's "America's Funniest Humor!" Writing Contest Linda L. Zern, a writer from Saint Cloud, Florida, is the 2nd-Place winner in the most recent "America's Funniest Humor!"(TM) Writing Contest held by HumorPress.com <http://humorpress.com/>, one of the Internet's highest-ranking humor contest sites. For her accomplishment, Zern has earned publication in HumorPress.com's online humor showcase, $70 in prize money, plus publication in HumorPress.com's online humor showcase. Her entry, "A Word that is Safe," is about the latest and greatest romantic fads sweeping the nation. It’s fifty shades of safe words that might come in handy when you are or are not in the “mood.” "A Word that is Safe" will be featured in the main showcase until new results are posted after completion of the current contest, which is accepting entries through Dec. 31, 2012. Other writing awards and recognitions earned by Zern include several semi-finalist and honorable mentions in past HumorPress contests. To enjoy more of Ms. Zern’s humorous essays see her free E-Books at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/zippityzern HumorPress.com <http://humorpress.com/> 's bi-monthly writing contests provide great opportunities for writers who specialize in humor, and for those with real-life humorous anecdotes to share. |
| The young folks in my college have lofty goals and plans—get a job, move out of mom’s, travel and see some stuff. I listen and smile and want to invite them over to my house for Sunday dinner and say to them, “Just keep watching. You’ll see some stuff.” There are nine children wandering around our house on any given Sunday, ranging in age from one month to eight years of age. If you stay very still and quiet, the underage natives around here will show you things you won’t believe, and you won’t have to travel farther than Saint Cloud, Florida or get yellow fever shots, although bug spray might come in handy, particularly at dusk. A recent wild grand boy sighting is typical of the “stuff” you can see without having to leave my back porch or risk being taken prisoner by Somali pirates. Confused, I watched Kip (a three year old in the middle of the pack) circle the live oak in my backyard several times. He looked like a wolf cub hunting for squirrels, and he seemed to be scouting out a likely spot for something. He was. He stopped circling, shucked his drawers, and proceeded to squat. “What does that crazy kid think he’s doing?” I asked his mother. She squinted, her brow furrowing in confusion. Sudden understanding registered on her face. “Oh good grief, that nutty kid is taking a dump in the yard!” About that time, Zac (two years old and a monkey barbarian) appeared to confer with Kip the Squatter. Kip pointed at the ground. They conferred some more. Zac slowly raised his foot, preparing to stomp on the dump-age of his older brother. His mother and I screamed, “No, Zac! No! Don’t do it.” It was a jungle safari moment—raw, real, and rank, and we didn’t have to have a passport to see it. Heather hurried to confront the outdoor defecator. “Kippy, you’re not supposed to go potty outside.” “Why?” Kippy asked. “Because it’s yucky.” “Why?” “Because it’s not nice.” “Why?” “Because trees don’t like it when little boys poop on their roots.” “Why?” And that’s when you feel yourself leaving this world to slip down the rabbit hole into another world of fantastical creatures—all looking to mark their territory and play croquet. So join us for the wild life river-cruise every Sunday. See grandchildren in their natural habitat. See game wardens in action, tracking down rogue boys and girls. Dessert included. Linda (Pith Helmet) Zern |
| IT'S THE LATEST THING: ANOTHER E-BOOK FOR WHATEVER GIZMO YOU'VE GOT! IN WHATEVER FORMAT THAT FLOATS YOUR BOAT! IT'S FUN! IT'S FREE! IT'S VIRTUAL! ZippityZern's Uncommon Nonsense - College Daze by Linda Zern Price: Free! 10240 words. Published on October 11, 2012. Fiction. In the third installment of the ongoing ZippityZern collection, Ms. Zern offers up a book about going back to college--and at her age no less. The collection is stuffed full of what's she noticed, assimilated, studied, and been exposed to while learning how to use imaginary numbers to count unicorns. |
| Linda L. Zern English 367 Story #2 – Rough It's a short story I wrote for my creative writing workshop. The characters are no one you know, will know, or have ever known. It's just ain't true. My husband sat bathed in the lime green glow of one of his computer screens. I slung my book bag onto his desk and kissed him on the back of his head. “Hey, you know what I just realized?” I reached for a Chocolate Kiss from the stash of candy he kept in a plastic cup next to his computer mouse. The cup read Analysts Do It With Their Real Parts. “I just realized that I can’t remember what color your face is. I haven’t seen you in natural sunlight in a year and a half,” I said, leaning against the desk next to his chair. “The true color of my complexion is the least of our worries. We’re going to have to sell the house and move.” “Because?” “Because it wasn’t Nick.” The printer started to click and tremble, getting ready to spit out a single printed sheet. I knew not to expect more than a single page, because any more than that and the machine tended to go into a convulsive nervous breakdown. “What do you mean it wasn’t Nick? I saw him. I saw him on CNN with my own eyes. Heather, his very own sister, saw him too. We saw him.” “Nope. You saw someone that looked like Nick. And I can prove it to you.” He reached behind me, pulled a sheet of paper from the printer before it could jam, and handed it to me. There, in pixilated color, was the picture of a young soldier kneeling in the sands of some unidentified Iraq desert. The young man had my husband’s nose, his eyes, and his smart aleck half smile. He was kneeling next to the bits and pieces of a giant bust of Saddam Hussein. Saddam looked smug. The soldier looked liked he’d just pulled down the statue of a ruthless jerk. The soldier was our son Nick. Except that he wasn’t. The caption read, Staff Sergeant Shane Maxwell of Engineering Battalion 504 outside of Fallujah, posing with the remnants of . . . The rest was a blur. I felt lightheaded. “Oh my God. We have to move,” I said. “That was my take on it,” he said. “I told everyone that I’d seen Nick on CNN. Everyone. I called my mother in the home. Heather told everyone at school.” I squinted harder at the picture. “This is a picture of Nick. It’s got to be. I ought to know my own son when I see . . .” “No, it really isn’t.” He pointed to his computer screen. Reuters had more pictures of the same scene, more pictures of the soldier named Shane, squatting next to the giant head as it rested catawampus in the sand. “Maybe, they got his name wrong? His unit? How about the wrong desert?” The desk shook as the printer shimmied. He printed off yet another picture. I yanked it out of the printer. It still read Shane Maxwell. “No. It can’t be true. I told everyone at CHURCH. I made it sound like the heavens of CNN had opened, and that I’d had a flipping vision. I talked about prayers and voices from above. I sounded like Joan of Arc of Kissimmee Park Road.” I took a breath, noticing that my husband had his eyes closed and that the light of the computer screen had gone a pale yellow. It made him look like he had jaundice. “We have to move,” I said. “Either that,” he said, hesitating, “or we take this to our grave. Do you understand what I’m saying?” He stood up and grabbed me by the shoulders. “No one and I mean no one is to ever know. We go on as before.” He flopped back down into his desk chair. I caught his eye in the light of the Goggle homepage. Something about his reflection bugged me. “Hey, wait a minute.” I looked more carefully at the reflection of my husband’s face. Then I looked at the Reuters picture in my hand. I looked at my husband’s face again. “This kid has your nose.” “You mentioned that already.” He took the picture out of my hand and leaned back in his desk chair. The chair squeaked like a hamster wheel in need of WD-40. “He kind of has my nose,” he said. “I guess he does, maybe around the nostrils, a little bit.” He sounded unsure or maybe worried. I looked over his shoulder at the picture. “Hey,” I said. “Those are your eyes, mister.” “How can you tell? He’s squinting. It’s pretty sunny when you invade a desert. It tends to play havoc on the squint lines.” “No. I mean it. That kid could be our kid. I thought it was our kid. I stood up in church and claimed that I’d had a spiritual experience via CNN. What the hell?” “Okay, sure, if you don’t look carefully, he looks a little bit like Nick or me.” “No, dear, he could be our Nick. Maybe a twenty-five, twenty-six year old version of Nick.” “What are you trying to say? Don’t answer that. And that concludes this episode of Looney Tune TV. If I’m lucky,” he mumbled, jumping to his feet he grabbed the candy cup, and started to unwrap a Kit Kat bar. “Where are you going? “I need a coke. I can tell this is going to make me thirsty.” I followed him into the kitchen, one of the pictures of Shane Maxwell wadded in my hand. “You know what?” He sighed. “Don’t sigh. I hate when you do that.” He stood in front of the refrigerator, pressing his forehead against the stainless steel door. “And don’t do that. You’re going to leave a forehead print. But, come to think of it, that might be okay. I might need the DNA.” “DNA?” He did a good job of sounding weary. “Because?” “Because apparently the kid with the big nose and squinty eyes— that look just like your big nose and squinty eyes—appears to be a love child from your checkered past.” “Babe, I know you’re worried about Nick but a love child. Really?” “Sure, why not?” The front door bell saved his sorry butt. I ran to open it, not bothering to run through my peephole safety check. I yanked the door open. “Liz, you are never going to believe the day I’ve had.” My best friend stood on my doorstep, one hand on her giant sack of a purse and the other hand on her hip. Her hair looked like she’d walked through a wind tunnel of hair spray, and her lips looked hand waxed. “Come on, I’ll treat you to an Arctic Freeze at Dairy Queen,” she said. “I can’t. I have to stay here and accuse my husband of fathering children out of wedlock.” She laughed. “Can I help? And can this be accomplished after we have a Blizzard?” “No, I’m serious.” I shoved the picture at her. She smoothed the picture out, took a look, and then whistled. “Shane Maxwell. But didn’t you tell everyone that you saw Nick?” She whistled again. “Oh man, this calls for something harder than ice cream. Come on. It’s on me.” I made sure to slam the door behind me as we left. I crawled into the front seat of Liz’s Triumph Spitfire. She hit the gas and headed toward the Marketplace Mall. When Liz had said “something harder” she’d meant pretzels and lemonade. We wandered the mall, pretzels in hand, landing in front of Frederick’s of Hollywood. “Nice symbolism,” I said. “How so?” “I haven’t the foggiest notion. I’m babbling, and I freely admit it.” “Okay, so I’ll edit out every fifth word and replace it with yippy.” “Done.” “It’s not his fault,” I said, anesthetizing myself with an enormous bite of cinnamon pretzel. “The world is upside down and we’re riding the under swell of . . .” I waved cinnamon over my head, “disaster. That’s right disaster. And I’m Irish, which means I’m always waiting for the next potato famine or a long lost love child to show up.” Liz snorted, “Please. I know your husband. He’s hiding a love child, the way I’m hiding the fact that I’m secretly married to Ben Affleck.” I could always count on Liz to talk me off the ledge. She was two husbands and one crush on Ben Affleck beyond being as loopy as I felt. “You’re right, as usual. That man can’t even argue with any sense. I once got mad and told him that Nick wasn’t his kid, and he looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘Well Heather isn’t yours.’” “I rest my case. What did you say?” “I said, ‘You have no idea how to play this game, do you?’” There was a pause. “Nick is his? Right?” “Have you seen Nick? Clones would look less identical to my husband.” Laughing, she finished her Diet Coke with a wink and a finger waggle. “Don’t you remember college? He followed you around for a year before he finally got up to the good stuff. Remember I knew him first. Come on,” she said, pulling me to my feet. “I hear they had to cart off a couple of women from Dillards’s shoe department for fighting over the new Steve Maddens. Let’s hurry, the blood might still be wet.” “Hey, babe, I’m home. Sorry, Liz and I closed down the mall. There was a sale and possibly blood.” A pile of schoolbooks at the bottom of the stairs told me that Heather was home and probably not doing her homework. I headed toward the office. I knew immediately that something was wildly out of order. The flickering lights of my husband’s office were dark, the underlying hum of circuitry silent. He was dead, or more likely, under arrest for having enough computer hardware and software to shoot down a government drone. “Babe!” My voice echoed. A lonely sound drifted from one darkened corner of his office. It might have been a moan. I reached for the light switch. “Don’t,” he said. “We need to talk.” “In the dark?” He ignored the obvious. “I’ve been thinking, and I have a couple of possible explanations for that picture.” He didn’t give me a chance to interject; his words poured out like an avalanche of pre-scripted confessions from the Montel Williams show. “I’m adopted and I have an evil twin. Shane is my evil nephew. Or there was that year that I paid for school by donating stuff, and I don’t mean old clothes. And there was that college class where we all had to do cheek swabs for the professor, but it seemed pretty sketchy since it was a statistics class. I’m thinking cloning gone amiss. Or . . .” He took a deep breath. “Then there was my freshman year, before I met you, in Professor Maxwell’s class. Pick one.” “Maxwell?” “I thought you might go with that option.” “You had a professor named Maxwell?” “Before I knew you. Keep that in mind.” His voice ghosted through the dark. “I was young. I was cute. I was desperate. It was speech class. I’m a computer science engineer. I don’t do speeches.” “Oh, I don’t know. This is a pretty interesting declaration.” “Before I knew you. Keep that timeline firmly in mind. Pre-you.” I sighed, thanking my Irish ancestors for preparing me for the inevitable flood of moldy potatoes. “Great, so not only is the soldier not our soldier, well, not my soldier, but we’ve become an episode of a bad talk show. What’s the plan? Because I’m pretty sure that in the flow chart that is your brain, you’ve come up with a plan, because Liz is going to put it together sooner or later, and you may not care, but I do.” “It was pre-you, just keep that in mind. In the great timeline of life, sequence matters.” “Just give me the plan, because I know you’ve got one.” Our daughter, Heather, slammed her way down the stairs and into the darkened office. “There’s a plan? So what’s the plan?” “We’re moving.” We said in unison. |
| My laptop slid off the bed. I did not drop, throw, roll, toss, or skip it. It slid. It slid from a soft pillow top mattress to an average grade carpet and seized up. The power cord bent. The frame skewed decidedly to the left, and the screen went black. My laptop didn’t scream, shriek, or cry when it went dark like a massive black hole in deep space. However, I screamed, shrieked, and cried, while holding my hands to the sides of my head and tearing at my hair. If I had written something, scribbled something, or thought about writing or scribbling something it resided inside that machine—now a black, vacant hole from deep, deep space. My screaming went on for a while. The IT staff, my husband, arrived and asked stupid things like, “Did you drop it? How far did you drop it? Why do you keep dropping it?” “It slid. My foot caught in the power cord and it slid onto a carpet, not into a volcanic cavern at the bottom of a craggy abyss. I did not drop it! I don’t drop computers. Is it dead?” “Well, you can’t drop ‘em or pour lemonade into them or . . .” “It slid—down—slid. I spilled lemonade into one laptop—ONE.” He poked and clicked at various keys, and said, “I just hope the mother board isn’t . . .” He let the sentence trail off like a gypsy curse. I wailed, “What’s a mother board? Is that where the typewriter keys are? Open it up, yell ‘clear,’ and zap it with the vacuum cleaner cord. Will I ever be whole again?” I clutched my chest and howled. My husband held my laptop up to his ear and listened. He clucked and shook his head. I gasped and sucked in as much oxygen as I could hold, hoping to pass out and end the horror. My five-year old granddaughter walked into the middle of this volatile scene. Seeing my distress and appraising the situation like a forty-six year old TV psychologist named Phil, she walked over, and put her hand on my arm. “YaYa, I know,” she said, patting my hand, “just how you feel.” The evil spell was broken. She knew exactly the magic words to say. I took a deeper breath, figured that the hard drive was probably still in one piece, and wondered if I might get a new computer out of the deal. Later, I looked at my husband and said, “She’s five years old, and she’s already figured it out. People just want a little sympathy when someone or something they love dies. You’re fifty years old and your bedside manner stinks.” “Babe, you go through laptops like some people go through television channels.” “True, but that’s not the point. I’m always sad when they die. Always.” He sighed. I sighed. And then he said the most magical of magic words known to laptop users like me. “Come on. Let’s go get you a new laptop. I’m buying.” “I’ll race you to the Apple store.” While it’s true that I do go through a large number of lap sized computers, it’s also true that I am always, always heartbroken by their untimely deaths. Always. Linda (Say Please) Zern |
| When I’m asked on an application about my profession I always fill in writer/author/illustrator and Dazzle Queen of the Universe. No one ever comments. I’m not sure anyone reads anything these days, especially applications. Even so, I still keep writing, because like it says on those applications I am a writer, and real writers write, regardless of what the universe is or is not reading. If I’m ever invited to discuss my creative process I know exactly the kind of advice I’m going to share with other budding wordsmiths. Ditch the Bra: Writing is a sedentary process, preformed while sitting in a chair or, in my case, while sitting in bed. Either way you’ll spend your day almost bent in half and will probably, at some point, slip into a much worse if not retched posture. And when the story really gets cooking you may wind up hunched over the keyboard like a deflated balloon. Save yourself time, pain, and distraction and take your bra off before it cuts you in half. Weed the Garden: Typing is stressful and repetitive. Fingers get tired, stiff, and lumpy. Pulling weeds is a low cost exercise that strengthens typing fingers. It does not require special gym equipment or a personal trainer. Fresh, outside air will blow out all the pointless adverbs and metaphors and the weeding will build finger muscles. The corn will thank you. It’s a win-win. Know Your Writing History: As far as I can tell the best place to write a book is in prison: there’s plenty of personal time, distractions are low, and the atmosphere is full of dramatic tension. Get arrested. Absolutely tons of books have been written in prison. If you behave, you may be allowed to work in the prison garden, pulling weeds. See above. Exercise Your Butt: While in prison do a lot of squats and dolphin kicks, otherwise your butt is going to spread and start to resemble the front seat of a minivan from all that sitting and writing. And it’s going to feel like you have two cement blocks taped to your tailbone. Trust me on this. Shop Quick: If you aren’t lucky enough to be in prison and have to write on a laptop in your bed make sure that you register on your favorite on-line shopping site so that you don’t have to waste time filling out a lot of applications, and you can buy stuff with one click. You’re going to shop; let’s be honest. Just shop quick, that’s all I’m saying. This is a preliminary outline I’ve been working on for when I’m asked to speak at retirement homes and special school assemblies all over Osceola county, because I’m able to fill in the “What’s your profession” blank with FAMOUS writer/author/illustrator and Dazzle Queen of the Universe. Linda (Dazzle Queen) Zern |
| It has cost me tens of thousands of dollars to learn how NOT to write. As a student of creative writing I study the fine and gentle art of word mongering. I love mongering the words. It’s important to know that part of learning how to write means learning how NOT to write. There are more rules than you might think when you become a wordmongerer. To show off . . . er . . . I mean, for instructive purposes I’ve composed the following improper, shoddy, and incorrect versions of word assembly. Mistakes are typed in red, symbolic of blood and death—also bad writing. EXCESSIVE USE OF SPICES (ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS) My happy, humming laptop slid rapidly and quickly off the comfy, cushy bed. I did not really drop, actually throw, quickly roll, mightily toss, or completely skip the smallish computer off the very tall bed. It really, really just slid. It really, really slid from a softly puffing pillow top mattress onto an average grade slightly tired and walked on Walmart carpet and actually seized completely up. The thickly thick power cord bent extensively and a lot. FILTERING (ACCORDING TO JOHN GARDNER FILTERING IS THE NEEDLESS LOOKING THROUGH SOME OBSERVING CONSCIOUSNESS IN WRITING.) YIKES! SOUNDS SERIOUS! For Example: Turning, I saw my laptop slide off the bed. Compare: I turned. The laptop slid off the bed. The screen went black, and I was a dead woman. This was the fifth laptop I’d killed with my bare hands. TOO MANY HE SAID, SHE SAIDS. “How could you drop your computer again?” he said, asked, or squalled at me like a wounded cat. “I didn’t drop it. It slid,” I said. “I did not drop it. It slid off, by itself,” I said again. “Linda, laptops do not grow on trees,” he said like a big numb nut. “Really!” I said, my voice sounding really, really mean. “Since when?” “Now, you’re just being sarcastic,” he said. Turning, I gave him my best and most evil eye stare. (Actually, that could be an example of filtering.) There’s more stuff that I’ve learned not to do, but I’m all tired out. Writing is hard. I need a nap. Linda (Write Stuff) Zern |
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