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Office hellholes
All you need to work is a reasonable workplace environment? Think again.
A survey, reported in Human Resource Executive Online, has found that one in five workers say conditions in their office are so rundown that it's hurting their productivity. Almost half (47%) say their offices are too hot or too cold and one in three complain about the state of the toilets. Another 28% complain about the furniture and decor, 20% say they have to deal with insects crawling around, 21% cite leaky ceilings and windows and 21% talk about theft and crime.
As people spend longer at work and demand work that's meaningful, we are going to hear more of these complaints.
Tell us about your work environment. Is it up to scratch? Do you have to work in an environment that's too hot or cold? What's the furniture like? And the toilets? Have you ever worked in hellholes. Was anything done? Let's hear some stories.
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 8:53 AM
Workplace gripes
Having done this blog for nearly three years, I have heard from lots of people airing their biggest gripes about work and their jobs. Everything from bad bosses, to pesky co-workers to long commutes and people always heading out for smokos.
But which is worst? That's what makes me think people would be interested to read this latest survey, reported here, showing that 53% of respondents say incompetent managers irritate them the most. But so what? Annoying co-workers come in a close second at 52%. Indeed co-workers who just sit there whingeing are cited by 46%. Poor office communication, useless meetings and office gossip came in at 43%. Other complaints were about co-workers with bad breath and body odour (39%), unfair treatment where one group of employees was favoured over another (36%), potent odours like perfume, smoke or food (32%) and people taking smokos (26%).
One could go on. Any more to add? What are your biggest gripes? And what do you do about it?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:39 AM
Over the past decade, we have seen a change in the way products are flogged. We all complain about how expensive things are getting but we are now seeing an explosion in give-aways.
The online world and decreasing costs of production mean that we have an avalanche of giveaways. What started out as a way of creating demand for the product has now become an economy and business in its own right. So you give away the mobile phone and make big money selling the plan. Or you install free coffee machines in offices and make your profits from selling expensive coffee sachets.
Mobile phones, international and long distance calls, wireless internet, money management, newspapers, magazines, vending machine beverages and music are all part of the new world of freeconomics. More details in the trendwatching newsletter.
Welcome to the future of business, says Chris Anderson in Wired magazine.
And it's not like people aren't making money out of it. Anderson divvies the sector up into six categories: freemium, where the free sample is just a promotional hook to bring in customers; models where companies advertise their products, sometimes by product placement or paying per connection, on the free offerings; cross subsidies; zero marginal costs where for example the cost of distributing something like music is next to nothing; peer production where for example rating stories on something like Digg creates something of value; and the gift economy, from Freecycle to Wikipedia.
One thing for sure. More and more stuff is going to be free as the costs of production and distribution go down.
What do you get free? What would you like to get for free? How far can this trend go?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:10 AM
Best and worst jobs
Hate your job? Planning a career change? Scouting around for something new?
HR world has an interesting piece on 20 Jobs That Are (Much) Better or Worse Than You Thought. Worst jobs include spies who have to keep their lives a secret from families and friends, public relations executives who get no recognition for the work they put in and doctors and lawyers who are spending more and more time on paper work.
Best jobs, according to the list, include freelancing, working as a hairstylist, librarian, nanny and consultant.
Not sure if everyone would agree with the list. I did a double take, for instance, when they mentioned "journalist" as one of the best jobs. It's ok, it beats working. Truth is that every job has its good and bad side. Some days are fantastic and other days you wish you hadn't come into work at all. Still, some jobs might be worse than others.
What do you think of the list? Let's hear from people who have worked in the jobs on that list. Are they that bad (or good)?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 10:04 AM
Scenes from an office
Has your boss ever said: "You can't handle the truth" or "Use the force"? Have you ever sat in a long drawn out meeting and compared it to one of those action flicks with lots happening but going nowhere? Has the office pest ever challenged you to make his day?
With the Oscars happening this morning our time, online job site careerbuilder.com has surveyed 6704 US employees and asked them which Oscar winner they would like to work for. Top vote winners included Anthony Hopkins, Robert DeNiro, Jamie Foxx, Jack Nicholson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Hillary Swank, Helen Mirren and Nicole Kidman.
Most said drama was the type of movie genre that best described their workplace, followed by comedy at 28% and adventure at 11%. Only 6% said their workplace could be best described as a horror or a war movie.
Which boss would you like to work for? Does your boss remind you of anyone? And what movie genre best describes your workplace?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 11:10 AM
Dream work
The father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud said that emotions buried deep beneath the surface come out in disguised form when we dream, like a form of shorthand, and that dream fragments can help uncover those buried feelings and give us insights.
So what about work? Everyone seems to be working harder and putting in more hours. But are you working so hard that you dream about it?
That seems to be a trend now. According to a recent survey, reported here, more than 50% of people say they dream about work. Scary? Well, nearly 70% say they wake up and put their work dreams into action.
It makes sense. If your mind is consumed with work during the day, it's not surprising that it would stay in your brain when your head hits the pillow. According to the experts quoted in the piece in the link above, it's more likely to happen to white collar workers like lawyers, engineers, designers, consultants and accountants. Even journalists. Not sure if that's right. I remember some pretty powerful dreams when I was working in abattoirs, factories and markets.
So what do the dreams mean? What's the diagnosis? Some ideas from this piece from Canada's Globe and Mail. You stand up to give a speech and no words come out? You want to say something at work, but you are afraid to voice your feelings. You are at your desk and suddenly discover you are naked? You are vulnerable and you are struggling with the job. Your boss comes at you with a knife? You are insecure, and worried that you're going to get into big trouble.
I would take these interpretations with a grain of salt. I mean, it's your dream so it's personal and certain things might mean different things to different people.
How often do you dream about work? What sort of dreams have you had? And have they given you any insights?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:29 AM
Bored at work?
How engaged are you at work? Or are you bored? One of the most striking snippets of information I came across last year was a global study from consulting firm Towers Perrin which found that only 21% of employees, right around the world, were engaged in their work.
21%!! That means roughly eight out of 10 workers are not really that committed to what they're doing and don't really give a toss. In other words, most people around the world turn up to work everyday with their minds somewhere else. They might as well be sleepwalking.
That might explain why boredom at work is an issue. Research last year, reported here, has found that workers are just getting numbed by paper work, faceless technology, meetings, bureaucracy and information overload. And when time is passing ever so slowly, the boredom could be worse than overwork.And it seems to be getting worse.
All this raises interesting questions.
Are some people more likely to get bored than others? Is it the work that's boring you, or does it say something about your personality? Can you be bored and still be good at the job? And if you are bored at work, what do you do? Quit? Or do you find strategies to make it more interesting? Like finding new challenges or engaging more with other people.
Some experts offer answers in this New York Times piece but reading through it leaves me wondering whether it's easier said than done.
Do you get bored at work? How do you spend your day dealing with it? Have you had this problem in the past? What did you do?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:48 AM
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Things that drive us crazy
Don't you hate the way your mail box is full of crap like brochures, catalogues and stuff spruiking products? Sick of undoing plastic packaging on everything from electronic devices to newspapers? Tired of being woken up several nights a week by your neighbour's car alarm?
If any of this gets you riled, check out this Wired magazine list of The 33 Things That Make Us Crazy. The list includes traffic, printer cartridges, knees and backs, office copiers, ticket purchasing and customer service.
Not a bad start. Any to add? What drives you mad the most?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:38 AM
Difficult people
Difficult people are a fact of life. Wherever you go, they'll be there making people unhappy or angry. It can be a workplace colleague, customer, relative, sibling or other relative, neighbor and, from time to time, a friend. It's often about something completely petty, from seating arrangements to missed birthdays, which inevitably blows up into a raging storm. And yes, relationships get pretty toxic when things turn ballistic.
Dealing with these sorts of people without losing it can be an art form, particularly if they know which buttons to push. Some advice from Elinor Robin in WomenEntrepreneur.com is worth checking out.
Robin slots difficult people into several categories: bullies, passive-aggressive personalities, snipers, negative nellies, blamers, unresponsives. yes-people and know-it-alls. She also suggests several strategies that include setting boundaries, not getting emotionally involved, not trying to change or appease them, refusing to get into a debate and finding a common goal.
The key with difficult people is to always remember that it's not about you and that something else is going on. Don't take it personally. Sometimes that's easier said than done, particularly if they're abusive. And some relationships just stay toxic.
How do you handle difficult people? What situations have you encountered? Where does it usually happen? Workplace? Club? Neighborhood? Home? How do you cope with it?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:31 AM
Office fling ethics
In the past, I have talked about office romance in various blog entries like the one here.
Personally, I think that sort of stuff is asking for trouble. But when people work together, it's inevitable you are going to get some hooking up together. But it can potentially create some problems.
Writing in Entrepreneur.com, organisational psychologist David Javitch, says it can create a number of risky situations. What happens, for example, if there is an argument? What about the issue of favouritism and special deals when one person in the relationship is in a management position? There's the prospect of divulging snippets of personal information that are best left out of the workplace. And it might make it difficult if someone has issues with one of the parties in the relationship. And what happens when the couple breaks up?
Javitch doesn't offer many answers but you might get a clearer picture from this BusinessWeek piece on The Ethics of Office Romance.
Options include proceeding with eyes wide open, being discreet and not going there if the object of your affection is your boss or assistant. Still, the bottom line is that most romantic relationships don't work out. In the workplace, the chances of things working out are even more remote.
What do you think of office flings? What sort of issues do they raise? And how should the organisation deal with it?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 10:06 AM
Wacky resume inclusions
Have you ever interviewed a job candidate who was a cheer leader? Or someone who claimed they worked well in the nude?
These are among the top 12 odd resume inclusions provided by the Careerbuilder.com site. Everything from stealing a pig, albeit a small one, to attaching a letter from Mum.
Maybe these were all done to make the candidate stand out and get the recruiters attention. And who is to say that you should discriminate against someone just because they are a bit wacky? But you do wonder what gets into these people's heads.
What's the weirdest thing you have ever seen on a resume or CV? Did you hire the person? How did it work out? Have you ever put weird stuff on your resume? Tell us about it.
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:00 AM
Fast food and the economics of obesity
Yesterday's story about the Heart Foundation accusing the pizza industry of fueling the obesity epidemic raises some interesting questions.
There is a paradox. People are aware that they have to eat healthy foods but at the same time, they sacrifice nutrition for taste. So the resolve to watch what you are eating can often be about as effective as New Year's resolutions.
Speed and convenience would also be in the mix. Its a trend explored in some recent research from British analyst company Datamonitor.
US health economist Eric Finkelstein, who has just co-authored a book The Fattening of America, has told the Freakonomics blog at the New York Times that there obesity is also a result of basic economics.
Finkelstein says: "Modern society is giving Americans many more incentives to gain weight than to lose it. We are, in fact, victims of our success as a nation. The two most obvious factors are: 1) the abundance of cheap, tasty foods; and 2) the new technologies that allow us to be increasingly more productive at work and at home while burning fewer calories ... we can also pop some pills or get out clogged arteries cleaned out with relative ease, thus lowering the health costs of obesity ... As any economist worth his weight will tell you, if the costs of being obese go down, and there are people who like to eat and dont like to exercise, we are bound to see obesity rates go up."
There is also the issue of whether workplace is making you fat, something that comes with poor food choices and sedentary habits. More on that here.
Is there really an obesity epidemic? What do you think are the main causes? How do we fix the problem? Should workplaces do anything about it? Or odes it all come back to the choice of the individual?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:21 AM
Predator employees
We have talked heaps about bad bosses. Some example here and here. No shortage of comments and feedback there. But what about nasty employees?
US blogger Michael Wade who runs Execupundit, one of my favorite sites, has put up an excellent blog entry on predatory employees. You know the type: the ones who are absolutely brilliant at their jobs but who are deeply insulted if you ever question them, the ones who record every perceived slight and offence and document every interaction, the ones who expect the boss to understand any of their lapses but who refuse to extend the benefit of the doubt to anyone else, and who use people as pawns to get ahead.
But there is a fine line here. People do have rights and there is a danger of judging people too harshly. And no employer wants to be accused of harassing employees. And therein lies the problem: these sorts of people are hard to move.
"The impact of this fear should not be underestimated. Employers overlook misconduct and keep people on the job who are highly destructive to efficiency and morale. This cowardice fosters mistrust among the managers and supervisors who correctly sense that they won't be backed up if they try to manage properly," Wade writes."A predatory employee can poison a workplace for years. The people who suffer the most from the predators, namedly their co-workers and immediate supervisors, deserve better."
Do you work with predators? Have you run into any? What have they done? How has it been handled?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:19 AM
Top 25 signs of a dysfunctional workplace
Everyone's worked at one of these places. Maybe you're still there.
Here is a list of the top 25 signs of a dysfunctional workplace. Read it and weep.
Some of the items are just over-the-top - "Your boss, an eccentric IT millionaire, offers to pay your monthly salary in gold coins because 'gold is more stable than the dollar' " - but we all know about the other stuff: too many pointless meetings, no reward system, the only way someone gets promoted is if a senior staff member dies, nothing can get done without the boss's approval, no one is sure who the boss really is. Etc.
And let's remember, there might be one or two work places that are ok but have one or two of these features.
Any of these sound familiar? Any extra ones to add? Have you ever worked at any of these sorts of places? Are you still there? Lets hear some stories.
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:53 AM
Sick leave: the gender divide
In the past, I have talked about the growing trend of mucus troopers, of people going into work when they are crook and should be home in bed. It's a serious problem, not only because it makes others sick but it says a lot about attitudes to how we fail to balance work and our lives outside.
Now we have an interesting Finnish study, reported in ScienceDaily, suggesting that women took nearly 50% more short-term sick leave than their male counterparts. They cited physical health problems, physical work demands and work fatigue as the main reasons for calling in sick. Days taken off to care for sick children were discounted from the figures.
Interestingly, this only applies to short-term illness. The gender differences weakened for longer periods away from work.
This was in contrast to the other situation confronting women. As most know, men are highly skilled at turning a small case of the sniffles into a raging flu. Mrs Management Line calls the flu "the male cold", a well-known phenomenon, she says, where the bloke feels he is dying. At least for a night or so. Don't know why, but that's what she says.
There could be several reasons for the findings in the Finnish study. The most obvious is that women are probably better at recognising when they are crook and going to the doctor. Secondly, women might simply be better organised about taking the time to see a doctor.
The findings might also suggest that males are more likely to turn up to work when they're sick. Maybe the subject for another study?
Are you surprised by these findings? Do you think there are gender difference in the way men and women handle illness? How sick do you have to be before you see a doctor?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:59 AM
Salary leaks and dilemmas
Other people's pay is one of the hot button issues at work. How much do you make compared to others? Are you paid less even though you put in more effort and get more results? Ever find yourself wondering what some people do to justify their pay?
It's a dilemma thrown up in the BNET online management journal. It's the "salary leak dilemma", an interesting hypothetical that really gets you thinking.
Picture this: you run a small a small company, and one of your employees finds an unprotected Excel spreadsheet on the company server containing the salaries of everyone on staff. The spreadsheet revealed significant pay discrepancies across departments. Some are paid more than others and women are being paid less than men in comparable positions. Now, the staff member emails the spreadsheet around the company. Morale crashes, the company is in uproar and this creates an enormous problem for managers. Many, especially the women are telling you to fix it. But you can't afford to do that. What do you do?
BNET offers several possible solutions. Bring everyone's salary into line? Take the attitude that it's no-one's business? Fire the employee who sent the email and put it behind you? Call a staff meeting and tell everyone you can't fix the problem now, explain how salaries are determined and tell them how they can get pay raises?
What would you do? How would you solve the problem? Do you work in a place where there are significant pay discrepancies? Tell us about them? Does it have any impact on you? What should your management do about it?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:52 AM
Fraud feelings
Ever feel like you're a fraud or impostor? You ever feel that your success is due more to some kind of luck than ability? Are you ever plagued by self-doubt, particularly when you step into a new role or job. Or when you have to make snap decisions with very little information and you are going by your gut.
It's a common condition, according to this New York Times piece.
Psychologists have been studying this condition for years and have come up with interesting findings. Not surprisingly, they found that people who feel they are frauds are less confident, more moody and more rattled by performance anxieties. Men who scored highly were more likely to avoid contests in areas where they felt vulnerable. Women, on the other hand, competed harder and were determined to show that they were better than others.
Another interesting finding is that there are lots of fake frauds, people who project themselves as impostors so that they can lower expectations of what's expected of them.
Do you ever feel like an impostor? How often does it happen? What brings it on? How do you deal with it? More to the point, do you work with any?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 10:07 AM
The U-shaped path to happiness
Economists and psychologists have been looking at it for years. But to my way of thinking, measuring happiness is, at best, open-ended. At worst, it's rubbish. Where are the objective global standards or metrics to gauge a subjective emotional state? No one has come up with the perfect blissometer for hedonometrics.
Still, the pursuit of happiness continues to fascinate us. And having just turned 50 two weeks ago, I was interested in this piece of research, reported here, showing that the path to happiness is U-shaped. According to the research, people are happiest at the beginning and end of life and most miserable when they are middle-aged. The study, based on data collected from two million people in 80 countries, found that in the United States, happiness reached its lowest point around age 40 in women and age 50 in men. In Britain, unhappiness was greatest in men and women at age 44.
After hitting the Big F, it was a sobering read for me.
The researchers said there could be a number of explanations for this, including the possibility that cheerful people live longer. It might also have something to do with the fact that you don't have to work at the beginning and end of your life.
I have some doubts about these sorts of studies. In his brilliant book Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains that people not only struggle to recall what made them happy, they also fail to predict or, for that matter, acutely remember the stuff that gives them joy, or pain. According to Gilbert, we have difficulty predicting what makes us happy because of the logic-process shortcomings of our brains. One is that each time we have a pleasurable experience, we adapt to it quickly so that experience yields less pleasure every time. "Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility and the rest of us call it marriage," Gilbert writes. The problem with measuring happiness, he says, is that there are shortcomings of imagination and we have a tendency to project the present on to the future. As a result, we expect our future to feel a lot more like the present than it actually will. Not true? Ask anyone who has shopped on an empty stomach or vowed to quit smoking as soon as they stub out a cigarette. Think of the teenagers who get tattoos, confident that "death rocks" will forever be a great motto, and the mothers who abandon careers confident that being at home with the children will always be rewarding.
So in other words, we dont really know for sure when we are happy.Not at the time anyway.
Still, the latest research is interesting. What's your take? What were the happiest times of your life? To those who have hit middle age, how have you found it? Has it been as bad as the research suggests? What are the things that make you happy?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 10:23 AM
Workplace competition: the Tiger Woods effect
There's a management mantra that competition brings out the best in people. The superstars are rewarded well, the underperformers are booted out.
One of the most celebrated examples of this is the system of forced ranking, championed by companies like GE when it was run by Jack Welch. Using this system, managers rank workers into three levels: The top 20 per cent, or the "A" players, who are given raises, bonuses, options, and lots of training. The middle 70 per cent, or "B" players, are given smaller raises and encouraged to improve. The bottom 10 per cent, the "C" players contribute the least. It's not that they are bad. They might be meeting expectations but they are simply "ok". No raises or bonuses for them. They might be offered training, or sacked.
But a new study suggests that putting in superstars might actually discourage others. Competition is all well and good but what if the superstars are so far ahead that the prizes feel out of reach?
The study, as reported in Slate magazine, looked at this problem in the context of professional golf and Tiger Woods. The researcher, Jennifer Brown of Berkeley, found that competitors did not fare as well - about an extra stroke per tournament - when Tiger was playing. And the size of the rewards did not seem to change the situation.
As Slate's Joel Waldfogel puts it, this creates a potential problem for workplaces. "What does this mean for the nongolfing world? It's generally agreed that people work harder when they are paid for performance ... But the effects of incentives appear to be muted when the incentives are based on relative performance and the competition is tough. We're taught that quitters never win, but if the evidence from golf is any indication, it might be more accurate, if less pithy, to say that expected losers are more likely to quit, or at least not perform as well. If you're running a business, and you have the opportunity to hire the Tiger Woods of office work, you're not going to pass up the chance. But Brown's study suggests you might want to consider its effect on your other workers' performance. Steak knives might not cut it as second prize."
Have you worked in a super-competitive environment? How has it affected you? Do you think it brings out the best? Or does it discourage?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 8:09 AM
Ten habits of incompetent managers
We've all run into them. Incompetent managers out of their depth who shouldn't be there. The ones who keep anti-social hours and expect everyone else to, who can't make decisions, who take everything personally, who micro-manage ... the list goes on.
How did they get there? And why do they manage to hang on? More to the point, what are the tell-tale signs of lousy managers?
US company director Margaret Heffernan outlines her vision of the ten habits of incompetent managers: an obsession with working long hours, an addiction to consultants, so much ego that they refuse to hire former employees, an inability to keep or set deadlines, a focus on small tasks, a preference for weak candidates, too much emphasis on the rule book, a failure to be direct and honest, secrecy and a bias against action.
We have all run into people who fit that list. Any other habits to add? Are some worse than others? Who are some of the worst examples you've run into? Do you still work for them?
- Posted by Leon Gettler at 9:37 AM


text:
Bibliographic record and links to related information available from the Library of Congress catalog
Copyrighted sample text provided by the publisher and used with permission. May be incomplete or contain other coding.
Chapter One
It changed everything: a school picture printed on the front page of the Elk Grove Courier, the newspaper my father was reading. I was eight. Sitting across the breakfast table from Dad, I pointed. "Who is she?"
"She's dead."
He kept reading.
"What happened?" I asked.
No answer.
I leaned forward to get a closer look. She looked like me: same short cropped hair with razor-straight bangs, same heart-shaped face, same wool plaid jumper. I looked at Dad: bloated, smudged glasses slid halfway down his nose. Why wasn't he telling me what happened? He loved talking gore; lived for it; documented it, even.
Dad drove his Ford pickup with his Kodak movie camera sitting shotgun just in case he saw an accident. If he was lucky enough to come upon something, he'd jump out and aim his camera at whatever was crumpled, bleeding, or burning. And every Thanksgiving he lined up Mom and the four of us kids on the gold-and-brown-plaid studio couch, hauled out the Bell + Howell reel-to-reel, and rolled his masterpieces.
Images jiggled past, scenes from our tiny Ohio town of Galesburg. Christmas morning, four beautiful children in color-coordinated Santa pajamas, squinting; summertime, my older brother Jamie's first home run; a station wagon hideously wrapped around a telephone pole, blood dripping down the passenger door and plop, plop, plopping onto the road; my two older sisters and me in hats with wide ribbons hunting for Easter baskets; a dead cow smashed on the front of a Plymouth. Our childhood was preserved among the big fire at the Catholic church, a Greyhound bus accident on Fort Henry Road, and a tornado twirling up Martha Whitmore's bean field. We all sat watching the movies and eating buttered popcorn made in the black-and-white-speckled pan that was always greasy, no matter how many times you scrubbed it. The disasters took up more reels than we did, and Dad narrated them like a pro.
So why was Dad skimping on the details about this dead girl? Maybe it wasn't bloody enough for him.
I couldn't get that school picture out of my head. I needed to know what had happened to that girl. If she was dead, something had killed her, and I wanted a heads up just in case whatever it was might be lurking nearby.
That night I casually swiped the newspaper off the cluttered coffee table and headed down the hallway to find my brother, Jamie. Nothing scared him.
He was sitting on his bedroom floor putting together a plastic model of a '69 Shelby Cobra Mustang.
"Can you read this out loud?" I held up the paper.
"Why can't you read it?" he asked, looking up from his project. He had most of the chassis put together.
"I can read it, but I want you to." He stared at me. I held up a Milky Way left over from my Easter stash.
I couldn't tell Jamie I didn't want to read the details of that girl's death by myself, especially with her staring out at me from the front page. I didn't want him thinking I was chicken.
"It has to be right now?" he asked.
"Mom says I have to go to bed in a minute," I said.
He twisted the lid back onto the blue-and-white tube of Testor's glue and wiped his hands on the filthy dishrag he kept in his supplies shoe box.
"Let's go," he said. I followed him to the dark landing of our musty basement, where the four of us kids congregated for secret business.
"Here," I said, handing him the paper and the candy. I was glad Jamie wasn't too curious. He hardly ever asked questions about anything.
We sat crouched on the landing. I held the silver flashlight with the words "Black and Decker" printed down the side. Dad owned a hardware store in downtown Elk Grove and earned the flashlight selling ten hammers in two months, but he tossed it to me when the lens cracked. Jamie and I sat facing each other cross-legged with our foreheads touching, staring down at the white circle of light. He began to read: "'Driver Faces Charges in Bike Rider Death' -- "
"Bike rider? She was killed on her bike?" I craned my neck to see the paper right side up.
"Do you want me to read this or not?" Jamie tore open the candy bar wrapper.
"Go ahead," I said, thinking of my own bike, a gold Schwinn with a leopard-skin banana seat. I'd spent hours running it up the wooden ramp Jamie had built beside the alley behind our house. Cars ripped through there without ever slowing down.
Jamie took a bite and began reading again: "'Mason County's fourth traffic fatality of the year occurred Tuesday afternoon with the death of Sarah Rebecca Keeler, eight-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Keeler.'"
Eight years old? I was eight. I grabbed the paper to take another look. She was my age, but I didn't recognize her from school. I felt a pang of disappointment as I handed back the paper.
Jamie continued, "'Sarah Keeler was a member of St. Mary Catholic Church and was a third-grade pupil at St. Mary School.'"
That's why I didn't know her; she was Catholic. Catholics were considered the equivalent of snake handlers in our small Ohio town. I didn't know much about them except that they made Methodists like my parents nervous. This made Sarah more mysterious. Anyone who unnerved my parents was interesting to me.
"'Sarah was en route on North Highway 26 when struck by a car driven by Nowell Linsley, sixty-one. The report states death was apparently instantaneous, due to a basal skull fracture and a broken neck.'"
"What's a 'basal skull fracture'?" I asked.
"I guess her head broke open," Jamie said. He knew death. He'd buried dozens of small animals he'd found dead in the field behind our house, or cats and squirrels squashed by cars speeding through town on Highway 64.
I contemplated how hard I'd have to be hit by a car to have my head crack open like an egg. My oldest sister, JoAnn, had her head split open on the corner of the coffee table when we were little. Dad deliberately stuck his foot out and tripped her. He thought it was hilarious until bright red blood began trickling down her face.
I was trying to picture someone's whole head laid open, hair and brains and blood on the asphalt, when I began feeling woozy and sweaty.
"Hold the flashlight still," Jamie said. I shook my head and steadied the light. "'A Breathalyzer test was taken on Linsley, and he was charged by the sheriff's department for driving under the influence of alcohol.'"
"The guy was drunk," Jamie said, handing me the paper. I thought of Uncle Ernie, the only person I'd ever seen drunk. He'd come to our front door one night after running down the street from the dilapidated Galesburg Tavern, where another drunk had been hitting him over the head with a pool cue. Dad wasn't home.
Ernie's forehead was bleeding and Mom looked pale and nervous, especially when he asked to use one of her good bath towels. The next morning I heard Mom call him a "sweet drunk," so he'd probably never kill anyone on a bicycle. Even so, I'd be on the lookout for his white pickup.
That night I lay in my small wooden bed and relished the attention Sarah Keeler must have received. I fantasized that it had been me on that bike and I'd been struck from behind. I hoisted my arms above my head on the pillow and pretended to be lying on the road. In my fantasy my dad drove by and stopped, not because he recognized my bike (my dad had no idea what color my bike was); he stopped because it was potentially gory. He jumped out of the truck with his movie camera but realized it was me lying there -- bleeding and dying. Double jackpot, he thought: one less mouth to feed and he'd get all the attention. People would feel so bad for him.
Dad resisted the urge to film the scene, opting instead to bend over my limp body, pretending to be struck with grief. He was surprised when he could actually squeeze out tears. Everyone closed in around him...and that's when I canceled that fantasy.
If Dad shoved me out of the limelight even in my death scene, if he couldn't even love me while I was lying on the asphalt, there was no hope.
Maybe others would have been sad to see me dead in the street. I thought of Mom curled up in the nubby orange chair reading Rich Man, Poor Man. Surely she'd have been devastated. But Mom was a human cork; she floated to the top of any awful situation. My mom, who'd told me the earth was flat, always created her own reality. She would have been fine.
I was beginning to wonder if dying was such a good idea.
It wasn't as if I wanted to be dead; it was just that I was miserable and felt in the way most of the time. There was something wrong with me. I always knocked over my milk, I got sick every time we drove long distances in the car, and I wet my bed every night, even though I was in third grade. But when Dad started in on us, knocking Jamie across the kitchen and then kicking him in the side, or jerking my pants down in front of strangers, that's when death seemed possible, even preferable.
If God could make me normal like everyone else in my class, or pull me out from under the rage of my own father, I might be happy instead of nervous and ashamed all the time.
I remembered the funeral details Jamie had read:
Friends may call on Saturday at Kilner and Sons Mortuary between 4:00 and 8:00 P.M. On Sunday there will be Mass at St. Mary's, with burial following at Maple Creek Cemetery.
Until Sunday, when Sarah Keeler was sunk in a deep, lonely hole and the world forgot and moved on, I could pretend I knew her. I could wallow in the glow of her spectacular departure. Sunday was years away.
I woke up the next morning to sunshine and bushy green trees rustling outside my bedroom window. I rolled over and felt under my pillow for the newspaper. Still there.
I crawled out of bed to change my wet sheets and pajamas. Bed-wetting kept Mom from buying me a spiffy twin bed like the ones my older sisters, Becky and JoAnn, had.
Their fancy twins were on either side of mine, decorated exactly alike with smoky blue comforters trimmed in fluffy white ball-fringe. Their white wrought-iron headboards twisted into elaborate curlicues that mirrored each other.
My bed was narrow with white wooden rails that went halfway up on either side. The mattress was slick, quilted, and smelled of urine. It was a bed to be embarrassed by. A baby's bed. A peed-in bed. I'd slept in it my whole life.
I walked into the bathroom and threw my pajamas and sheets into the tub.
I thought of Sarah Keeler as I looked in the mirror and imagined my own face on the front page of the Elk Grove Courier. More than anything else, I wanted to see her on Saturday between four and eight P.M. lying in her pink (I imagined my favorite color) coffin, her freshly washed hands folded over her lap, shoes double-tied for oblivion. I had to find a way to go to that viewing. And I knew the person to take me there was Granda.
Granda was my mother's mother, but the opposite of my mom in every way. Granda was a realist, and that's how she needed to be approached. She could be very sentimental and loving, but she'd also killed her own cat. He bothered her. She had a bad hip and she'd gotten tired of getting up and down out of her chair to let him in and out of the aluminum door of her trailer. So she'd locked him in her freestanding garage that the pole barn company had built for her right beside her trailer; she'd lured him in with a raw hot dog, closed the door, and left the Buick running for three hours.
I felt she could be persuaded to attend a funeral.
After breakfast I walked across Whitmore's back field to Granda's green-and-white double-wide. Granda was sitting at the kitchen table peeling new potatoes. I needed to be convincing but not too eager. I sat down across from her.
"A girl I knew died," I said.
"Oh, honey, who was it?" Granda stopped peeling.
"It was in the paper yesterday."
"That little girl on the bicycle?" she asked.
I nodded. I was glad I didn't have to say her name as if I really had known her. "Mom doesn't think I should go to the funeral home." Granda started peeling again. "I feel like I should."
"If your mom says you can't, then you can't." Granda pointed the silver potato peeler in my direction for emphasis.
"Yeah, I guess so. The whole town's going."
Granda salted a piece of raw potato and handed it to me. I ate it slowly, the salt stinging my chapped lips.
"I was hoping maybe you could take me over there." I looked at the table as my face flushed red.
"Honey, you don't want to see that. It's a terrible thing, very upsetting."
"Well, I might go with Suzanne Beckner's family, but I'd rather go with you. Mrs. Beckner said the entire county's going." I rested my hands on the table and put my chin on top. Granda was scrutinizing me.
"Didn't that girl go to the Catholic school?"
"I guess so."
"And you knew her?"
"Not very well," I lied, "but enough to feel like I should go. Suzanne does too." I ended with the one line I knew would really get her. "Mom can't understand." Granda prided herself on wholly understanding me.
She said she'd think about it, which was a good sign. When Granda had to think about something, it usually meant yes sirree. Besides, Granda rarely passed on any kind of local drama. It ran in the family.
Saturday night Granda and I made the eight-mile trip to Elk Grove in her cat-killing Buick.
The line of mourners outside Kilner and Sons Mortuary snaked down Main Street, past the Liberty Movie Theatre, and ended in front of old man Conroy's pharmacy. Mrs. Beckner had been right; the entire county was there.
No one said a word. If someone caught someone else's eye, it was just a somber shaking of the head as if to say, It can't be. It just can't be. I shook my head too.
Granda and I took our place at the end of the line. I felt a kind of personal satisfaction with the huge turnout, as if I'd had something to do with it. I was sure that Sarah could see all of it and was secretly smiling and enjoying the attention. My tights itched the back of my leg right behind the knee, but I tried to ignore it. This was a dignified occasion and I would refrain from scratching.
We waited as the line snailed closer to the front doors with the initials k & s etched in script on the frosted glass.
As we pushed through the fancy doors and climbed the plush purple steps, my breath was coming in short spurts. Granda saw my pale face and gave me one last chance to leave before we turned the corner and entered the main room. There was no way I was leaving. I craned my neck and saw the flower arrangements stacked floor to ceiling and heard the soothing Muzak dragging above the voices.
Where's the coffin? I wondered as my stomach fluttered with fear and excitement. I shifted my weight.
Suddenly we turned a corner, and there she was. I could only see the top of her head because the casket was resting on a high platform with a maroon pleated skirt. It was pine with (and I'd called this) a pink interior. I looked at Granda with pleading eyes. "Could you please pick me up just for a second?" She was uncomfortable. She lifted me quickly and then -- boom, back down on the carpet. I saw Sarah Keeler for one second. It was all the time I needed.
Her hair was cut exactly like in the picture in the newspaper, but her features didn't look the same. As often as I'd studied that picture, I wouldn't have recognized her. She was wearing a softball uniform, which threw me. I had imagined something tastefully frilly. She must have liked sports -- another stabbing disappointment. I hated sports and was myself dressed in something tastefully frilly. We were not the same.
My gut clenched. I looked around and recognized no one. I looked back at the coffin. Sarah Keeler was going to be wearing that softball uniform forever, and she was not coming back, because there was no way back from wherever she was.
Granda was handing out condolences as I waited in the back of the room near an enormous gurgling coffee pot. She was right, there was no mistaking death when you saw it face-to-face, and Sarah's face kept flashing in front of me, her skin thick and powdery. Jamie told me later that it was makeup used to hide the bruises, which gave me the creeps. Her eyelids had been glued shut with what looked like rubber cement, and her lips had been smudged with light pink lip gloss that didn't even stay in the lines. I wasn't allowed to wear lipstick. Her hands were small like mine.
My mother was right; I shouldn't have seen this. And now I couldn't even tell her I had. I stared at Sarah's coffin, and I knew I could not choose death, because nothing, not even Dad, could be more frightening than ending up in a coffin with your lips sewn shut.
Even with Dad the way he was, always hitting and humiliating us, and even if Mom never noticed, I didn't want to die -- not really. And besides, there was always Granda. Granda still took the best care of me and loved me more than anyone. She walked up beside me, and I grabbed her hand for reassurance.
On the way to the car we stopped to chat with Etta Mae Shaw. I waited, looking at my feet. It wasn't until then that I realized that somewhere between the coffin and Mrs. Shaw, I'd peed in my shoes. My socks were yellow and wet on the inside of my ankles, and the familiar stickiness of my soaked panties confirmed it. Granda kept an old brown furniture blanket in her trunk for just such occasions. I sat on it all the way home.
The next morning I woke up around five A.M.
I got up and peeled off my wet pajama bottoms. Don't throw those wet pants on my hardwood floors, Mom harped in my brain. I tossed them on the wet sheets and rolled the whole thing up into a ball. The house was silent. I tiptoed to the bathroom and threw the whole mess into the bathtub. On the way back to bed I peeked in Jamie's room.
With his hands resting on top of his blue-and-red-striped sheets, eyes shut, and breath barely noticeable, Jamie looked dead. I panicked. "Jamie!" I screamed. "Jamie!" He jumped out of bed, grabbed my arms, and jerked me into the dining room in one move.
"What? What is it? What's going on?"
"I thought you were dead," I mustered.
"I almost died when you screamed," he shushed me. I was shaking like crazy as we listened to hear if the fuss had woken up Mom or Dad. No one. "Shit, Monica, you freaked me out. I think that dead girl tweaked your brain. Come on."
Jamie tiptoed me back to my room, where JoAnn and Becky were peacefully sleeping. I pulled on another pair of pajama bottoms and he helped me with my early morning ritual, putting a beach towel over the pee spot and a dry sheet on top of that. With luck, it wouldn't soak through.
I climbed into bed in my mismatched pajamas: pink hearts on top, blue rocket hand-me-downs on bottom. I longed for a time when I would eat breakfast in matching top and bottom pajamas. No one else seemed to notice. My clean pajamas and sheets just regularly showed up, no comment. I managed in silence along with everyone else. That morning I wanted order in my world. More than anything else, I wanted my pajamas to match.
Jamie started out the bedroom door. "That girl gets buried today; they'll be digging the hole this morning," I said. He turned and looked at me. "Yep, today's hole day," he said. I shot him my Please don't leave me look. He came over and sat down on the floor beside my bed, leaning his head against the wooden side railing. The top of his hair was bristly from the buzz cut Dad had given him earlier that week. I patted it in thanks. "Go to sleep, Monica." I curled up in a ball.
Odds were, with Jamie there, I could sleep. If the planets aligned, I also might stay dry until I woke up. Just as I was settling in, my stomach tightened. Out my window the sun was coming up, but not for everyone. Some of us were dead.
Copyright © 2007 by Monica Holloway
Chapter Two
Chapter Two
The morning of Sarah Keeler's burial, I sat in the Galesburg Methodist Church between JoAnn and my father, whose heavy arm rested on the back of the pew right above my head. My legs were too short to touch the floor, but if I pressed my toes down, I could almost reach it. I was growing.
The church sat kitty-corner across the street from our house, but we were late every Sunday. The service started at nine a.m., and at nine ten my family would be running across the street in uncomfortable dress shoes, Dad calling us "idiots" as the opening hymn, "Love Lifted Me," wafted out the church windows.
The service that morning, led by the small and dreary Reverend Morse, was a dull drone, and I found myself staring at the large stained glass window on the left side of the church. I loved how the sun moved across that window every Sunday and how by the end of the service it was centered right in the middle of Jesus's face. This depended on where you were sitting, but we always sat in the exact same pew, so as long as it wasn't cloudy, the sun ended on Jesus.
I wasn't attached to Jesus, exactly, but I had heard about him since birth and held a kind of respect for all he'd been through. The hymn "Low in the Grave He Lay" pretty much told it all: He'd had a difficult life and a pretty rotten death. So I gave him the inner thumbs-up as I watched the sun and prayed for it to cross his left cheek, which would mean I was almost out of there.
Church was the only place where I sat close to my father. He felt less prickly there, and as much as I hated him, I wanted him to love me. In the silence of church I tried to steal closeness.
He seemed almost friendly in church because of his expression while singing hymns he knew by heart. His head would tilt to the right, eyes closed, forehead lifted. He looked so relaxed. When he took a breath, his head would dip with each inhale. His voice was beautiful. How could he sing so well and be so mean? The voice didn't fit the man, but it gave me hope.
The ending prayer finally came and I wiggled off the pew. Free -- sort of. We still had to go to Sunday lunch at my grandparents' house.
After walking home and changing out of our church clothes, my family piled into our white station wagon and drove three blocks to Mammaw and Papaw's house. We could never just walk down there because there were too many hot covered dishes that had to be hauled along. I spent many Sundays sitting in the backseat holding a kitchen towel around warm baked beans with bacon sizzling on top, or a rectangular metal pan filled with cream cheese and lemon Jell-O mix meant to pass as a cheesecake.
Sundays with the Petersons, my dad's side of the family, were a recurring nightmare. Every weekend Mammaw and Papaw's six sons (my dad being the oldest) came with their large families in tow. My uncle Carl rarely came, but his family, Aunt Evelyn and the three boys, did.
Carl drove a Greyhound bus, so we hardly ever saw him. When we did, his eyelids were sleepy and droopy from driving strangers all over the country. Uncle Carl was the only one of us who traveled, and his sons, Ben, Tim, and Paul (who also had droopy eyelids), were the only cousins we liked.
The other cousins, whom I knew only because we shared the same pathetic gene pool, poured out of station wagons with scowls on their faces. Uncle Bill's son Troy talked like he had a sock stuck in the back of his throat, and my cousin Karen looked sad, even when she was laughing. All of my cousins were scared of my dad.
Dad took special pleasure in humiliating children; all of us had been the butt of it at one family event or another. Today it would be my turn again.
Uncle Ernie got out of his truck. The night before he'd been drunk again and someone had tossed him through the front window of the Galesburg Tavern. He was covered in cuts and bruises. I watched everyone talk to him as if his nose were still firmly attached.
Mammaw, oblivious to Ernie's injuries and our sour faces, loved a crowd and was always glad to see us. If we came right after church, she still had her teeth in, but if it was later in the day, she was all gums, and her shoes were long forgotten.
Mammaw rarely bathed, which bothered my overly bathed mother, but if you spent the night there, you didn't have to bathe either. And forget having to brush your teeth.
Mammaw embarrassed me with her red SOS-pad hair and her yellowed toenails. I was ashamed to feel that way because she loved all of us -- fiercely. Mammaw never forgot a birthday even though there were more than thirty of us grandkids.
I felt sorry for Mammaw. I suspected she'd seen her share of tragedies. One Saturday afternoon we were standing on her back porch when the front tire of my gold bike exploded from the heat of the sun. It made a loud boom and Mammaw thought someone had fired a shotgun. She dropped to the kitchen linoleum and lay down flat, her thick arms protecting her head. The speed at which she hit the floor told me she'd been shot at before. It didn't surprise me.
Dad told us that when he was little, Papaw would drink whiskey and then sit down at the dinner table and say, "I can't stare at you bunch of lazy asses anymore. I'm gonna blow my goddamn head off." He'd scoot his chair back, grab his shotgun, and head out to the barn. Mammaw and the six boys would sit silently at the table waiting for the gun to go off. It never did.
Today for the Sunday get-together, I saw Papaw setting up card tables in the garage and on the lawn. Extra chairs were borrowed from the Galesburg Volunteer Fire Department across the alley. There was always a table heaped with food and a big orange plastic container with a white screw-on lid filled to the brim with iced tea laced with plenty of liquid saccharine.
Mammaw and Papaw lived in town now, but they used to manage a farm out on the county line. My dad grew up on that farm, killing chickens right before he cooked them, and butchering hogs in the barnyard. They'd been desperately poor, but Mammaw and Papaw, uneducated and fertile, kept having sons one right after the other. Those boys slaved away on that farm under the eye of my ferocious papaw. He was thin as a rail and bent over by the time I knew him, but I saw pictures and heard stories of what a big man he used to be and how he used to beat his kids, and Mammaw, too.
At these family get-togethers I usually stayed outside the house to avoid my father. I also considered my personal safety at risk whenever Mammaw cooked.
Her kitchen was an exotic and dangerous place, the main culprit being a pressure cooker that sputtered and splashed on the stove. If I had to be in the kitchen while she was cooking, I was always ready to duck if that thing exploded. It actually happened once, and my uncle Bill was scalded all the way down the left side of his body. No one but me seemed to be worried about a second occurrence.
Mammaw was a creative cook, concocting meals of squirrel, brains (any animal), pig's ears (which were actually the pig's scrotum), and greens pulled right out of her yard. She pickled anything standing still and jellied anything on a vine. Her egg noodles were thick, creamy, and delicious. I enjoyed them as best I could, considering I didn't know what was in them.
She stored all kinds of vegetables and relishes she'd canned herself in a dirt root cellar that Papaw built for her below the kitchen. The only way into the root cellar was a wooden door stuck right in the floor of the pantry. Sitting at Mammaw's kitchen table, I'd sometimes hear a jar explode down there. After the CRACK-and-SPLAT sound, Mammaw would look toward the pantry and say, "Fermented," and continue chopping carrots. When she finally pulled open the door in the floor, the stench would be unbearable. I assumed "fermented" meant "explodes and stinks like hell."
But this Sunday, as Sarah Keeler was being lowered into the ground, I walked into Mammaw's backyard. I was trying to figure out the best place to disappear to, when I saw my dad staring out the window at me. I felt that familiar jerk in my stomach. He was mad at me for something, and I had no idea what it was. I turned and walked in the other direction, feeling his eyes on me the whole way.
The world wasn't safe today. The truth was, this world was never safe.
I walked around the back of the garage where Dash, Mammaw's dalmatian, sat chained to his house. Dash had one blue eye and one brown eye and wasn't overly friendly -- due to the chain. He sat there staring at me with those crazy eyes. Feeling crazy myself, I decided to take a load off.
I pretended to pet Dash, who never wanted to be petted, in case someone saw me sitting out there alone, though no one would. He smelled like shit. The nub of his tail was dabbed purple with some kind of cure-all that Mammaw had used on the farm to castrate pigs.
Mammaw invented her own medicines. She created a salve for drawing out splinters that was made up of three different poisons. It would have killed you if you ate it, but slap a dab on a splinter, and your worries were over. JoAnn joked that if you used too much, it might actually pull up an organ.
I sat down next to Dash and looked up at the sun. Sarah was probably under dirt by now. I thought of her eyes, nose, and hands in the airless pitch-black grave. I looked at Dash and the mud-splattered doghouse and wasn't sure which was worse -- a shitty life or a shitty death.
Plucking up blades of grass, I wondered if I'd be able to see Sarah's grave when my school bus rolled by the cemetery tomorrow. Maybe...unless she was buried in the back somewhere. I started to feel better, thinking I might be able to sneak a moment with Sarah on school days. Maybe I could even get Granda to take me over there some weekend to see her grave up close.
I was used to seeing graves because there was a cemetery right behind our house. It wasn't as big as Maple Creek, but it was big enough. A stone cement bench sat up there, perfect for playing rummy or jacks on, and an enormous beige hornets' nest dangled from one of the elm trees. The spookiest feature was a sunken grave that dipped six inches lower than the ground. I imagined a bony finger poking up through the soil and slowly but steadily digging itself out. I hated that grave, but I never went up there without looking at it.
Dad started yelling for me to get my ass into the house. They were saying the prayer and filling plates. I jumped up and ran for it. If Dad had to call you twice, you got spanked.
Inside, I grabbed a plastic orange-and-white-flecked plate, a fork, knife, and spoon, and a white paper napkin, and bowed my head for the prayer Papaw was about to recite. My nose started itching, and when I went to scratch it, Dad slapped the back of my head, causing my plate and silverware to clatter to the floor. "Clumsy ass," he hissed. Everyone looked over for a second and then bowed their heads again. One of us kids being slapped was no reason to stare. My uncle Larry and aunt Betty smiled at me.
Larry, the youngest of the Peterson boys, was always sweet to his small son, Steve, holding his hand, sitting next to him while he ate.
Papaw continued the prayer, but the cousins got tired of waiting and started lining up for food. "Respect the goddamn Lord," Papaw bellowed. Everyone stopped in their tracks until he finished with a soft "Amen."
If there is a Lord, I thought, my chin starting to quiver, he sure created a bunch of losers when he pooped out this clan.
After the food, Dad decided he wanted a picture of his four kids. We lined up according to height just as he ordered us to, facing directly into the sun. The scowling cousins were watching.
It was four o'clock and the sun was directly over my dad's head and right in my eyes. I tried to smile in his direction as my dad clicked off four pictures on his new Polaroid camera, but the sun was too bright. Each time Dad clicked the shutter, I accidentally covered my eyes with my hands at the last minute. For the sixty seconds it took for each of those Polaroids to develop, I had plenty of time to imagine what punishment was in store for me for ruining Dad's "perfect family" pictures.
"You're a goddamn idiot," he yelled at me. "Can't you stand still for one minute? If you blur one more picture, I'm going to blister your ass."
My face was bright red. He'd spanked me many times, not caring where we were or who was looking, and usually he jerked my pants down right there in front of everyone to do it.
I tried to explain that it was because my eyes were light blue that I couldn't look directly at the sun, but he interjected, "I'm not wasting any more film on you. Get the hell outta here." He dragged me out of the line by the front of my shirt.
What was so confusing was that everyone looked at me as if I had caused the whole mess. I had somehow ruined everything.
The minute Dad turned his back, I ran for the station wagon, where I lay down on the backseat with tears and spit rolling off the gray vinyl. I cried so long, I forgot why I was crying and fell asleep.
When I woke up, it was dark. The family get-together was still going strong, so I climbed out of the car and walked home. The lights were on; Jamie was already there. I opened the screen door and headed to my room. I was hungry again, but it wasn't worth the effort to scare something up.
I lay on my bed, searching under my covers for my Casper the Ghost doll. Pulling him up by his arm, I could feel a hole torn in his fur and some fluff poking out. Granda would have to sew it for me. I pounded down his stomach, making a dip to lay my head in.
Hearing the station wagon pull up, I wondered if Mom would look in on me. She didn't. Becky came in, tossed a sweater onto her bed, and threw me a disgusted look. I had ruined their day again, by making a scene, by causing Dad to get mad, by so many things I didn't understand. I was ashamed and angry.
When I heard Dad open the tailgate of the station wagon, I got up and looked out the window. He pulled his Bell + Howell Super Eight movie projector and his fold-up home-movie screen out of the back. Dad must have shown movies at Mammaw's. I wondered what I'd missed.
I lay back down.
I closed my eyes, but just as I was drifting off, images from Dad's collection flickered through my head: a tornado demolishing Willard Bank's outhouse; a train explosion in Dunreath; my uncle Ernie in black rubber fire boots up to his hips wading through a flood near Pattonville, waving at the camera.
I sat straight up.
Maybe Dad had filmed Sarah Keeler's accident. Hers was huge compared to a cow being hit by a Plymouth.
Dad could hear an ambulance, police siren, or fire truck from a dozen blocks away, and when he heard one, he followed it. Lucky for him, he didn't have to strain his ears because the police and fire department were within one block of his store. He never missed anything.
I bet he was there, and if he was there, I bet he filmed it. My heart was racing as I wondered how I could find out.
I heard the screen door slam shut. I jerked my pink quilt up over my shoulders and tried to quiet my breathing. If he was still mad at me, I didn't want him knowing I was awake.
The next morning I walked into our yellow-and-white kitchen in a plaid skirt and bare feet. Mom was in a good mood. "It's about time you got in here," she said, dumping a spoonful of white sugar across the top of my oatmeal. She was pretending I hadn't spent yesterday sobbing in the back of the car. She was good at pretending.
I walked into the bathroom, tossed my pee-soaked sheets and pajamas into the bathtub, and headed back to the kitchen.
Dad was reading the Elk Grove Courier and slurping Maxwell House instant coffee he'd made by adding warm tap water to the coffee crystals in his mug and whipping it up with a metal spoon. I'd seen him do it a hundred times, his thick fingers choking the mug.
I sat down at the table and stared at Dad, who continued reading the paper. I wondered where he stashed his home movies. Dad titled and dated each one by writing on the rim of the plastic reel with a Magic Marker. If he'd filmed Sarah Keeler, the reel probably had her name on it or at least the date.
Dad dropped one corner of the paper and snapped, "What are you gawking at?"
I looked down at my oatmeal. I heard Dad flip the paper back up in front of his mean face. He hated me.
I thought about Dad standing by the side of the road filming her crumpled bike, her body lying on the asphalt. I imagined that he'd filmed her shoes, blown clear off her feet from the impact, lying in two different places.
I looked at Dad cutting through sausage patties with a butter knife. I was surprised he hadn't run over any kids himself, considering how fast we had to scramble out of his way when he sped through the alley behind our house, the wheels of his blue pickup spewing gravel in all directions.
If he ever did, the police would arrive with sirens blaring and I'd watch as they hauled Dad away in handcuffs, hauled him away forever to Cincinnati or Cleveland or even farther. Someplace he could never come home from, a place where he could never yank my pants down again with everyone staring. Someplace he deserved.
"Eat it, don't play with it," Mom said, jerking my head back slightly as she ran a brush through the back of my hair. I looked up to see Dad staring straight at me.
He probably knew what I was thinking.
Copyright © 2007 by Monica Holloway

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Clashes in Egypt on Eve of Uprising Anniversary
CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian security forces fired tear gas and protesters hurled stones and Molotov cocktails in a day-long demonstration on Thursday, raising fears of a violent anniversary of the 2011 uprising that toppled long-time authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak.
Youth activists and opposition groups have called for large rallies on the anniversary Friday in Cairo's Tahrir Square and in front of the president palace in the upscale suburb, Heliopolis.
The protests, which left dozens injured, began before dawn in central Cairo when protesters tried to tear down a cement wall built to prevent them from reaching the parliament and the Cabinet building. The street clashes continued after darkness fell on the Egyptian capital.
Three weeks of mass protests that erupted on Jan. 25, 2011, eventually forced Mubarak out of office.
Since then, Egypt has undergone a tumultuous transition under the interim leadership of military generals until the election last June of Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood group. His first six months in office were marked by political tensions, street protests and an economic crunch that sapped his popularity.
As the protests continued, Morsi visited the western city of Ismailia to inaugurate a maritime project, but he was received by activists who blocked a railway station, tore down the welcoming banners and issued a statement stating that they were opposed to inaugurating new projects while there's corruption in the railway system.
Later in the day, Morsi urged Egyptians to mark the anniversary peacefully.
"I call upon Egyptians to celebrate the revolution … with civilization and peacefully to preserve our nation, our institution, our souls, our streets and our sons," he told a gathering in a speech meant to mark the birthday of Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
"We have to feel that we are all in one ship and we have to preserve its safety and respect the people and their free will which they express in their ballot boxes," he added.
But die-hard fans of Egypt's most popular soccer team, Ahly, who took part in the clashes, warned in a statement: "The price of blood is blood." It was a reference to the deaths of many of their friends last year in a violent rampage at a soccer game that left 74 dead.
The soccer fans, known as Ultras, also called for mass protests on Jan. 26, the day a court is expected to rule on the fate of security officials being tried in connection with the deaths at the soccer game, one of the world's bloodiest instances of violence at a sports event.
On Tuesday, in an attempt to assuage anger, Morsi announced that the victims will be considered "martyrs." That means their families will receive compensation like those killed in the uprising against Mubarak.
That same day, Egypt's prosecutor general, who was appointed by Morsi, asked the court to give the prosecution more time to introduce new findings and new defendants before issuing its verdict. That was seen viewed as a move to postpone the verdict and avoid street violence by the soccer fans.
On Wednesday, Ultras held a sit-in in front of Egypt's stock market, briefly blocked a highway, and set up tents in Tahrir Square. The group has long been at odds with police, and it played a key role in anti-Mubarak uprising.
In addition to Ultras, a previously unknown group calling itself the Black Bloc appeared in a video clip posted on social networking sites. Wearing black masks and waving black banners, it warned the Muslim Brotherhood of using its "military wing" to tamp down protests, saying that if it did it would "go down to the streets and never come back."
In another online statement, the Black Bloc claimed responsibility for attacks on the offices of the Muslim Brotherhood and a fast-food chain known to be owned by the group. Egyptian daily Al-Masry al-Youm reported that members of the group took part in Thursday's clashes.
The opposition has demanded a suspension or radical changes to be made to Egypt's newly adopted constitution, which an Islamist-dominated constituent assembly drafted amid deep polarization and mass street protests.
The constitution, which many Egyptians see as a detrimental to civil liberties and a precursor to a religious state, passed with a 64 percent "yes" vote in a December referendum in which around 33 percent of voters took part.
In an online video message posted on Thursday, the nation's most prominent opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei urged Egyptians to rally in the streets but warned that change will take time.
"I demand from each one of you, all across Egypt, to prove that the revolution must continue and must be completed," ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former head of the U.N. nuclear agency, said in the message.
"Egyptians rose up for the sake of freedom, dignity and social justice," he said. "We must not stop until we see all the demands achieved. It will take time but we have to put ourselves on the right path."
The opposition wants to use the occasion to put pressure on Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, who secular and liberal Egyptians accuse of trying to monopolize power.
Meanwhile, the Brotherhood and other Islamist parties announced they will stay away from the streets on Friday's anniversary and warned the opposition against instigating violence. However, a Brotherhood member said that orders were given for supporters to rally at a mosque located near the presidency. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give the information to the media.
Egypt witnessed some of its worst street clashes on Dec. 4 when supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood clamped down on tents and protesters holding a sit-in in front of the presidential palace. Clashes ended with 10 dead and hundreds injured on both sides.
The Brotherhood said it would mark the anniversary by planting 1 million trees in a campaign entitled "Let's build Egypt."
In a statement posted on the group's official website, its leader, Mohammed Badie, advised Muslims to "watch their enemies," invoking challenges the prophet faced while founding a new state in the holy city of Medina in the 7th Century.
Commemorating the prophet's birthday, a national holiday, Badie said Muhammad faced "hypocrites, filled with hatred and envy for the emerging group."


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Follow RFF News on your cell phone. Text follow rff to 40404 you will receive txt messages with RFF News
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I get the "first boot" vibe from this team, just as I got from Ron & Bill, Ron & Tony, Avi & Joe... I don't know, that's just me...
My ultimate advice to Mark is that if you need big money to raise your children, then get the qualifications for a high-income job.
kevin2012,I guess the question is whether you mean "the greatest male/male team" ever in all Amazing Races or just in AR20. I am going to assume that you mean the former.Here are some male/male teams that are superior in my opinion:1. Rob/Brennan2. BJ/Tyler3. Eric/Jeremy4. Andy/Tommy (even though they did not make the F3 they were truly a great team)I feel that from after AR4 a bias to tilt the casting in favor of strong female teams and couples took over, so there have been only 3 teams I rate as great since then. There were some male/male teams that won (Tyler/James, Dan/Jordan) but I don't rate as great.
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Hey Kids!
We have a few shirts left over from Fan Expo!
The Skull (as worn by Duncan)
Shirts are $25 each plus shipping and handling payable through PayPal
Email us at email@example.com
Sizes are limited -- so act now!!!
what sizes of the Duncan skull t-shirt are left?
what sizes are left for the duncan and the jeopardy shirts?
You guys Should post another video on your youtube channel
I had a question, do any of you know if there is going to be a halloween contest this year like in the past?


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As I mentioned in a pervious post Master Data Services for SQL 2012 is a huge improvement over the SQL Server 2008 R2 version. The biggest difference is the ability for users to manage entities directly in Excel!
This is important because now Data Stewards can perform most of their Master Data Management activities in excel.
Master Data Services (MDS) is the SQL Server solution for master data management. Master data management (MDM) describes the efforts made by an organization to discover and define non-transactional lists of data, with the goal of compiling maintainable master lists. An MDM project generally includes an evaluation and restructuring of internal business processes along with the implementation of MDM technology. The result of a successful MDM solution is reliable, centralized data that can be analyzed, resulting in better business decisions.
With the right training, most business users should be able to implement a Master Data Services solution. In addition, you can use MDS to manage any domain; it's not specific to managing lists of customers, products, or accounts. When MDS is first installed, it does not include the structure for any domains—you define the domains you need by creating models for them.
Other Master Data Services features include hierarchies, granular security, transactions, data versioning, and business rules.
Master Data Services includes the following components and tools:
- Master Data Services Configuration Manager, a tool you use to create and configure Master Data Services databases and web applications.
- Master Data Manager, a web application you use to perform administrative tasks (like creating a model or business rule), and that users access to update data.
- MDSModelDeploy.exe, a tool you use to create packages of your model objects and data so you can deploy them to other environments.
- Master Data Services web service, which developers can use to extend or develop custom solutions for Master Data Services.
- Master Data Services Add-in for Excel, which you use to manage data and create new entities and attributes.
For a summary of MDS resources, see the SQL Server Master Data Services Portal.
**Note: You can upgrade to MDS 2012 without upgrading the SQL Server 2008 R2 instance.
To install MDS follow the MSDN product information
**To Deploy the Sample packages you will need to use MDSModelDeploy.exe
3. List the MDS web services to connect to if you are unsure of the service name. The default being MDS1 as shown by this command.
MDSModelDeploy.exe listservices
4. Deploy the package by pointing to the package file, and connecting to that service listed from step #3. Provide a model name for the model that you want to deploy.
MDSModelDeploy.exe deploynew -package "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Master Data Services\Samples\Packages\customer_en.pkg" -model CustomerSample -service MDS1
MDSModelDeploy.exe deploynew -package "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Master Data Services\Samples\Packages\chartofaccounts_en.pkg" -model ChartOfAccountsSample -service MDS1
MDSModelDeploy.exe deploynew -package "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Master Data Services\Samples\Packages\product_en.pkg" -model ProductsSample -service MDS1
Once the samples are installed then install the Excel plug-in and enjoy
Tech-Ed: Managing Master Data with MDS and Microsoft Excel


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Star Reporter Shares Manual High Storyby Howard W. Hewitt • February 16, 2010 Share:
Indianapolis Star reporter Matthew Tully called an on-going series about Indianapolis Manual High school "the best thing I've ever worked on" during a Tuesday campus visit.
But the 25 newspaper columns he's written on the subject thus far have had an even bigger impact on his views of education and on the readership of the Indianapolis Star.
"It's taken over my life," he said. "Eighteen years of journalism is forgotten. All I've heard about is Manual High School."
It all started with an idea to go into a high school for a few days to get a ground-floor look at education at an under-performing, inner-city school, or so Tully told his editors. He admitted he had a bigger idea in mind but didn't know where it would lead.
"When I started, I didn't know if I was going to be there two days or two weeks. I didn't know if the school was going to flip out and kick me out, especially after the first two columns that were really tough."
Manual's graduation rate is under 40 percent. It reflects the population of Marion County with 65 percent Caucasian, 25 percent African American, and 10 percent Hispanic students. It has violence problems, but worse is the number of students who come to school ill-prepared to learn.
"The first few days I realized I'd hit the jackpot," he said of the story possibilities. "The first few weeks at Manual were chaos, disorganized. At first I was getting a little depressed. A lot of students thought I was picking on their school."
But the uplifting stories turned it around for Tully and the state's largest newspaper. He had two 16-year-old girls ask if he was going to write about the "good kids" at Manual. So he told those girls' story and good things started to happen. A mentor reached out to those two young ladies and Vincennes University even offered them scholarships.
People reached out to help students and the school ever since the series began in August.
But the moment the Manual Project became something much bigger is a heartwarming Christmas story. Tully had been impressed with the school's 25-year-old choir director. The choir was preparing for its annual Christmas show, which normally had about 50 people (mainly teachers) in attendance. He decided he do a story on the young teacher and encourage Star readers to attend the Dec. 15 performance at the south side high school.
"I remember saying, 'Newspapers are dying. I guess we'll see if anyone is still reading.'"
What happened that night has drawn plenty of attention. The 1,200-seat auditorium was packed with people sitting in the aisles. A second show was added. Donation buckets had to be emptied four times just that night. A choir program that operated on a $750 annual budget got an infusion of $30,000 in cash as a result of the Christmas program and Tully's columns drawing attention to the school's plight.
"The most important thing is the spirit of what went on with the students," Tully said. "I remember one students saying, 'It feels like we're somebody.' People actually came up to me that night and said, 'Newspapers still matter.'"
The decorated journalist said the outpouring just reminded him how much people care about kids. "No matter how grumpy you are, it's hard not to care about kids. I think by writing about kids it's given the series a little more perspective to what schools really face."
The Christmas experience has led the Star to launch a major on-going initiative — "Our Children, Our City" — to raise education awareness and help Indianapolis Public Schools recruit 10,000 volunteers and mentors.
He shared with Wabash teacher education students the experiences of sitting in classrooms with good teachers and teachers who "had just quit." He told a Wabash classroom about the inner politics of IPS and how some of his columns have drawn the wrath of IPS Superintendent Dr. Eugene White.
He answered questions about those hard feelings and even addressed the jealousy some people have expressed about the "good kid" stories.
"It's my job to just tell the story," he said. "If someone doesn't like it or they think something is wrong at the school, so be it. It's still happening in that school. It doesn't do anyone any good to sugar coat things."
Tully said the most important thing he's learned is the complexity of the problems. "I've come to understand so much more of what schools do face and that they can only control so much. I've learned about the importance of quality teachers in every classroom and can't believe we put up with bad teachers."
He's not sure what happens after the school year to the project, but he will stay with the Manual Project through graduation. Manual will graduate about 150 students. When the class entered as freshmen, there were about 450 students.
"I can't imagine just walking away from Manual," he told the classroom about his future. "I can't imagine not going back to see how things are going."
Photos by the Bachelor's Drew Casey '12


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Obituaries - They Aren't Just in Newspapers
Genealogists are always looking for new sources. Tracking down information about our ancestors is what we do best. Obituaries are a terrific source of information but genealogists sometimes overlook the hundreds of thousands of obituaries that are not published in newspapers.
For example the Department of the Navy annually report to the U.S. Congress includes a lengthy list of obituaries of naval personnel who passed away in the previous year. These detailed obituaries give the genealogical details of the person's birth date, birth place and death date & place as well as the details of their military career.
These reports by the Department of the Navy along with the thousands of other documents prepared for government use are consolidated in what is called the U.S. Congressional Serial Set.
You can see a digital copy of the original pages at: www.GenealogyBank.com/free
GenealogyBank.com has digitized these and other government reports going back to the earliest ones issued in 1789. Currently GenealogyBank.com has the Serial Set documents digitized up to 1917. By the end of 2007 GenealogyBank will have the Serial Set digitized through the end of 1930 and it will have the project complete through 1980 in 2009.
It is often difficult to locate the exact dates and places of birth and death for our ancestors that served in the military. People born in the 18th and 19th centuries are particularly hard to document.
GenealogyBank.com makes it easy. You can search the American State Papers (1789-1838) and the US Serial Set (1817-1980) by just typing in a person's name. It's that simple.
The obituaries that appeared in the 1883 Annual Report of the Department of the Navy are a terrific example of the type of detailed genealogical information that you will find in these reports – all of them digitized and indexed in GenealogyBank. You can search GenealogyBank for FREE and see your "hits" along with a few lines of the text. That way you may confirm if that GenealogyBank has the content you need. If you want to know more, you can sign-up. Try it.
The complete citation for this document is:
Annual report of the Secretary of the Navy for the year 1883. In two volumes. Volume I. Date: 1883-12-03; Author: U.S. Congress. House Serial Set Vol. No. 2188, Session Vol. No.848th Congress, 1st Session H.Exec.Doc. 1 pt. 3 vol.1 & 2Abstracts of the Obituaries for the year 1883. For the complete obituaries see the actual report.
You can see a digital copy of the original pages at: www.GenealogyBank.com/free


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Cribs and Bassinets
Choosing bedding for newborns and babies is an exciting time. Whether you are furnishing a brand new nursery, converting a room to a nursery or just redecorating, we have a large selection of safety-approved and high-quality cribs and bassinets at Pottery Barn Kids. The GREENGUARD Gold Certified bedding meets or exceeds strict chemical emission standards.
Most of our cribs can be converted to a toddler bed with a conversion kit, which extends the life of the crib. Cribs are built with wood or acrylic with lots of design features. Some have drawer space under the crib for stowing away necessities. Designs include elegant sleigh cribs, spindle and arched molding. Nursery bedding will complete the crib set with a crib sheet, quilt and bed skirt. The bedding keeps babies comfortable and content with soft fabric that's gentle on delicate baby skin. Beautiful patterns are very decorative to bring personality and character to the room. The charm of animal prints like lions, elephants and sheep are adorable. There are anchors, roses and gypsy blooms to choose from too. Solids, stripes or sweet eyelet designs are fabulous in a nursery.
The mobile arm attaches to crib railing so you can hang a mobile over the crib. The arm swivels at the base so the mobile can be situated where your babies can gaze up at it. Mobiles help calm little ones and can be entertainment as they drift off into dreamland. The mobiles that play music can be especially soothing. Many options are available so you can choose one that matches the decorating theme or one that suits your fancy. Consider getting a few different ones to change them out periodically. Gold stars might be good for a while, then change it to seagulls or sailboats.
Sometimes space doesn't allow for a full size crib. Check out the mini crib and mattress set. Built with solid pine, it is sturdy and made to be tucked into small spaces. Use lettering to hang your babies' names or initials over the bed for a simple accent in tight quarters. If wall space is limited, initials are certain to stand out. With more space, you can spell out their names completely.
Another type of crib that is smaller in size is a low profile crib, which is ideal for petite parents. It's 4 inches shorter than a standard crib and has three height adjustments for the mattress platform. There really are many options with cribs. Since you're likely to spend lots of quality time by the crib, you might want a rug to stand on for comfort. Rugs come in assorted colors and patterns to complement the bedding. Bordered rugs can fit just about any motif. Or go for a bold rug that serves as a focal point in the room. Some of the rugs are activity rugs with car patterns, parks and construction. Once babies are sitting up and playing, the rug is a comfy spot to pretend to fly toy airplanes over the park or roll a toy truck along the car paths.
Add a nightlight in the nursery for soft lighting at night. The light provides extra security for babies especially if they waken during the night. And the nightlight will help guide you when you tiptoe in their room to peek in while they sleep.
There are lots of times when you need a bassinet instead of a crib. Bassinets can be placed in mom and dad's room, a kitchen or den. These smaller sleep areas are wonderful for quick naps and cuddles. Reminiscent of a bygone era with Moses baskets, one of the bassinets has a removable top for a separate sleeping spot. Braided detail and a hooded area for shade make it great for taking outdoors. Other bassinets include options like wheels with locking casters for easy movement and child-safe finishes in natural tones. Thumblies and rattles are great to use along with bassinets. Babies love how soft they are, and the sound of the rattle might bring a smile or a giggle. Your babies' giggles are likely to be the best sound ever.


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Here's a phenomenal blog post from one of my all-time favorite bloggers, JA Konrath, which I have syndicated.
The Original POST: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2014/03/heres-what-i-know.html
Here is what I know:
Be self-aware.
Be deliberate.
Don't be a pinhead.
Publishing is a business. Writing is an art. You may not enjoy the business, but you definitely should enjoy the art.
This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Read the contract before you sign it. Twice. Three times. Then have your lawyer read it.
The secret to happiness is what you give, not what you get.
No one owes you a living.
Success may involve talent and hard work, but it always involves luck. Talent and hard work may improve your luck.
Ebooks are forever. Forever is a long time to get noticed.
There's a word for a writer who never gives up... published.
Denial is a powerful opiate.
Be kind, be generous, be helpful, and be careful.
If you're selling eggs, don't piss off your chickens.
When you're learning how to walk, you don't take classes. You don't read how-to books. You don't pay experts to help you, or do it for you. You just keep falling until you learn on your own.
Before you make the key, study the lock.
People would rather fight to the death to defend their beliefs than consider changing their minds.
It's about what you have to offer, not what you have to sell.
A sense of entitlement is never acceptable. No one deserves anything.
What are the last ten books you bought, and what made you buy them? Use those techniques to sell your books to other people. Do what works on you.
Hard work trumps talent. Persistence trumps inspiration. Humility trumps ego.
Praise is like candy. We love it, but it isn't good for us. You can only improve by being told what's wrong.
Your book is your child. You can't recognize its shortcomings, any more than a proud parent could consider their child dumb and ugly.
The experts don't know everything, and they might not know what's right for you.
Fate is a future you didn't try hard enough to change.
Anyone looking for you can find you. Get them to find you when they're looking for something else.
Less expectations, more work.
Life gives you wonderful opportunities to conquer fears, learn skills, and master techniques. ""I don't want to" isn't synonymous with "I can't".
People seek out two things: information and entertainment. Offer them freely, and they'll come to you.
The Internet isn't temporary. What you post today can lead people to you decades from now.
If writing is your profession, act professional.
Stop Googling yourself.
No one said it would be fair, fun, or easy. But it can be worthwhile.
We're all in the same boat. Start rowing.
If you can quit, quit. If you can't quit, stop complaining--this is what you chose.
There are a lot of things that happen beyond your control. Your goals should be within your control.
Write when you can. Finish what your start. Edit what you finish. Self-publish. Repeat.
The most successful people on the planet have one thing in common: nothing can stop them. Don't expect to reach your goals without sacrificing things that are important to you.
Being your own best advocate is about understanding how people react to you.
Fake confidence, and real confidence follows.
Maybe you can't win. But you sure as hell can try.
Don't write crap.
Always have two hands reaching out. One, for your next goal. The other, to help people get to where you're at.
If you can't be smart or funny, be brief.
Don't ever say anything online that you wouldn't say in person.
If you're not in love with the sound of your own voice, how can you expect anyone else to ever be?
Knowing you're not original is the first step in becoming unique.
People aren't carved out of marble. We're all works in progress. The trick is to define ourselves, rather than let outside influences define us.
Don't prioritize the mundane.
Writers are essential. Readers are essential. Publishers are not.
Stop thinking if. Start thinking how.
The more you fail, the closer you are to success. If you don't have success, you haven't failed enough.
Envy, jealousy, guilt, regret, shame, and worry are all useless emotions. Focus on love, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness.
There should only be a few people in your life whose opinion matters. The opinions of everyone else do not.
One of the greatest journeys in life is overcoming insecurity and learning to truly not give a shit.
If you're reading this blog, you aren't writing. Get back to work.


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Sean Mahan's refreshing acrylic paintings on wood depict girls as creative spirits deeply empowered by and engaged with their own crafty muses. Unlike the classical order, where female figures were often shown as objects that inspire– here, the buzz of breathing maker is most present within the the young lady subjects themselves. Each portrait shows a confident furrowed brow or contemplative daze completely focused inward on a project at hand, unaware of the artist's gaze. Their identities appear to be emerging from within, not dependent on an external eye.
Mahan's collection "Invisible Threads" is up at Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City this month.