Edgy Mama

My new website design is up, as created by the uber-talented Eddo of Posted Note. In addition to the site itself, Eddo took it upon himself to design a cover for my new novel, Janus Watchers (see what I mean by talented?). If you’re interested in a website design or a new blog jacket, visit Eddo’s site Blog Jacket (he designed this blog as well). Thanks again, Eddo. You’re brilliant! Don’t waste energy! Avoid fused sentences! Don’t forget to hit reload if you get the old design!

I’ve devised a little test that can help you make money while turning you, yes, you, into a Superhero. Not just any Superhero—a change the world, light up the night, all-around good guy or gal-type Superhero.

Are you ready? Okay, get a piece of scrap paper and a pen. Make two columns. Title one Incandescent and one Flourescent. Then take a few minutes to walk around your home/office/apartment. Examine every light bulb in ALL of your lamps and light fixtures, both inside and out. Make a slash mark in the appropriate column representing each bulb. Award yourself $20 for every flourescent bulb. For every incandescent, subtract $20. What’s your total?

If all of your slash marks are in the flourescent column, you already are a Superhero, as you well know. If your $ total is in the positive realm, you are well on your way to Superhero status. If your total is a negative number, you may be on your way to becoming Demon Spawn.

Now ask yourself this question: what is the single thing I can do, right now, to help coserve energy, save money, and, in doing so, save the world? Answer: replace all incandescent bulbs in my home with compact flourescent bulbs. For every ONE flourescent, you will save 500 pounds of coal over the lifetime of the bulb. That is 1/4 of a TON of coal! Say you go to Home Depot right now and buy a six-pack of compact flourescents and replace six of your existing incandescents. You have just saved $120 (go out and party, you deserve it!) AND you have saved 1 1/2 tons of coal from being burnt in the fiery depths of a noxious gas-spewing power plant. Hurray you!

I used to hate flourescents because they were flickery and the typical wattage was insufficient to see by, much less read by. Luckily for me and for you, the technology has improved, and today’s flourescents are higher wattage, emit clean, pure light, and are shaped and sized to fit in a variety of light fixtures and lamp sizes.

Here are some stats from the U.S. Department of Energy and Energy Information Administration for those of you who need further convincing:

Bulb type 100W Incandescent 23W Compact Flourescent
Purchase price $0.75 $11.00
Life of the bulb 750 hours 10,000 hours
Number of hours burned/day 4 hours 4 hours
Number of bulbs needed About 6 over 3 years 1 over 6.8 years
Total cost of bulbs $4.50 $11.00
Lumens produced 1,690 1,500
Total cost of electricity
(8 cents/kilowatt-hour) $35.04 $8.06
Total cost over 3 years $39.54 $19.06

Total savings over three years with the Compact Flourescent: $20.50

Trust me, you do not want to mess with the possibility of becoming Demon Spawn. You know the coal that I’m saving by using flourescent lightbulbs in my home? Guess where it’s going?

Yesterday, I had a “typing” interview with a trained Enneagram instructor. According to The Authentic Enneagram website, “The Enneagram is a powerful and dynamic personality system that describes nine distinct and fundamentally different patterns of thinking feeling, and acting.”

I’ve been hearing about the Enneagram for years, and most of my Asheville friends and acquaintances have discovered their Enneagram type and used that knowledge as a path to further self-understanding. Upon looking into the system, I became intrigued. Initially, I labeled myself an eight, primarily because friends who knew the system told me I was an eight (despite the fact that you are not supposed to type others, only yourself). Then, on vacation with my lovely Book Club, I got hold of an Enneagram book and decided I was a four. I must have been feeling particularly melancholy that day, because it doesn’t seem that I have much four in me.

The “typing” interview, too, was inconclusive. I scored high for eight, seven, and for a type called a counterphobic six.

Here are brief Descriptions of the Nine Types from The Authentic Enneagram website:

Type One: The Perfectionist – believes you must be good and right to be worthy. Consequently, Perfectionists are conscientious, responsible, improvement-oriented, and self-controlled, but also can be critical, resentful, and self-judging.

Type Two: The Giver – believes you must give fully to others to be loved. Consequently, Givers are caring, helpful, supportive, and relationship-oriented, but also can be prideful, overly intrusive, and demanding.

Type Three: The Performer – believes you must accomplish and succeed to be loved. Consequently, Performers are industrious, fast-paced, goal focused, and efficiency- oriented, but also can be inattentive to feelings, impatient, and image-driven.

Type Four: The Romantic – believes you must obtain the longed for ideal relationship or situation to be loved. Consequently, Romantics are idealistic, deeply feeling, empathetic, authentic to self, but also dramatic, moody, and sometimes self-absorbed.

Type Five: The Observer – believes you must protect yourself from a world that demands too much and gives too little to assure life. Consequently, Observers are self-sufficiency seeking, non-demanding, analytic/thoughtful, and unobtrusive, but also can be withholding, detached, and overly private.

Type Six: The Loyal Skeptic – believes you must gain protection and security in a hazardous world you just can’t trust. Consequently, Loyal Skeptics are themselves trustworthy, inquisitive, good friends, and questioning, but also can be overly doubtful, accusatory, and fearful.

Type Seven: The Epicure – believes you must keep life up and open to assure a good life. Consequently, Epicures are optimistic, upbeat, possibility- and pleasure-seeking, and adventurous, but also can be pain-avoidant, uncommitted, and self-serving.

Type Eight: The Protector – believes you must be strong and powerful to assure protection and regard in a tough world. Consequently, Protectors are justice-seeking, direct, strong, and action-oriented, but also overly impactful, excessive, and sometimes impulsive.

Type Nine: The Mediator – believes that to be loved and valued you must blend in and go along to get along. Consequently, Mediators are self-forgetting, harmony-seeking, comfortable, and steady, but also conflict avoidant and sometimes stubborn.

Here’s what I’ve decided: I’d like to think I’m an eight, because I like power and thinking of myself as strong and powerful, but I’ve most likely developed eight tendencies as a reaction to my sixness—which ultimately is about filtering the world through fear. As a counterphobic six, I’ve confronted my fears and taken risks in order to overcome my fears—thus, seeming to present as an eight. My primary consolation upon recognizing this is that Bruce Springsteen is a six.

Is this helpful to me? I’m not sure. I did, however, decide after much research and soul-searching into the Enneagram that the below quiz was probably more helpful for discovering my inner self.

You are Form 4, Gargoyle: The Fallen.

“And The Gargoyle mended his wings from the
blood of the fallen so he could rise up from
imprisonment. With great speed and
resourcefulness, Gargoyle made the world his
for the taking.”

Some examples of the Gargoyle Form are Daedalus
(Greek) and Mary Magdalene (Christian).
The Gargoyle is associated with the concept of
success, the number 4, and the element of wood.
His sign is the new moon.

As a member of Form 4, you are a creative and
resourceful individual. You are always
thinking of possible solutions to problems you
face and you generally choose one that is
right. Much of your success comes from your
ability to look at things a little differently
than everyone else. Gargoyles are the best
friends to have because they don’t always take
things for face value.

Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

What we all should be doing in this heat… 

I’ve been invited to contribute to a group blog entitled BlogAsheville, which I did yesterday. They hunted me down and added both this blog and my website to their links (my website is under Asheville ARTISTS–I love them already)! Recently I’ve had the strange experience of popping onto blogs from my referrer list and seeing links to Edgy Mama from folks I’ve never even chatted with. So if you’ve been lurking, come on in and add your voice to the fray!

It’s been a while since I’ve given y’all a writing update, so I figure it’s about time. Plus, I’ve made a lot of progress today, and I’m pleased. It’s difficult for me to write consistently in the summer what with vacations plus spousal travel minus childcare. For example, although I’ve hardly added a word to Janus Watchers during the previous ten days, today I produced 2,500 words–and did some research. I actually have callouses on my wrists where they are resting on my laptop.

So, the current JW count is:

69,400 / 80,000 (87.0%)

That’s 22,000 words since mid-May. Not too shabby.

In other news, a short story I excerpted from Storm Mountain was rejected this week by a horror anthology–almost ONE YEAR after I submitted it. What the hell is that about? Anyone have any ideas as to where to submit a rather Victorian werewolf story that’s written in the form of a letter?

Below are excerpts from an article written by Jill Ingram in today’s Asheville Citizen-Times, my hometown newspaper:

“Some of more than 20 routes and sites in Western North Carolina may be considered for addition to the historic Cherokee Trail of Tears.

The Trail of Tears is the collective name for multiple routes, on both water and land, which about 16,000 Cherokee traveled under different detachments during a forced western deportation in 1838 and 1839 under the orders of President Andrew Jackson.

Although nearly 3,000 Cherokee who were forced to march were from North Carolina and about 9,000 were from Georgia, routes through those states are not designated portions of the trail.

Between 4,000 and 8,000 people died during the journey. The length of the journey varied depending on the route taken, but averaged about 1,000 miles.

Many of those who survived eventually settled on a reservation in Oklahoma, now the home of the more than 255,000-member Cherokee Nation. Cherokee who resisted the march eventually formed what is now the 13,300-member Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, on land in WNC bordered by Jackson and Swain counties and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Russell Townsend is a member of the Cherokee Nation who works in the Eastern Band’s Historic Preservation Office.

Recognizing routes and sites relevant to the trail serves a contemporary purpose, Townsend said.

“It’s important because it’s a reminder to people who now occupy (what was once) the Cherokee nation and aren’t Cherokee that the land was acquired at bayonet point,” he said.

Larry Blythe, vice president of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and Chadwick Smith, principal chief of Oklahoma’s Cherokee Nation, were in Washington last month for the introduction of the Trail of Tears Documentation Act, which directs the Interior Department to review new evidence and complete the historical picture through markers and other forms of recognition.

Smith called the Cherokee plight a “travesty of justice, sham of public policy and disdain for human dignity.”

Most lawmakers — including many from the South — were mum in 1830 when Jackson sought to remove the tribes. Davy Crockett was the lone Tennessee congressman to oppose the plans and lost re-election as a result.”

Davy Crockett was a great man. My question is: why the hell is President Jackson’s face still on our $20 bills?

I don’t know how you do it–all the time, day in and day out, for years on end. I consider myself a part-time single parent, because in order for us to live where we want to live and for Enviro-spouse to do what he loves to do, he has to travel a good bit.

This week he’s at the System Dynamics Conference in Boston. People often ask me what E-spouse does for a living, and then look blankly at me when I say, “He’s a System Dynamicist.” Suffice it to say, he builds humongously intricate computer models of systems (environmental, public health) and then uses them to examine and project trends and to teach people where and how to modify said systems for the best leverage. I think. There aren’t many System Dynamicists in the world, and almost all of them are at the conference this week (if you’re really intrigued, you can visit SI’s homepage or the SD page).

So, while E-spouse is sitting around talking about causal diagrams and reinforcing loops and doing calculus equations on bar napkins, I’m home with our two beautiful and feisty kids. Which, as those of you who have kids know, can be both the height of fun and the depth of despair. Here are two beings with the brain power of a blue whale, but the reasoning ability of a chihuahua, combined with the energy level of a chimpanzee and the self-control of a raccoon. Did I mention that I have two undergraduate degrees and one graduate–none of which has prepared me in any way for raising children?

On an E-spouse non-travel day, I think I handle the chaos fairly well for the rational, organized person that I am. By 5:30 p.m., when I am about to collapse into a frazzled heap, E-spouse comes to the rescue, dragging the kids outside while I resume breathing. When he’s away, I’m often reduced to grabbing a beer and turning on a video for the kids so I can make it through what some idiot deemed “Happy Hour.” As most parents know, from 5:00-6:00 p.m. is “Hell Hour.” Tired, hungry, cranky kids with the above mammalian traits are definitely NOT happy at this time of day.

Then I start feeling guilty because I know the kids are surpassing their one allowable hour of video per day, so I prepare dinner as quickly as possible and try to engage in some “what was the best part of your day” discussion around the dinner table. Then it’s a walk or games until bath and bedtime. I’m not even going to go in the paroxysms of pleading, debate, and whining that the big B & B induce–for both me and the kids.

By 9:00 p.m., as I’m cleaning the kitchen, I realize that I have yet to eat, as both my kids are ultra picky eaters, and I typically don’t want to eat peanut butter, cheese, and green peas for dinner. But I’m too tired to care. This, I think, is why single parents are so thin. But does that make it worth it? No. Does having feisty but healthy, cranky but smart, messy but beautiful kids make it worth it? YES. I think.

There are 195 reader reviews of Elizabeth Kostova’s novel The Historian on Amazon—at the moment, which is incredible for a book published just over a month ago (June 14). Instead of adding my small voice to the multitudinous fray there, I’ll review the book here, for those of you who value my literary opinion (have I told you lately that I love you?).

I finished The Historian last night, and my first response to it was, typically, about me. The strength of the story lies in Kostova’s extensive research and revision of vampire lore, particularly that involving the big Daddy of blood sucking—Dracula. I attempted to do something similar, but clearly much less successful, with werewolf legends in my novel, Storm Mountain. So, for the record, SM was not, in any way, influenced by or derivative of The Historian. I completed the manuscript in 1998! Enough said.

The Historian is being touted as the next DVC, and is currently number two on the NYT’s best-seller list, but I don’t think it will be as widely sold or read as Brown’s thriller. Why not? Primarily because it is 642 pages long, and I don’t imagine that Joe-who-reads-one-novel-per-year will tackle this baby. Also, the first few hundred and the last hundred pages of the book are engaging, but I found myself bogged down in the middle. While a great deal of the Eastern Europe history that Kostova covers is fascinating, she overdoes it, and, in places, the book feels like a well-written dissertation. I’m an obsessive and rarely distracted reader, but at one point, I found myself staring into space, the book open on my lap, engaged in a fantasy starring Viggo Mortensen as Dracula and myself as the doomed Lucy. Oops, wrong vampire story.

A couple other minor caveats: a great deal of the novel is told through letters (another device I use, much less extensively, in SM, damn it). As a writer, I find it extremely challenging to give each character a unique, distinct voice. Kostova seems to have the same problem with the letter format. I found myself struggling to differentiate the voices, particularly those of the characters Rossi and Paul. Even so, the characters are extremely realistic and human—no cardboard cutouts here. The only character whom is somewhat unbelievable is the narrator, who, although she admits to it, seems overly innocent for a teenager living in Amsterdam in the 1970s. Among other things, she never questions her father about her deceased mother, to the extent of not seeming to know how the woman died.

Despite these limitations, the novel is well worth reading. The descriptions of the settings are evocative and often creepy; the mystery and its prolonged unveiling enjoyable; and the moments of tension, although too few and far between, are wonderfully frightening. I am awed by Kostova’s accomplishment—and I like her dark side.

I suppose this is a glimpse of the future. We’re back in Asheville, which, during the seven days of our trip, somehow morphed into a rain forest. Our vegetable garden is a jungle of thick-limbed tomato vines and elephant ear-sized squash leaves. The pumpkins and butternut squash vines have extended out across the lawn. I found two zucchini, both as big around as my upper arm. The raspberry canes are at least ten feet high, and my hollyhocks, heavy with bloom pods, are higher than the shed on which they lean.

Inside the house, closed up for so many days, the air was heavy and redolent of mold and urine. Yes, urine. About a year ago, our son fell asleep on the sofa one afternoon, then woke up in a puddle of pee. I’ve done everything I can think of to remove the smell–vinegar, enzyme smell removers, UV light, even a substance called Anti-Icky-Poo. But all it takes is a few days of heat and high humidity for our living room to begin to reek like the men’s bathroom at a baseball park. So, tomorrow, I’m calling the reupholsterer.

In other news and smells, I’m waging war on Mr. Squirrel. While we were gone, he took the top off of the birdseed can, again. The can filled with water from the torrential rains, and the combination of water, heat, and sun created a fermenting vat of evil on our back porch. We’re talking vomit-inducing, gelatinous, fly-infested goo, that I had to drain, then dump in the trash, then hose down so the stink, somewhat abated, spread across half of the back yard. It truly was one of the most foul odors I’ve yet to encounter.

I told Enviro-spouse that there will be no more birdseed for Mr. Squirrel to eat, make a mess with, and expose to the elements. Mr. Squirrel is going to have to learn to find his own food. And if I discover him sitting on the kitchen counter again, calmly munching on a peach, I’m bringing in the big guns–the neighbor’s dogs.