Imaginary Friends

I have suspected for several years now that chickens may be among the least intelligent organisms in creation, below paramecia and perhaps just above chalk dust. (Is chalk dust an organism?) Imagine my surprise when we went to the bird show at Hogle Zoo, and they had a "trained" chicken. I put that word in quotes because its routine wasn't terribly impressive. The show consisted mostly of parrots answering questions and various large raptors flying over the audience low enough to knock the top hats off the people wearing them—which was no one, fortunately. The chicken's trick was walking from one side of the stage to the other at apparently random times during the show. For the highlight of the performance, it "danced." I put that word in quotes because, well, it didn't exactly do the chicken dance, if you know what I mean. Basically, it just scratched around in the dirt. Pretty much like chickens normally do, except it did it at a certain time. Then t

So, I write a post entitled "Suicide," and then go two weeks without posting anything else. Oops. A little weird? And now for something completely different. I love to write about love. The romantic kind. I'm a hopeless romantic, and this sometimes annoys my wife. (We defy gender stereotypes in that regard.) She does usually like the way I handle romantic elements in my writing, though. Now, don't misunderstand what I mean when I say I'm a romantic. I'm not a flirt, player, Casanova, or anything else remotely like that. I think love should be like dutch oven cooking, not slapping a steak on an overly hot grill until the outside is seared and the inside is still raw. You've got to be patient with a dutch oven. Nah, forget it; dutch ovens are boring. Flames are fun. Sizzling is exciting. But you still have to just let it happen, not force it or even expect it. When I write a love story, (and I've written, like, three of them,) it takes the entir

I've written two novels. In both stories there are many ideas and themes that made their way in without my having to intentionally put them there. For instance, in each book, a central character is suicidal at the beginning. Furthermore, it’s part of the premise of a novel I’m planning. I write about things and people that reflect who I am and my experiences. Obviously, I’ve never committed suicide, nor have I known anyone who did. But I do have some personal experience in that area. After you’ve attempted suicide, it’s hard to admit to anyone, even yourself, that you felt those feelings, did those things. But I can never forget where I've been. It makes life that much more precious, even ten years later. In my writing, the suicidal characters are both female. (Maybe that’s a subconcious attempt to distance them from myself.) In Aersh , Tuatha is the embodiment of all my anger. She’s trapped in a bad situation with no out, and decides to strike out against her oppressor in