I don’t have much time these days to hang out online because I’m ankle-deep in re-writes over here –on several projects at once (!!).
Still, I wanted to swing by with a couple cute photos of my sweeties — because I always have time to take their picture!
Can you tell these guys (& gals) are related???!!!
Tommy, Weenie, & Huckleberry (& Joel Osteen!)
Life is rough for a cat, here in the hinterlands!
Weenie & Huckleberry
As always, if you click on the photos, they enlarge! And, yes, the cats do indeed get off the bed once in awhile, although you’d never know it from all the photos I take of them sleeping on my bed (which is right next to my desk, so I’m always looking at how cute they are!).
Life is good here. The re-writes on the TV Pilot are going well, but I am still aiming for 110% better… Also, final, final, FINAL re-writes for the one-woman musical I’m working on with the actress in NYC are nearly complete.
I still try to take one day at a time around here, but I also still keep thinking that a year from now, life is going to be really, really different. Not sure, though, in what way.
Hope all is well where all of you are at! Thanks for visiting, gang! See ya’ real soon!
Yes, not only is it snowing here today (yay!), but all I have to do today is sit at my desk and write!!
I also have a wonderful photo of Tommy to share! It is extremely difficult to get good photos of Tommy, because she is incredibly timid and the trauma of the recent move lasted longer for her than it did with the other cats in her colony.
Tommy on the bed yesterday
If you click on the picture, it will enlarge. And then you will see that the table lamp next to my bed is, indeed, nearly 60 years old!!
Like all the other cats in Tommy’s colony (as well as my two tame cats who recently died), Tommy is a character in my upcoming book, The Miracle Cats and the Case of the Purloined Passport, illustrated by Valerie Wares.
In the book, Tommy is “Sister Thomasina” and she worries a lot. She often says things like, “oh dear,” and “dear me.” And, of course, she wears a nun’s habit because, in the book, she’s a church cat….
“Sister Thomasina” by Val — but without the habit
On the “very fun” front — I needed to come up with a pen name for another book I’m writing and decided to use the Wu Tang Clan nickname generator this morning and it gave me the most AWESOME nickname EVER!! The irony screams out on several levels. It is too good to be believed. Honestly, it could not be more perfect for me, it felt like it came straight from God, and it set the tone for my whole morning. Sadly, I cannot share the name with you here because then it would no longer be a “pseudonym” in the strictest sense of the word… (If you have never used the Wu Tang Clan nickname generator, do it today!)
All right, on that note, I’ve got to go to the kitchen and grab another cup of coffee and then get some more writing done here! As we enjoy our snowy day, I leave you with the song that’s been in my head for several days running (it’s even been in my dreams! What’s that about??). Enjoy, gang!
I still can’t complain! Life in the hinterlands continues to delight me. That said, though, I pretty much made up my mind yesterday that I’ll hang out here in this rental house as long as it remains feasible, and then finally move back to New York.
Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that for nearly 3 years, I was planning to move to Rhinebeck, NY, as soon as the developers decided when, exactly, they were going to tear down my old house.
That prospect was going to drag on for another 5 years, at the least, and so this past September, I sold my old house and now I’m renting a friend’s house in the amazing hinterlands of Ohio, while I focus on the TV pilots, and on a couple of books I’m writing (and, now, I’ve added writing the one-man play about Caiaphas into that mix), and try to figure out what the heck I want to do with the next half of my life.
So, yesterday, I decided.
Not only do I love Rhinebeck, but I have a couple of good friends who live there, and Manhattan is only a commuter train ride away, where most of the rest of my friends still reside. So that’s that.
This morning, like every morning these days, I awoke about 6 am, terribly missing my cats. Not just the 2 who recently died, but Buster, as well, who died in September of ’13. They were “my babies,” and now it seems like it is only a heartbeat later and all 3 of them are gone.
Even though Christmas is my favorite time of year, I’m not really celebrating this year. All my many, many boxes of Christmas stuff are in storage about 20 miles from here. I’m okay with where my life is at right now, even though it’s in a kind of limbo, still, I couldn’t help remembering all the many joyous past Christmases when my cats were still with me. For instance:
Fluffy at Christmas, about 6 years ago.
And I couldn’t help wondering, yet again, what life is all about.
The more I study for my ministry (which is, basically, 24/7), the more convinced I am that the “here & now” is all that exists in physical terms and that that only just barely exists. Meaning, I believe “here & now” is a construct of the physical senses that only exists for as far as our 5 senses can detect and that most of physical reality is just something we think is there, extending beyond us. The past was just a fleeting construct that somehow felt so intensely real, we can barely fight off the allure of it; and the future is a construct we imagine we will experience but never do because it’s really all just “here & now.”
I believe that immediately beyond what our 5 physical senses can detect lies the non-physical, which takes up Eternity. That we only perceive things here in the physical when we actually focus on perceiving them. Wallace Stevens described a similar idea in his famous poem “July Mountain” many years ago.
I believe we all have inner beings that have inner beings, who have inner beings, who have inner beings, who have inner beings, like a truly endless Matryoshka doll. And because of that, I feel that God truly is an unknowable, distant “Being” that is like some sort of “dream machine,” constantly, eternally, unfathomably dreaming every single solitary thing, idea, thought, person, creature, into its own “being-ness”. This is partly why my ministry is called The Edge of God Ministry — because I believe we “exist” here at the farthest edge of God, a God that never ceases creating, while we evolve into deliberate creators, learning how to dream our own thoughts into “being” until we become an inner being of someone else.
Until we all finally learn that everything is joyful and sacred and that everything, all across the board, exists because it chooses to. Eternally. And then we leave the physical realm and focus non-physically.
Even while I can’t prove any of this, it’s still what I believe. And for me, it adds a heightened element of sanctity to all these things that mean so much to me in the physical, and that brings me joy. And it doesn’t lessen the profundity of anything else that anyone else chooses to take joy in and bring into existence. We each define what matters to us. It’s all sacred.
And so I believe my cats choose to be here as much as I choose to have them in my life, and that only makes them all the more dear to me now that they’ve chosen to leave it.
I try to imagine how this distant “dream machine” called God could create so much love and create such an intensity of “being here” in the physical, and I remain in awe of God. And in awe of everyone and everything who chooses to come here and “Be” for awhile, multiplied by however many aeons it’s been going on.
As the sky became almost imperceptibly lighter, I knew it was time to stop missing “my babies,” get out of bed, and go to the kitchen and get a cup of coffee. Which I did. Only to bring the cup of coffee back to bed so I could continue marveling at creation.
Today, I am going to be working on my one-man play about Caiaphas, also continuing to re-learn Biblical Hebrew, while also continuing to listen to the lectures on “Jesus and His Jewish Influences,” by Jodi Magness, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania; lectures which are absolutely astounding in their depth of knowledge of the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish Apocrypha and the uncanny degree to which 1st Century Jewish Christians continued to carefully craft stories of Jesus to fit prophecy from the Hebrew Scriptures.
But it doesn’t make me love Jesus any less. To me, he grows more and more profound. What the heck was he really teaching back then that scared so many Jews and Romans, and that could make so many other Jews and Gnostics and Pagans cherish him so dearly that they were committed to making his name live forever?
I keep feeling as if I am on the verge of finding out…
So, there I sat as the sun came up, enjoying my coffee and the thoughts in my head, keenly missing my cats but treasuring them just the same, when Daddycakes jumped up on the bed and stared at me so lovingly. He’s not tame, he’s feral; now semi-feral as he is really starting to trust me — after 4 1/2 years. He is such a beautiful cat, and so compassionate. When Bunny died so suddenly, the morning after we moved here, Daddycakes cuddled up against her lifeless body; he was clearly in mourning, saying goodbye. These cats are so dear.
Remembering all this made me think of John Rutter’s lovely arrangement of All Things Bright and Beautiful, so I played it, over & over & over again, and eventually I got out of bed and resumed my participation in creating a really sacred day!
Christmas is almost here, gang! I hope you’re enjoying the lovely season. Thanks, as always, for visiting!
First and foremost: There is more snow falling here in the hinterlands, even as I type!! Yay! It won’t amount to more than 2 inches, so it’s no big deal that later today, I will once again have to drive into town… While it’s falling, it is just so darn pretty. Especially now that most of the neighbors have their Christmas lights up.
I was assured by the director of production at the company that will be developing my TV pilot, Cleveland’s Burning, that we will begin the re-writes and development of the pilot right after the first of the year.
I’m expecting this project to seriously challenge my storytelling abilities and take a lot out of me. In other words, most of my life will likely come to a grinding halt, once I begin working on the revisions. So Val (in Brooklyn) and I decided to spend December getting back to our book, The Miracle Cats and the Case of the Purloined Passport. Since both Fluffy and Bunny, my beloved and recently departed cats, have prime roles in the book, I was having trouble writing it. I couldn’t get past the fact that both my cats had died this year, so unexpectedly. And Val’s Dad died, followed quickly by her Uncle, so things were just emotionally rough for both of us. Well, once we decided we were both ready to tackle the book again, another dear member of Val’s family suddenly passed away, so the book has shifted to the back burner once again.
I thought, okay, I’ll make some progress on my memoirs before January rolls around. But suddenly, out of the blue, after about 14 months of researching Caiaphas, James the Brother of Jesus, and the Talpiot Tomb (in order to write my one-man play about Caiaphas in a seriously modern re-telling of his role in the death of Jesus), I sat down at my desk yesterday morning, and lo & behold, the play started coming out! Astonishing. I was so not expecting that.
My play is titled, In the Days of the Flesh. The title is taken from the Book of Hebrews, in the New Testament, and refers to the days when Jesus walked among men. It took me all day, but I got 2 killer pages done. I can’t imagine it will be finished by January, even though it will only run about 55 pages. Nevertheless, if it’s ready to come, I’m welcoming its arrival with “open laptop!!” — however many pages end up coming before the New Year.
So, on we go! And that said, I want to get back at it! Thanks for visiting, gang, and I leave you with this splendiferous Ode to Today!! See ya!
1.) I bit the bullet and decided to get cable again after I moved here because I don’t have an HD television anymore and can’t watch everything on an iPad — and my new cable lineup carries reruns of Perry Mason, one of my all-time favorite shows! Yay!
2.) I discovered an AMC megaplex 3 minutes from my new house and was able to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them this past Tuesday afternoon, without having to drive 40 minutes each way! Yay!
3.) My 50-year-old 10-cup Corning Ware percolator finally bit the dust and I bought this beautiful shiny retro-looking new one yesterday at Sur La Table! (Welcome to the future of coffee while still managing to live in the past!) Yay!
4.) I’m having Thanksgiving dinner today at one of my favorite places — the Buxton Inn in Granville, Ohio, which is now, quite conveniently, only 10 minutes away! (It used to be 30 minutes away, but, as you know, I recently moved to the middle of nowhere!) (Just FYI — in my TV movie script, The Tea Cozy Murder Club: A Murder at Parsons Ridge, the Buxton Inn is renamed the Peabody Inn and Granville is renamed Parsons Ridge.)
And, speaking of my TV movie script…
5. ) The same production company in LA that is interested in developing The Tea Cozy Murder Club, the same company that had also asked to see my TV pilot proposal, Cleveland’s Burning, a couple months back, finally gave me their feedback on that project and guess what, gang? They loved it! This week, we officially signed the contract to begin developing Cleveland’s Burning!! Double, triple YAY!!!
Yes, that’s right. I officially could not be happier.
Oh, and of course I’m thankful for my good health and the rollicking, robust health of each and every single one of my remaining 8 cats, gang! I’m thankful for this great house we’re living in (and now that the old, expensive house is gone, my credit scores are through the roof again! Yay!!) (But, sadly, the new owners of my old house cut down all my trees, my rose bushes, my azaleas, my rhododendron — you name it, they cut it down. I was devastated when I drove by there, but we must move on, gang.) I’m also thankful for this lovely little town I’m living in! And thankful that, after several thousand dollars’ worth of repairs (!!), my beloved 2001 Mercury Sable LS Premium Sedan is in terrific shape once again!! And, well, the list goes on…
Yes, after a truly difficult year, we are winding it up on a very high note. Hope it’s going the same in your neck of the woods! To everyone living state-side, have a lovely Thanksgiving. And to everyone else, have a great day!
Thanks for visiting! See ya. (Click the image; it gets bigger.)
The area of Ohio that I now live in actually looks like this for most of the 40-minute drive back to town…
We’re adjusting to life without Bunny and Fluffy and finding that life does, indeed, go on.
The shrine to Bunny, Fluffy, and Buster on top of my dresser.
And we are adjusting to a much smaller living space (discovering that we actually like the smaller space better!) and adjusting to the endless, endless, ENDLESS driving in order to get anywhere.
In case I wasn’t clear before — I am only renting this faraway house until I find a townhouse I want to buy back in “town,” as it were. So the endless driving won’t go on forever.
I am in the process of trying to streamline my schedule in order to settle back into writing again. I’m still a bit discombobulated by the many changes in my life — all during the last several months. The fact that I will have to move again in the not-too-distant future keeps me from really feeling settled in, but we’re getting there.
Also, just FYI, by “we” I mean myself and 8 cats… (The cats who will soon be earning their keep by being featured prominently in my upcoming mystery book, The Miracle Cats and the Case of the Purloined Passport.)
So. Speaking of mysteries…Two of my favorite worlds are colliding! Johnny Depp is slated to appear in yet another remake of Agatha Christy‘s Murder on the Orient Express!!
I’m guessing that with both Oscar-winning Judi Dench and oft-nominated-though-never-Oscar-winning Johnny Depp in the cast, their budget for creating a really splendid re-creation of the Orient Express train will undoubtedly be through the roof!! (YES! Diagram that sentence if you feel foolhardy enough!)
Also, at least in the tabloid gossip, Johnny Depp is rumored to be re-attached to his ex-common-law-wife, Vanessa Paradis. I have no idea of this is even partially true, gang, but I, for one, think it would be so great if it were true! For reasons I cannot reveal here, I am a Certified Expert on the number of times Johnny Depp has smiled in his entire life — the number is 5, by the way. And 4 of those times occurred while he was with Vanessa.
(Do you recall this photo?? This was the 2nd known time he smiled in his entire life…)
2nd known time Johnny Depp smiled in his entire life
We shall see, right, gang? Meanwhile, life goes on… Have a terrific November 10th wherever you are, whatever you’re doing — and, most importantly these days, to wherever you might be driving!!
Just saying hi and letting everyone know I’m adjusting to the new house and to the loss of Bunny, so close on the heels of the loss of Fluffy.
The other cats have adjusted just fine and enjoy gamboling across the wide hardwood floors…(at all hours) (but particularly in the middle of the night)
I love living out here in the bucolic rolling tree-filled hills of non-urban, non-suburban Ohio. I’m not sure my beloved 2001 Mercury Sable LS Premium Sedan is as happy as I am, though. I’ve already had about $1500 worth of work done on the car in 2 weeks and also need to invest this coming week in a set of brand new tires… But I’m hoping that will be that for a while and that the car will be around for a lot longer. I’m racking up hundreds of miles on this poor car, really quickly. It wasn’t really meant for this kind of tootling around. But so far, so good.
I’m trying to get back on track with my various writing projects. The one-woman musical (Hiding in Plain Sight) with the actress in NY (Sandra Caldwell) is going superbly!! We are both verging on getting giddy about it. I’ve said it here before and I’ll say it again — man, these revisions and re-writes and re-focusing stuff takes FOREVER. But… it is worth it.
Next, I get back on track with The Miracle Cats and the Case of the Purloined Passport, illustrated by my friend, Val, in Brooklyn. There have really been a lot of intense challenges in both our lives this whole year, but we are finally feeling able to tackle this project again. I will work on that while I await revision suggestions on the two TV projects I’m tackling with folks in L.A.
Yes, life is good.
Okay, I leave you with what Ive been listening to in my car lately!! Remember Lou Bega? He’s still around. I love Lou Bega. And I love this old song of his from the 90s: I’ve Got A Girlfriend Everywhere. Give it a listen — preferably at top volume, while you’re driving around! And, as always, thanks for visiting, gang!!
As anyone who has ever had to pack up an entire house by themselves and get ready to MOVE knows: My life has been total chaos now for a couple of weeks.
Moving Day is officially this Saturday, 10/22, but on Friday, I move all the cats out to their new temporary home. (I’m renting a friend’s house for a couple of months until I can find a house I really want to buy and can afford.)
I’m not exactly moving to the middle of nowhere, but it is really far away from everything I normally do. It’s actually out in “Tea Cozy Murder Club” country– my fictional town called Parsons Ridge, which is liberally based on Granville, Ohio. I’m not going to be living in Granville, but in Heath, Ohio, which is about 3 minutes from Granville. Yes, my beloved 2001 Mercury Sable LS Premium Sedan is going to be doing a TON of driving for a few months. I’ve been getting some work done on it just to ensure it is actually able to withstand the constant trek from the hinterlands into the ‘burbs.
After 10 years of struggling, financially, with this (albeit, wonderful) house, I’m emotionally ready for the move, and I have psyched myself up for the necessity of having to move again in a couple of months, but I just want to make sure that this time, I will be buying a house I can actually afford all on my own.
So, even though I will be in a nice 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom ranch house with a full finished basement come Saturday, I won’t be unpacking anything that I don’t absolutely need. I want to be ready for my dream home the minute it comes on the market!!
Okay. I gotta scoot because I have to start packing up my entire basement today. Just wanted to drop in and say hi! By the way, here’s my living room (click it to enlarge it):
If you look closely, to the far left, you’ll see Doris working really, really hard…
All righty! Thanks for visiting, gang! see ya! (OH! I almost forgot! The production company out in L.A. is doing a table read of my script, Tea Cozy Murder Club: A Murder at Parsons Ridge in a couple of weeks. With actual actors! Yay! And they also asked to see my TV Pilot proposal for Cleveland’s Burning… Things are getting exciting again, gang.) Okay, see ya!!
It means that I’m going to regale you with what I’m currently listening to at top volume while driving along in my prized 2001 Mercury Sable LS Premium Sedan with the killer sound system!
It’s a very upbeat little Cole Porter tune, with surprisingly bittersweet, not so upbeat, lyrics. It often reminds me of my marriage as well as the ending of said marriage. Even though we were not married on a tropical island. Nor were we married under the stars while palm trees were swaying. Not even close. Still, it reminds me…
That said, though, most of the time, when I listen to this song, I recall exceedingly fondly the 5 years I worked with Gus Van Sant Sr. in the business office of Gus Van Sant Jr.’s movie production company. Gus Sr. is probably the most endearing, compassionate, generous, interesting, and kindest man I ever met, let alone worked for. And while we worked together in his office, he always played big band and swing music on the cable tv radio channel. Begin the Beguine would often play (that, and Skylark!!) and since it was a favorite song of mine, it made for an even more memorable & delightful atmosphere. For me, anyway.
Gus Sr.’s wife died last year and he moved back to Seattle to be closer to his kids. I miss him a lot. I miss that job! I miss a lot of things. And though life does indeed go on, I occasionally get nostalgic for the life I used to have, on so many levels.
But there are some really cool things happening with my writing career right now, gang, so I’m not feeling entirely bittersweet! Sandra Caldwell, the actress that I’ve been working with on that one-woman musical in NYC, recently read my TV script for The Tea Cozy Murder Club: A Murder at Parsons Ridge and she is extremely interested in playing one of the lead roles — the role of Mona Bell. So she has sent my script, along with my script for Tell My Bones: The Helen LaFrance Story, to her new agent in Toronto. (She and I have actually been trying to get that Helen LaFrance project off the ground for a couple years now. Plus, it’s a script that has a lot to do with my relationship with Gus Sr., so we have come full circle, gang.)
Anyway! All’s good here, if only a tad bittersweet. I now regale you with the BBC Big Band Orchestra’s rendition of Begin the Beguine, followed by the lyrics, in case you’re interested in reading them. Play the song at full volume!!!! And have a super-duper day, folks, wherever you are! Thanks for visiting. See ya.
When they begin the beguine
It brings back the sound of music so tender,
It brings back a night of tropical splendour,
It brings back a memory evergreen.
I’m with you once more under the stars,
And down by the shore an orchestra’s playing
And even the palms seem to be swaying
When they begin the beguine.
To live it again is past all endeavour,
Except when that tune clutches my heart,
And there we are, swearing to love forever,
And promising never, never to part.
What moments divine, what rapture serene,
Till clouds came along to disperse the joys we had tasted,
And now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted,
I know but too well what they mean;
So don’t let them begin the beguine
Let the love that was once a fire remain an ember;
Let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember
When they begin the beguine.
Oh yes, let them begin the beguine, make them play
Till the stars that were there before return above you,
Till you whisper to me once more,
“Darling, I love you!”
And we suddenly know, what heaven we’re in,
When they begin the beguine
Marilyn's Room 