Writing, psychiatry, development, blogging, gratitude

I just read C.S. Lewis on writing.  I am a writer but I am not writing as I could.My stream of consciousness open journal blog project is a bit old.  I like writing my thought. I’d originally thought to share these because so many ‘bad’ people were attempting to censor not just speech but thought. I wanted to clarify that sanity was not a sanitized mind.  As a psychiatrist I wanted people to see that creativity and imagination could be cluttered.  I wanted to share that all the drives and impulses and good and bad thoughts passed through the mind of a supposedly ‘bormal’ or ‘well’ person, The distinction was what one focussed their attention on,  

Cognitive behavioural Therapy certainly teaches us that what we focus or dwell on is what matters.  

The Twelve Steps teach us that we commonly hold resentments and fears and that they underline our daily actions and achievements , 

Mystics like Brother Lawrence have taught us to remain in the present. Carpe diem.  Seize the day.  One day at a time.  Get your head in the same room as your ass is.

Christianity and other faith healings taught the rational person to be aware of their addiction or obsession with the various ‘sins’ ‘errors of distraction”. These were Pride, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, Envy, Greed, Anger.  Peace of mind and focus on the’ good’ were goals of enlightenment.  Moderation was sought rather than extremes.  

The psychoanalyst taught us that there was an unconscious which influenced our day to day life.  Fundamental drives influenced the rational.  Reproduction or sex.  Fear of death.  Aggression and competition,  

Psychology taught us that the mind wasn’t the Lockian tabula Rosa like the computer or chalkboard but rather a mixture of nature and nurture.  Genetics and imprinting and epigebnetic factors affected our behaviour. 

The philosophers taught us about existential angst.  Victor Frankly taught us the need for meaning and purpose, what he learned from surviving Auschwitz.  

Positive Psychology looked to resilienc, determination, meaning, motivation.  

Motivation therapy helped break old coping strategies which had once been beneficial but now had become chains,

The desire to be ‘free’ was fundamental yet cooperation was necessary for evolution and advancement of individual and group,  Sociology, sociobiology, history, tribal wisdom, memory all contributed to allowing the individual and group to ‘actualize’.  Maslow delineated the various developmental processes and stages.  Freuds original Oral, Anal, Genital stages of development was much expanded by. Erickson with his 8 stages of development. Piaget showed the progress of Neuro development from concrete to abstract. Today we know the brain doesn’t really achieve maturity till 25 and indeed neuroplasticity is such that learning continues throughout life despite the pruning and focus of the neural network towards certain pursuits.

I ‘ve enjoyed journaling my inner confusion, the likes of the play Waiting for Godot’.  I’ve enjoyed sharing my journeys and adventures.  I’ve imagined that others have appreciated seeing that the ‘unneditted’ work precedes the editted work.  Indeed for creativity we encouraged presence, childlike mind and stream of consciousness.  The artist is necessarily at odds with the police.  

Freud described the Id, Ego and Superego.  This was later developed as the Parent, Adult, Child model of Transactional Analysis.  The artist is necessarily more childlike in their approach to reality while the police man is more parental.  Interactions are often at conflict in tone due to these differences in mods of communication.  Don’t talk down to me is a telling phrase.  Who do you think you are is another.  The content or data may not be as problematic ass the carrier wave or tone as in communication theory and ‘static’ seen in Hamm radio frequency 

I like to take pictures, I like to share them, I like that my journal serves to be a reminder of my own history.  If we forget history we are bound to repeat it.  I am amused at the repetitive challenges I encounter when I look back at my journal here.  This is unedited. It was to be the basis for edited works. I have three books in preparation and I’m making low progress because it’s more work.  Writing is fun.  Editing and organizing and such is more work.  I miss having an editor.  I like the division of labour.  I wrote columns and magazine articles saying I became a master of the 10 page piece.  Now we’ve moved to sound bites. I am hoping to complete the book. One is on travel with dogs.  Another is on psychiatry another on spirituality and addiction,  I seem to need time and spac to organize these.  Blogging I can do in a half hour. I don’t need a desk or floor to lay out the whole work . Yet that’s where I want to go and imagine if I retired I’d simply retire to a desk with the three projects set before me and devote three months to each.  I’d like that but frankly I like my life as it is now,  I continue to write as exercise as well, It’s like rifle target practice,  It serves many purposes. For years I wrote and buried the journals of cursive writing in baxes in the basements,  That was before politic abd dark web and social media.  Today we know there is no black and white but always grey and a rainbow of colours. I’m grateful for that. I’m tired of being around the paranoid and angry. I want to play in imagination and dalience enjoying the journey more than the destination, Thank you

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Fort Garry Library

It was always a big excursion as a child, a regular sunny day adventure. It began late spring in Winnipeg, continued through summer and carried into the fall.  I don’t remember winter excursions though expect Dad probably drove us a few times.  There were always books around our home when I was growing up.  I had my pile and Ronny had his. We were able to check out five or 6 each as a child. Mom would take one or two herself. She liked westerns.  Dad read books but they were mostly engineering, mechanical and electrical books he bought so he could make notations in them  They stood in the book shelves beside his easy reclining chair so he could reach them while sitting back.

I remember trips to the library with Mom and Ronny began when I was five or 6.  My brother would have been 9 or 10 at the time.  We’d moved to Winnipeg from Toronto when I was 5 , taking the CPR train, which had been really exciting.  I especially loved  running all the way from the front to the back of the rocking cars, eating in the dining car and sleeping in the bunks. A man in a black uniform with gold buttons and a little hat pulled back the curtain, shining a light into the sleeping space telling my brother and I to stop talking and go to sleep.  I think my mother or father had put him up to that because we were just so excited by riding on the train it was next to impossible to fall asleep the first night of the three day trip.  

We  lived in downtown Fort Rouge temporarily when we arrived, right near Trinity Baptist Church and what became known as Crazy Corners intersection.  I went to Kindergarden at a school which would be torn down to make that bigger intersection. I remember it most because they had great tube slides we’d have to get into to escape for fire drills. The first time was horrifying but after that when we actually shot out the bottom on the ground alive, I couldn’wait for fire drills.  

Dad and Mom found the Fort Gary home, a red brick bungalow with a large garden and three big spruce trees at the front of the yard.  Two sweet old English ladies dressed in tweed wool suits.  . They had two little face licking British Bulldogs which I played with while the adults were making arrangements for the transfer of property.  My brother was looking at the girls next door as they had come out on the lawn to look at us. 

The library was quite the walk at the time.  Six or more city blocks.  I admire kids who grew up in the country and can tell distance. I still think of distance in city blocks rather than miles or kilometres.   We lived  on North Drive by the Red River near where the Golf Club and Badminton Club was.  

“Hurry up, Billy!”my mom would call as we were leaving. She’d be wearing her long white cotton coat over her dark blue midi dress, nylons and sensible leather walking shoes.  She had fabulous long thick  red hair which she covered with  colourful scarves  Ron and I wore slacks and sneakers, ball caps, long sleeved shirts and wind breakers.  Mom made sure we had clean button shirts for the library excursion. It wasn’t like church where we only wore white shirts or school where we could sometimes wear t shirts.  Somewhere in between but still  important.  She took a last look at our faces and ears holding us by our chins before we went out the front door.   My brother and I had satchels to carry our books.  I had my lucky white rabbit foot in my pocket. Mom was carrying her big leather purse over her arm She always had candy treats in that, plus wallet and Kleenex and everything else you might find at a pharmacy or hardware store.  The dog was left at home and not too pleased at that.

We walked down the steps and up the sidewalk and on to the Viscount Alexander Elementary School which Ron and I attended.  Our little group would carryon walking diagnonally across the play fields till we came out on another street which cut across to Crane and took us to the foot ball field and hockey rinks behind the swimming pool, police station and Vincent Massey High School.  The Fort Garry Library was on Pembina Highway by the school. We’d walk out on Pembina with all the traffic Mom had avoided by taking the direct cross suburb walk.  She’d point out Robins and daffodils and talk sometimes non stop about the neighbourhood trying to get Ron to open up. He was more reserved than I was, more like Dad. I was more like my Mom. I talked easily with her. I told her everything every day loving being with her always. She’d be doing the dishes or just standing waiting for a bus and I’d hug her leg and cling to her just loving being close to my mom, the warmth and sweet smell of her.  

The grey haired lady at the Library knew my mom beaming when we all came in. 

“Good Morning, Mrs. Hay. How are you today? And how are the boys. Did you like all your books.”

“We’re just fine. It’s a lovely sunny day,”  she said   “Ronny finished all his books right away though Billy took his time. I loved the new Zane Grey you recommended.”  She  opened her purse taking out two paper backs novels giving them to the librarian.  Ronny and I would lift our satchels onto the counter.  The smiling librarian stamped each of the cards on the inside of the front cover of the books beside our names. When you took out a book you could see everyone else who’d read it too.

While mom stayed and chatted Ronny and I wandered off into the library where the distinctive smell of the stacks and stacks of books would become one of my all time favourite smells.  The books he liked were in a different section  He could stand up to find books and there was a big person desk for him to sit and read a bit of books he chose. My section was low to the carpetted floor and I could read the books I selected lying on the floor or sitting at little  people tables and little people chairs.

I mostly looked at pictures when we began going to the library.  Soon I’d be in a whole world of talking animals, space ships, bright colours and folks in fancy dress costumes from around the world. It would be later when Dad bought us boys a globe that I’d learn where all the strangely dressed people came from in the books I liked.  Inuit in furs hunting seals, Japanese women in long kimonos, Africans in little clothes wearing necklaces with gold or ivory.  It was all very exotic.  I especially liked the blue skinned aliens who looked much like us but had close fitting white suits and seemed stretched out.  I’d never know how long we were there before Mom would be calling. 

“Billy have you chosen your books” 

I’d look up and Mom and Ron were already at the counter. I’d have to rush through the books I been looking at and choose 5 that I could take with me.  We’d sign them out.  Ronny and I  carrying our satchels of books would follow  mom out the library ready for another week or two of reading.  .  The walk would begin.  Often though we’d walk along the highway sidewalk  now that  some of our natural kid energy had been worn off  by the morning adventure.  We’d evstop somewhere along the route and she’d take out a Wagon Wheel and  break off piece for each of us. We didn’t have anything to drink but chewed on our treat savouring it thoroughly as we trudged back home. .  After we passed the movie theatre we’d turn off Pembina, head  down Lyon turning at the Anglican Church for the last block to home. 

The dog would be so happy to see us running around in circles as Mom took our jackets and hung them up in the hall closet.  Ron nywould go right to our room to lie on the bed on his belly and and start reading.  I’d  followed mom into the kitchen where she’d make sandwich’s.  Grilled cheese were my favourite.  She’d often serve them to my brother and I along with tomato soup. ,. We’d always drink a  glass of milk though Ronny sometimes had two. He really liked his milk.  The dog would be in attendance. Mom would slip him at bit of grilled cheese sandwich though we boys weren’t allowed to feed him at the table.   It would be another couple of weeks before our next library excursion on another warm and sunny day. 

 

Saturday Night at Home

There’s George the cat stretching on the Istanbul camel hair rug. He enjoys the heat of the electric fireplace. Gilbert, the blind cockapoo has been playing fetch. Well, not just fetch. His own adaptation. I fetch it then he plays ‘seek’.  It takes a lot longer for the ball to return. I love his little wagging tail.  He gives me a break every once in awhile stopping to chow down on kibbles from his bowl.
I’ve just watched Interstellar. Second time round. Better this time I think.  I’m watching re runs more often older and enjoying them.  I’ve been reading Dan Brown’s “Origen” and very much enjoying that.  Since I first read Da Vinci Code before the movie I’ve read all of Dan Brown’s books. I’m glad for the new one. Like the Star Trek Discovery.  I’d pretty much settled into a rut of NCIS, Big Bang Theory, Hawaii 5.0 and Blue Bloods until that new Star Trek appeared. I look forward to Sunday night for each episode. The other TV just seems to be on when I’m eating or bored.
I swam yesterday. I’ve been walking Gilbert 2 sometimes 4 times a day. He comes a long with me most places but in addition we walk some.  The rest is work. Work seems to take more time during the week with the hour long commutes.
I”m grateful. I’ve been praying thankfully a lot but soul tired.  `The Fake News and News are tedious.  Some days I feel at ground zero for WW3.  The Communists and Fascists joined forces before the last war.  Now they seem to be doing the same.  Archaic legal political systems with cutting edge science.  I’d be happier if we were doing more to get to Mars. I’d hoped to visit in my life time.  Instead of ‘watching ‘ safe’ Survivor series we might instead be in the action of actual expansion and colonization.  The day will come.
I’m struggling with suicide and the microcosm macrocosm of life and death wishes.  Are they wishes or simply competing forces.  I do wonder about death and after life. The rise in aetheism, materialism’s and consumerism go against the spiritual and transcendent. I am an idea and love. This entity of self is what I know.  I feel contained and constrained in an artificial limition of self with the capacity to go so much beyond this sometimes prison.
I love watching the Camille Paulia and Christina Hoff Summers dialogue. There were a number of good presentations I came across that gave me hope.
I had thought to go out tonight to an event or a meeting. I could be with others but it’s been a fairly busy day, shopping, doing chores.  Tomorrow there’s church and we’re having a party for friends leaving. Laura is with her niece whose leaving too. I think of sailing a lot.  I long to face the Atlantic.  Then there’s this fifth wheel. I’ve the enorsement tests to do.  I barely did the phone calls and paper work this week, there was just so much of it. The toxic workplace is frightening. The new politics of ‘induced paranoia’.  We talk among ourselves about everyone being offended. The shock troops of the dying nation.  I worry about every nuance of speech, fear speaking, feel scripted, inauthentic.  I have been told that I am at work to do the least.  Here take this pill.  How are your bowels?  I worry I won’t be able to be minimalist.  I worry that will offend.  I’m utterly exhausted at the end of the day, watching my back, looking over my shoulder, seeking approval of the authorities, attempting desperately to not offend. I worry too that this is my future, people like I’m trying to be, caring for me.  It’s twisted but I don’t know what to do.  Carrying on.  Euthanasia on the horizon.
I thought what I did was ‘service’. I volunteered for the toughest assignments. Did the decades and some of education and more.  Did more education.  Did more service.  But to them it’s just a job.  I’ve taken life all too seriously.  I wonder at the metaphors that others live by.  These new aetheists, communists and activists.  They talk so much of power and so little of truth.  I spent my life trying to understand and healing. I did my best to do good.  I’ve danced with the devil over and over again and walked so many miles in others shoes. And it just comes down to they’ve got the guns, prisons, asylums and money and how alone I feel at times.
Then I turn to God and promises.  I really am blessed.  Grace is good to me.  God is Good. Life is good.  I am so thankful for my dog, for the cat, for this place with indoor plumbing, heat, and a refrigerator with food. I cooked a venison chilli with the deer I shot last year. I froze it all and took some out last night to microwave.  It was delicious.  What a wonder to eat a living creature I’ve shared with untouched by other hands, respected, blessed, touched, a mystical gift. Then add to that cans of tomato and beans and fresh celery , carrots, zucchini, garlic and onion.  I bought the vegetables from a little market near here where big trucks bring fresh produce daily.  I’ve been enjoying local apples too.  I left the propane stove on low simmer till it was tasty, a little under done so that the microwaving would finish the process.   I’m thankful to have the means to do this, the training, skills , the eperience.
I’ve met others with skills while I see so many addicts who have spent their lives in search of pleasure.  A false pleasure.  This time now brings me joy.  I’ve a cat rubbing against me.  He was asleep and now is awake. The dog is sleeping with a ball at his nose.
It’s been raining. I’m yawning and looking forward to my warm and comfortable bed.  The critters often join me initially but prefer to sleep on the floor once they’re comfortable I’m not leaving the bed.  These are idyllic times.  I hear Crosby Stills Nash and Young singing “our house’ in the distance.  Thank you.  I enjoyed seeing friends on face book, their activities, gatherings, interests and birthdays. I like the animal stories too.  The politics isn’t as vapid and loud.  This may be the lull before the storm.  But it’s just as likely things will muddle along as they do.
I’m thankful.  Thank you.

Canadian Authors Association - West Coast Branch - Annual Summer Dinner

The Canadian Authors Association - Writers Helping Writers- held their annual summer dinner at the Fire fighter’s Public House.  Great idea, Margot Bates!  Margot, president, arranged a tribute to the service of Bernice Lever.  Bernice Lever, writer in residence, was stepping down from her many other organizational positions in CAA.  Her knowledge and guidance has been so appreciated by each successive board member given her wealth of organizational knowledge, her wit and charm and her personal accomplishments as a poet, editor and writer.  Together we’d all contributed a comment on how much Bernice had helped each of us.  Jean Kay  provided orchids to accompany the booklet of praise presented by Robert Mackay.
Next, Children of Air India award winning author Renee Salikhar read from her book based on that tragic bombing of the Canadian flight in which more than 80 children died. After she spoke of the role of artists in history and tragedy. In her poem, the word ‘redacted’ sounds like the chorus of a Greek tragedy, accusing the terrorists and all who conspired through action or silence to kill these innocent children.
Later as writers we talked together of craft and subject, process and characterization.  But mostly we spoke of summer holidays, children and grandchildren, books being published, books being written.  Margaret told me of her latest family reunion, speaking of  generations and survivors.
I sat with Lilija and she, like Dennis, who joined us, have been have been joyfully experimenting with various forms of live and recorded musical back up to their poetry readings. . Lila’s autobiography is at the publishers and she promised she really had included the kangaroo.
Robert Mackay’s , latest novel, Terror on the Alert has just been released.   There were dozens there and I’d no chance to speak to all. Joyce had just returned from touring the art galleries of Europe.  It was great to see Russ who does so much for the CAA website. As he lives in Victoria we rarely see him..
I really enjoyed the group.  Writers, not surprisingly are fine raconteurs.  In person, they’re interesting, not terribly judgemental, because if anything they’re ‘collecting’ material for their books.  If they don’t particularly like you, you might end up a corpse in a detective novel.If you’re adorable you might well become a pet rabbit in a children’s fairytale.  In person, though,  they really do appreciate and celebrate character.  They’re not even averse to conflict if it moves the story.   Among writers there’s always depth.  One knows the wheels are turning when you’re talking with a writer. It might just be a hamster in a cage but it might well be the wheels of history.
 

Thank you all for Happy Birthday Wishes

Thank you all who have wished me happy birthday. It’s raining heavy. Gilbert woke me early wanting to pee. He just had his birthday too.
We walked in the woods after that. My back hurt. It was wet. I liked the smell of the fresh wet morning forest air. I liked that the snow was gone. It was warm enough but wet.  Gilbert peed on every single branch, every single branch.
He’s napping now. He came in and ate dry food.  Lots of happy dog chomping noises. I had to throw the ball a bit.  Odd that tennis players play with these yellow dog balls.  I’ve meditated and prayed.  But God did not levitate me. No shining light appeared. No bearded guy walked into my head in white robes. The Rapture didnt take me. 't just got a little quieter. I prayed.
I don’t exercise enough or pray enough or walk the dog enough.  It’s a good start to a new year.  I’m about to have my second coffee. I had a nap till a friend woke me.  They were flying back from Toronto. Waiting in the airport, thought of me.  How kind.
I don’t feel like doing much.  Other years on birthdays I’ve driven to Seattle, taken a weekend at the Harrison Hot springs, gone up to Whistler, but despite taking a day off, all I’ve done this weekend is minor errands.  I’ve bought myself a new watch and gone to church.  I’ve hung out with Gilbert.
We’re living in a dog house.  It’s been a month since my friend, (I simply can't call her a cleaning lady since she's smarter, wiser, more accomplished than me, but comes over and cleans up my place because I remind her of her brother and she's doing a lot of jobs so she doesn't have to get back into the 9-5 institutions),  came by to tidy and clean.
For a week or two after that it’s a human dwelling then Gilbert ascends and I devolve.  There’s even socks on the kitchen floor, dirty dishes in the sink. Some male slobs live here.  No bad smells or mould or slime but there’s a general messiness. My place  looks like an adolescent’s bed room especially the floor.
I would not invite someone over.  The empty Ray and Gerry ice cream carton the dog has beside his bed probably should go in the garbage soon.   I’ve been good at taking that out daily, since the dumpster is next to where I park my car.
There are books everywhere. The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria is almost finished.  Shackled Continent by Robert Guest is down on the floor. Coffee with Isaac Newton has a book mark in it. I've not started Dudley Popes Galleon. St Petersberg Eyewitness Travel - I've read the history and browsed all the tourist sites.  Dr. Phillip Ney's essay Why Kingsdom Rise, Why Kingdoms Fall: History Makes Sense of All.  They're all on the shelf behind the couch in easy reach.  I sometimes lie here reading them or read bits between commercials.  If I don't read between the commercials I get up and go to the fridge.  There should be a class action suit against commercials by the obese of America.
The Canadian Book of Common Prayer, I read the morning prayer yesterday, remembered when I read it religiously, had been a while, comforting and uplifting., Eyewitness Travels Russia, I've read the history and sights, Russian for dummies. I'm not making much headway with that. Different alphabets get me.  Like the Hebrew I studied last year.  (Why can't everyone just use the alphabet we have, 10 thousand years ago, really, the ancients were so arbitrary and contrary, we really need to get a time machine to get their languages in line with my limitations.) Falling Upwards by Richard Rohr - it hasn't been opened but I read his contemplations daily on the internet.
For Sinners Only, The Book of the Oxford Groups, A.J, Russel, I got a chapter into that and distracted, must get back to it.  Really good history of the early 12 step origins.  I've got more books in the bed. I've been reading Nigel Tranters Scottish Grey series a page or two at a time before I fall asleep.
I've got a couple of dvds lying near me on this table.  I notice that I watched Nebraska last night and will probably get to  Adventurer tonight. I've had the Pussycat Dolls work out series on the table for a couple of weeks and it's still in the cellophane.  How about that.  I thought scantily dressed young women would trick me into working out in front of the tv but so far I'm too sophisticated for that.
I also have a Tai Chi dvd which I thought I'd use to remind me of the patterns  I once knew so well, but that's not out of the cellophane either.  The couch and refrigerator have been well used in contrast.  There's three channel changers on the table, one for cable, one for the VHS and one for netflix.  I have a little amp beside me the couch and had the guitar going again.
It's all a mess. Every surface is covered.  Lots of external hard drives around this macbook air.  Tetrabeyondgigs and megabytes proportion little packages and I remember when an external hard drive was the size of the computer and carried very little memory.
I’m always reading several books at a time and I've got some science texts and novels on the go on the Kindle.  There’s never enough space.   I need a clutter blackhole from the future which would suck everything up into a tiny space and hold it between uses, then spew it out in tact when I needed it.
I have had this sense of limitation these last few years.  I feel like for the first time I see the horizon of heaven or hell. I believe it's heaven but then I know bad guys think they're going to hell and that's okay with them. They wouldn't want to go to heaven. I want to go to Mark Twain or CS Lewis's idea of heaven.   I have been journeying this way all my life but now I see the future like a mountain on a vast plain.  There’s a destination called death out there and I’m considering it more. Things like bucket lists mean something to me.
I’m more intolerant of the stupid and pompous and smug which is my latest excuse for lack of patience. That said I’m rarely as rude as I was when I was younger and I was passionate about time. Now I feel this too shall pass. Ironically I bought a new watch for my birthday present to myself.
Relationships have become so much more important for me.  I was so alone for a while and now I’ve opened up to really enjoying those around me and their individual lives.  I”m more content and less driven.
Thoughts of revenge pass through my mind since I have nothing to lose like never before. Yet I don’t care to waste the time on such silliness. I value my time differently.
The past seems sometimes like yesterday and sometimes like another life away.  The journey is good though. All of it. Mostly I’ve gained some compassion for myself and others who rule.  No one is safe from death.
Old age is up there somewhere and I’m considering it differently too.  Bithdays are times for reflection as much as celebration. I celebrate this life. I’m thankful for spirituality. I’m thankful for learning. I’m thankful for all the love.
Thank you.
PS: I’ve concluded TESTOSTERONE is Scalping Me though. .
 I just swam 20 lengths in the pool.  Crawl and backstroke are much more aggressive than breast stroke.  Loved the jacuzzi. The jacuzzi is my friend.

Love Between the Sacred and Profane Poetry Book, Cambodia

I am donating copies of my new poetry book, Love Between the Sacred and Profane, to libraries.  I decided to bring a few copies with me to do the same here.  I simply forgot and didn't seem to have time in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. However, here in Siem Leap, faced with flying back to Canada, I finally contacted the local reading library in the Khymer Studies complex. I told them  I wanted to donate my new book.  It helped that there was a picture of me on the book cover.  Suspicion stopped immediately then and  the librarian expressed real appreciation.   Vandy, my driver,  liked this too an was kind enough to offer to take a picture. There  are not  a lot of modern English poetry books in this part of Cambodia yet everyone is learning English. .
Also I think it's called a photo op! The Canadian Authors Association would be impressed. Not only will I have a book, "launch', soon, I've already had a 'photo op'.  It really was fun and felt good.   Just like later in the day when I donated a small amount of  money to a fisherman's school to help pay for grade school  books.  Vandy had taken me on a walk in the fisherman's village and told me that some of the people really were poor.
Books are so important especially to the young.  I loved as a child going with my mother and brother every two weeks to the library to borrow more books to read.  I still love reading, though now I'm as often reading kindle as hard cover. I'm certainly I've always had access to books. Mostly I appreciate the support my family gave to reading.

Leslie Jordan

Thanks to Moon I heard and attended Leslie Jordan's comedy show, "Fruit Fly: Do Gay Men Really Become their Mothers?"  Leslie Jordan won the 2006 Emmy for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series for his work on Will and Grace.  He's also appeared in Ally McBeal, Boston Public, Monk and Murphy Brown. Tonight's sold out show was featured at the Orpheum Annex and sponsored by the Filmore Family.  The Loving Spoonful charity was advertised with Fred Lee, among others, promoting their upcoming  "Awesome Race' fund raiser.
Then Leslie Jordan was simply non stop storytelling heart stroking and more wonderful with his witty reflections on growing up gay in a military family in the Chattanooga south, his mother's favourite until the twins.  Grand photo shot backdrops in black and white and early kodak colour captured this very well dressed little boy whose family really did epitomize 'Father Knows Best' until Father died and the stepfather stepped in.  How extraordinary to hear this remarkably funny story of deep pathos, resilience and entertainment.
I was simply enthralled by the performance and the humour had me bursting out in gut wrenching laughter.  I was almost in tears when he explained that his southern belle mother getting traveller's cheques for the first time was asked by the  bank teller , "what denomination?"  answered, Baptist.
After, I bought his latest book, "My Trip Down the Pink Carpet". I  enjoyed being able to have my picture taken with the "author" at this after show impromptu signing, even if it does look like I'm groping him.
Moon who'd  seen him here when she was last visiting Vancouver shared  recollections to their mutual amusement.  Two Americans meeting again and again in Canada.  Thank you Leslie for a heart warming evening. I am so glad you keep coming back as I too  hope to see you again and again!

All the Way Home by David Berner

All the Way Home is a book that chronicles the truly amazing and miraculous life of the X Kalay Foundation. X Kalay is a First Nations word for "The Unknown Path". It is also part memoir of it's founding member, David Berner himself.
X Kalay began in the 1960's when David Berner became a member of the Young Canadians. In the federal penitentiary he began to help a fledgling group of First Nations folk wanting to develop a half way house for aboriginals in hope of countering the almost complete recidivism of the day.
It became apparent from the start that no one wanted to just go half way but indeed wanted to go all the way on to never return to the penitentiary. To this end abstinence from drugs and alcohol became a cornerstone of this early recovery house.
The lessons learned in early years are poignantly described in colourful action sidestepping none of the violence, sex and harsh words that went into developing a working prototype which would go on to influence all subsequent recovery communities.
David Berner, born in Ottawa, studied Mathematics and Literature at University of Winnipeg thereby becoming a North Winnipeg Jewish intellectual. He and the community would incorporate all manner of eclectic ideas from the Synanon community to encounter groups led by innovative hypnotist psychologist, Dr. Lee Pulos. The free for all creativity of these early days fairly percolates from the pages as young men and women sought whatever way possible to stay clean and out of jail. Together they developed the Game, a therapeutic tool for group cohesion.
X Kalay would grow to 125 residents and a $2 million dollar budget closing in 1976 in British Columbia but living on in the Behavioural Health Foundation of Manitoba.
David Berner, actor, talk show host, television personality, provacateur, journalist is a splendid writer. He promotes the cause of abstinence fearing the emphasis on 'harm reduction' denies the humanity and potential of addicts who he has seen personally find new life in X Kalay and programs that promote such respect and honesty. His writing is reminiscent of Victor Frankl. His compassion for his fellow human and his track record of solid success are amazing.
I was deeply moved by All the Way Home and would recommend it to all who work in the field of addictions and corrections. Alone it's an amazing testimony to marginalized humans with extraordinary dreams. The potential of the human spirit shines throughout this beautiful and uplifting book of great endeavour.


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William Lashner

I've just finished "Falls the Shadow" by William Lashner. It's a brilliant mix of the finest of the classics of the detective genre brought into modern day parlance. A kind of Hitchcock remake by Steven Spielberg.  A horrid French chef in prison for murdering his wife has an old lover now wealthy from marital gold digging hire Derringer and Carl legal team to get him a retrial.  Derringer is a beautiful big hearted woman lawyer paired with the gumshoe skeptic Carl.  Through twists and turns of who dunnit and amazing characterization we follow the story of  the tragedy all the while the parallel pro bono case of child rescue entertwines with the main characters in the murder mystery thriller.  William Lashner (www.williamlashner.com) was himself a trial attorney in the criminal division of the United States Justice Department.  We never do learn where he got his very mixed feelings about dentists but it must indeed be a truly piercing story.  A gripping read.  I can only look forward to reading more by this Philadelphian New York Times best seller.

The Ascent of Money

The Ascent of Money, A Financial History of the World, by Niall Ferguson, Penguin Books, 2008 is a truly fascinating  read that turns the intrigue of history into a fast paced thriller.  It really is a who dunnit detective novel for the 2007 recession as well and answer the question why governments want us to buy houses and the Chinese in contrast to the South Americans insisted you build factories in their country rather than loan them the money to do it themselves.
Niall Ferguson could well be a Hollywood script writer the way this supposedl y 'dry' subject reads.  I'm 340 pages into it with the remaining 23 pages to read.  The last chapter is called the "Descent of Money".  I'm not sure I'm ready to read that yet. I'm going to savour it as I've raced through other sections of this extraordinary plot of economics and politics.
I have learned about the family wealth of brother Rothschild and Baring, the building of companies and interest, the insurance and sharing of risk, banks and their growth and diversificaton. I've learned of war and Bretton Woods, the depression and more recently the recessions.  At times it really does seem that the world banks, money and stocks and funds are just different black jack tables in the casino of the world.  Yet here and there I understand the concepts of leverage and wealth creation by careful management.  In the recent recessions millions were lost in days and though there were bail outs the very wealthy took huge cuts themselves.(See my own sad song written for those poor souls, called "I'm a millionaire but I used to be a billionaire' after the Economist disclosed dozens of billionaires were demoted in the financial crisis that put others out of houses into tents).  I learned too that in most of the US you may lose your house but they can't get any of your other assets so buying a house with zero down makes for sweet cheap rent for years until the interest rises and the smart tenant (or money) moves on. Then there's Soros and Buffet and now China and the Cninese American "Chimerica'.

Niall Ferguson is Professor of History at Harvard and Fellow at Oxford and Fellow at Stanford.  Most of all he's a brilliant story teller.  And the Ascent of Money is a tremendous story.  So where is the Hollywood movie with Brad Pitt and Jack Nicholson and Charley Chan.  It's clear from reading it today that in China with it's 350,000 new millionaires there would be such a movie made immediately or at very least an HBO special like the Tudors or Borgias.  Americans are still reading the sports pages while the Chinese have long realized the real 'contest' is in the business section.  Beijing is winning the war in the marketplace and China is now the bank of America.

How to explain 2007, the beginning of the worst financial crisis since the depression of the 30's.  Here are answers.  Here is what is beyond partisan politics. Here is meaning of life in the world of 'banksterism' .  It's not about white hat cowboys and black hat cowboys.  Both Clinton  and Bush declared that their bankers had misinformed them.  In the world of economics with avarice and insurance in competition and tsunamis and Russian government crashes there are butterfly wings all over  globalization.  The arrogance of the nobel prize winning Black-Scholes model and the whimsy of the Quantum Fund begin to make sense when hedge funds and derivatives are explained. It's really more fashion than anything else and the Devil Wears Prada. I had to read that derivative part again and again hardly believing such silliness in asset management could exist as such a disconnect from reality.  This is the financial world of 'deconstructionism'.  This is Humpty Dumpty in Los Vegas.  It's entertainment at the highest level as well.

Thanks to Niall Ferguson I can understand the 'sound bites' and propaganda, conspiracy theories and fear mongering that the media has thrown out.  There's method in the madness but even that's a bit neurotic.. Investments really do go up on sunny days.  And yes, I will be able to manage my own paltry sums of cash better  thanks to Niall Ferguson.  This is essential reading at it's finest.

Space Doctor

Space Doctor is a novel by Lee Correy published as a Del rey book by Ballantine Books in 1981. It's the story of the first solar energy array in space done as an industrial project, no different from other industrial projects like the South American oil pipe lines.  What's amazing about this story is that it begins with a country doctor, friend of the magnate entrepreneur whose privately developing the overall project.  The doctor is approached as a friend to build and man the first industrial space hospital with paradmedics and nurses for the high man power site.  I was fascinated as a doctor reading this book having not thought of so many of the obvious problems that can arise in 'space medicine'.  In an emergency in weightlessness the doctor can't get the bubbles out of the syringe, just for an example.  When he goes to intubate the patient, they fly in opposite directions.  To get to an emergency industrial explosion site the paramedics have to go through each of the locks in the complex all resulting in too much time lost to save the lives of the welders.  The story is written as fiction and moves like episodes of ER.  It's the backdrop to the exciting reading that's fascinating and so realistic. I kept thinking that this should be on the required reading list for every medical student, nurse and paramedic today even though it was written thirty years ago. All that's somewhat outdated are the medications used. Otherwise the book is a beginner's guide to frontier medicine at it's finest. Nothing in Star Trek or Star Wars came close to addressing the essence of the industrial and occupational medicine considerations as well as this book does.  Not surprisingly Lee Correy is the pseudonym for G. Harry Stine, a rocket pioneer, futurist and expert on space industrialization. Having read some of the research papers from NASA by psychiatrists and psychologists regarding colour and sound I was really impressed to read these very ideas being addressed in the 'wardroom" of this first 'space hospital'.  It's a great story but it also raises all the issues doctors will have to contend with when doing surgery, deliveries, and handling emergencies in space.  I enjoyed to the conflict with beaurocrats, regulators, the struggles with project finance, the problems arising from design errors.  All of it was just fascinating stuff with the background of space emergencies and tight quarter romance.

The War Story

I just finished reading, The War Story, by Jim Morris.  It was published by Dell in 1979.  I picked it up at the Bookman in Chilliwack for $4.  Jim Morris got 4 purple hearts and 4 bronze stars.  I found myself skimming alot of the book and reading in detail the parts with action and movement.  It's said that War is 90% boredom and 10% hell. There's that in the book.
Jim Morris was special forces, tasked to supporting the Montagnard hill tribes fighting the Cong.  He was big on night ambushes.  The day to day camp events, planning and politics probably doesn't change from war to war.  There's a lot of snafus and screw ups and misinformation.  Many people are in a war for as many reasons.  He was a warrior who cared for Vietnam.  What caught my attention most, after he had his left nut shot off, was his saying that the Americans won the war on the ground but the media back home lost it.  "American Journalists. Pah!" he writes.He was there. Front line.  The American media lost the Vietnam War.
The Jim Morris war was rain and leeches and waiting days and nights without moving to ambush an enemy running along trails at night.  Then it was urban defence in Tet.   I'm thankful for my home and work in Canada.   Our  Canadian soldiers are there to ensure it's not taken. I picked up this book up after listening to my dad and the three WWII vets he has breakfast with each day.  I still believe in peace. Today I know that soldiers do too.

Canadian Author's Association - West Coast Branch - March 9, 2011

I stepped out of my ORDINARY WORLD into the Art Alliance Building on Howe Street.  The Canadian Author's Association meeting is always a CALL TO ADVENTURE. I am RELUCTANT to join the creativity and genius, thinking I'd rather go home to watch another television episode of CBC's Insecurity or" barf out anotherblog" (as Perry Wilson so aptly describes it). But no ! (sorry Patrick for laughing at my own jokes, and Ed) But No!!!!.  I REFUSE THE CALL!  But I am encouraged by my MENTORS.

Bob  (ROBERT W. MACKAY)  branch president,  has a new book, "Soldier of the Horse" published by Touchwood.  I have to get a copy  before it's sold out.  I am already tasked to get   another copy of Ben Nuttall Smith's, new historical novel, Blood, Feather's and Holy Men too.  Perry Wilson has had her book "Closing the Circle" just released  through Amazon. At least  I can download a Kindle copy. Bernice Lever has had more poetry published.  Jean Kay and Margaret Hume are there.  They're all MENTORS. I was hardly through the door before I was discussing Churchill guide Mike Macri with Anthony Dalton, the president of CAA. I'd just finished his fascinatingly book called, Polar Bears.  I think I recognised, from his detailed descriptions and tales, the very Polar Bear that chased me when I was in Churchill"!"
Patrick Taylor, An Irish Country Doctor, arrived, only to be thronged.  He shared that 50,000 copies of one of his many books had just been printed from the old draft galley without maps and all the typos.  With characteristic wit and humor he described his news  "mixed".
I was at last  in a SPECIAL WORLD.  Worries and cares about'reality' simply slipped away.  "Characters" were all around me.  Genius and entertainment. Writers, authors, poets. The whole circus of story tellers.  A barb here and an eulogy there. Reparte coupled with hyphen, colon and question mark.  Discussions about exlamation marks, for God's sake! The English language sparred with French. Norwegian popped out of somewhere.  A syllable danced with a paragraph.  Hyperbole silenced the period.

Then Ed Griffin was introduced by Perry Wilson.

Ed was a Roman Catholic priest who marched in Selma with Martin Luther King.  Leaving the clergy he married, had 2 children and was a councillman in Wisconsin for years before coming to Canada. He had found creative writing at 47 and began teaching creative writing in jails.  Today he is the writer in residence at the Newton Cultural Centre in Surrey, where he began the Surrey International Writers Conference.   As a volunteer he teaches creative writing in Matsqui prison.  His own books include novels, Prisoners of Williwaw and Veto.  Dystopia written by Ed ,with former prisoner and writing class attendee Mike Oulton tells of the jail experience from inside and outside writer's perspective. It was published 2007 by Trafford Publishing.
Ed's talk was first about the Writer's Journey taken from the Christopher Vogler book of the Mythic Structure for Writer's.  Ed called it the Hero's Journey and shared how he started a book club at the institution and the prisoners, now reading Satannic Verses had just finished Joseph Campbell's , Power of Myth. In his talk he shared Jean Bryant's seven laws of writing which include 'write is an active verb. Thinking is not writing. Creativity follows passion. Originality equals vulnerability. Write for fun. Pleasure precedes profit. Write alot" and more.
I struggle with plot . Ed shared how  the 12 steps of the Hero's journey served to order plot.  . This structure could be found everywhere. It was just good story telling. Describing it in movies like Star Wars and Wizard of Oz we learned that  Margaret Hume knew a surprising amount about the Yellow Brick Road.
Ed went on to talk about the ORDEAL of prisons and the experience of the waste and failure of the system. He offered instead the alternative of  "restorative justice", describing how victim assistance and restitution worked.
The REWARD  was amazing in the question and answer period that followed. Among the writers present there were a former parole officer, a prison guard, a corrections officer and a lawyer.  I was surprised they admitted this after Ed had described the "US and Them" mentality that so permeated the prison system.   Being writers we had committed every criminal act in our minds so naturally identified with  the "US" and began breaking down chairs to make Shivs to attack "Them." Soon everyone was loudly dragging pens back and forth,  back and forth, across our computer keyboards. We were plotting  riot when Ed dragged us BACK to the ORDINARY WORLD , describing  the TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE of several prisoners who had taken his classes.
One is now a writer for the newspaper, The Province, having contributed a piece called "writing changed my life".Now he has the  regular column called the Incarcerated Inkwell.  Ed described how art and faith had helped the DEATH of the criminal past and lead to a RESURRECTION of self for so many.

He read from Dystopia. We all heard the rich creativity of an author whose sole former outlet of expression had been crime. It was a moving night.

By the end of evening we'd all  experienced the ELIXIR of Ed's enthusiasm and committment to writing.

Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

The book launch for Ben Nuttall-Smith's historical novel, Blood, Feathers and Holy Men is Sunday, March 8, 2011 at Renaissance Books & Expresso Bar 43 6th Street New Westminister.  I was fortunate to get an early copy and am reading his story of 10th Century America right now.  It's a curl up in front of a fireplace with a warm cup of cocoa thriller that I've left at the place where I  often weekend.  The result is I get to savour the book and it stops me reading it all night long in one big gulp.  It's that gripping but there's just so much history and description to go with the fine plot that I'm enjoying following up bits I've read with a bit of reading in the encyclopedia.  Who would have guessed what soaps were available way back then when today there are those who rarely use them still..  Ah well, a great read and the launch should be a lot of fun since Ben is such a remarkable character in person.

Canadian Author's Association - Westcoast Meeting - Nov. 2010

Ben Nuttall-Smith was the CAA greeter 2nd Wednesday of November at the Alliance for Arts and Cultural Events, Ste 100, 938 Howe Street, Vancouver. He was beaming. I hate when other authors are beaming. They're usually a morose and sullen lot with furrowed brow ever in search of the bon mot. Beaming can mean only one thing. Ben's new novel had been accepted and is due out for publication in the spring. In the reflection in the glass behind him I watched my freckles turn green as he spoke about his writing achievements.
I just managed to congratulate him, shake his hand, get by him and damned if I didn't encounter another beaming author. This time it was Robert Mackay, President of our Vancouver branch of CAA. His new novel is due out in March 2011.
Trying not to grovel and kneel before greatness, I styled the diffident pose of a blogger. Blogger's don't need publishers. Bloggers are poor and self supporting. Bloggers give their works to the church of internet. Ben and Bob actually had found homes for their children.
I get by Bob with freckles and skin green, only to see another beamer. Who is that, I ask. I can only wonder as Jean Kay introduces Lila.

Lila's one of our very funny resident poets. She breaks into performance art reciting a work about the snakes that we meet in daily life. Obviously some of hers are men. I sit back and enjoy, loving her various takes on officialdom, listening as she brings the pompous and pretentious down a notch or two with cutting art.
Then Jean is introducing the other beamer. He's a really big beam. The more books published, the more beam, it seems.

This is Timothy Taylor. http://www.timothytaylor.ca/ No wonder he beams. Not only has he published books but he's had countless writing awards. He actually makes his living writing which supports his office in downtown Vancouver. Now that's a serious writer. His first novel was Stanley Park and is optioned for a movie. I've just downloaded his Story House from Amazon. He's reading tonight from his latest book due out like Bob's book in March 2011. It's got the word Project in the title, like Blair Witch Project, but I think there's a colour, Blue, like that movie the Vancouver police did about Vancouver downtown eastside. Blue Light Project. That's it. I ought to be a better researcher, like Taylor. He tells us that he started this book with the idea of a hostage taking in a theatre and three characters. One was a former star athlete. In this case a woman gold medallist in one of those diatholon, triatholon, biatholon whatever aggregate sports that will never take the place of hockey, try as they might. The other character was a street artist. Timothy Taylor explained how he became interested in these alternative artists who do city art, one fellow painting a dumpster to look just like Louis Vitton luggage. The third character was pullitzer prize journalist who'd fallen from grace through lying in a major piece only to end up doing scuzzy tabloids for a living. It was this alter ego latter character whose place at the hostage taking, Taylor read tonight.
It was priceless writing. Not surprising he's a beamer. Writes amazingly and reads well too. The girls say he's handsome. What's not to hate. We had question and answers after that. Always interesting to learn what authors say to authors questions. Some very useful answers about digital contracts and movie scripts. Then lots of applause.
I'm committed to buying Blue Light Project. It's going to be the first of a new genre, Literary Thriller. It's like the biathalon. Nobody's just playing hockey. Everything has gone Roccocco and Baroque. At least blogging remains the trailer trash of modern writing. I'm safe in my own Deliverance, resisting knocking out a few teeth and learning the banjo.
It was another good night at CAA. Inspirational for sure. Like getting to hear today's Robertson Davies, Farley Mowatts and Pierre Burtons reading from the great literature that will be taught in tomorrow's schools.

Next event is the Christmas Lunch, Whitespot Restaurant, 1616 West Georgia, Vancouver, Noon, Dec. 4, 2010.It's always a great place to play identify the poets from the novelists based on table manners.


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Containment

I downloaded Christian Cantrell's ebook Science Fiction thriller from Amazon kindle books for 99c to read on my iPad. I feel "almost" like I should send someone the full price of a hardcover, now that I've read it. it was that good of a read. At 99c it's an unbelievably great 'deal' .

Reviewers compared Cantrell to Azimov and Bradbury. It was that kind of well written engaging fast moving science fiction writing. I really liked how contemporary the politics and science were. The world is deteriorating so the Space Agency colonizes Venus and apparently that's what it's about to those dealing with the problems in the colony. However that's just the story within the much bigger and much more engaging real story. Terrific twists and turns with a bit of Enders Game thrown in.

I loved it and look forward to reading more Cantrell since I probably read all of Azimov and Bradbury years ago.


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Location:W 13th Ave,Vancouver,Canada

WEB Griffin

I just finished WEB Griffin's Vigillantes. This was one of his Badge of Honor series about Philadelphia cops. The writing is fast and naked. A lot of WEB Griffin is characterization. I've read a half dozen of these Badge of Honor books over the years so have come to enjoy Payne the bright young cop "who could have been lawyer but stayed with the force" and Law the doctor who loves him. They're a bit of a soap opera with some action and a lot of intrigue. Good detective novels. What makes them most interesting is that WEB Griffin is truly a favorite writer of police forces. I appreciate this. This is either how cops see themselves or ideally how they see themselves. There's a real 'truthfulness' in these accounts that is so clearly at variance with the way police are so commonly misrepresented. I can't help but come away from WEB Griffin Badge of Honor novel without thinking these guys are trying despite the system. It's a tough job but normal guys are doing their best in difficult times. They're dealing with the corruption and drugs. It's a jungle out there but thanks to the police mostly its safe for society to get on with more than just defending themselves.

In contrast WEB Griffin's other series Brotherhood of War has been for me a mixed bag. The truth is I've read a half dozen of those too so obviously keep coming back to them as a kind of guys beach book. WEB Griffin is a fast raw writer in the popular Tom Clancy form. It's hard to criticize such a giant and such a true success story. The trouble is that the last Brotherhood of War series I read just had too much drinking and men playing war with 50's upper class girls to be that entertaining. Perhaps I've talked to too many vets and am a bit too jaded on the continual wars of our times to be able to remove myself from the suffering to appreciate these novels which army recruiters must truly love.

They are historical fiction and probably reflect the archetypes that were dominant at the time and explain to some degree a similar Hollywood take post WWII on the types of characters and the very thinking that won the war. Maybe it's the American take too. John Wayne half cut. Maybe war is mostly about drinking and girls, at least the only parts one wants to remember other than the camaraderie.

I prefer the Badge of Honor series. Policing is a whole lot different with greater complexity and depth and everyday people going to work and wanting friends and family. There's also big questions and ideas in Vigillantes. What is wrong with the justice system and what needs to be done before it's too late.

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The Siege of Krishnapur

The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell is a very enjoyable read. I dowloaded it from the kindle books at Amazon. Historical Fiction. The Indian Mutiny started by the belief that the British had put out their new cartridges with pig and cow grease, which the local troops would have to bite off to access the powder, was intentional as part of the plan to Christianize the continent. Farrell took much of his material from diaries and letters of the folk at Krishnapur. It's a most intriguing view of Victorian times. The characterization is so wholly believable and the discussions so dated yet in some way contemporary. I found myself looking forward to picking up my ipad and really looking forward to learning what was happening to the men and women in the story. There's war and calvary charges but mostly it's about the thoughts and stories and behaviour of the women and men of the time during the increasing scarcity and travail of the seige and heat of India at the time. I most enjoyed the debate among the doctors and references to the civilization and idealism of the Gret Exhibition.


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Zero History

http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/

William Gibson's latest book, Zero History, is presently available for pre order. It will be out 09/07/2010. This is the first time I have ever 'pre ordered' a book. William Gibson is however a genius. Truly one of the most gifted writers of our time, every one of his books has been unique and amazingly prescient.

Harlan Coben’s latest

http://www.harlancoben.com/

I've just started Caught, Harlan Coben's latest novel. It's already classic Coben description with fast moving action and terrific characterization. I have to keep this blog short just to get back to the novel. It's been unforgivable that Coben's readers have had to wait at least a year for this latest, even if it's this good. It's not a Myron Bolitar which will make him immortal. A loving God will not allow Coben to die because God wants to know what Myron will do next. That said Caught is real good. Now I'm going back to reading it, so don't bother me.

(ps I downloaded the Amazon Kindle version and am reading it on my iphone. This will make it easier to stay up all night reading as the iphone has it's own built in light. Beats holding the flashlight in my mouth.)