Chances

It's hard to be a human sometimes. I lived in a place called Pestalosie College when I was in my twenties. There were ten rooms to a section and in my section was a man with a mental disorder. Now, I didn't mind his loud sermons about 'Jesus lives in the toilet.' His screams didn't bother me. I've been blessed with being a heavy sleeper so he never kept me awake.

The others in my section were not so lucky. Oh, they complained and gave him trouble. "Hey, Markie, there's no one in the bathroom. I think Jesus stepped out." And Markie would rage.

I always tried to be nice to Markie and I found him to be a very sweet person, he just had that problem. Anyway, came the day when Markie moved out. Now every time I saw his room, I wondered where he slept. He had boxes that rose all the way to the ceiling and there was only a foot wide path. I don't know where he sat or if there was a path to the bed. These rooms were only about 4 foot by 11 foot so how he got all that stuff in there was a mystery to me.

He came by my room time after time that day with load upon load. "You're the only nice person here. "He said to me. "I hope you have better luck with this place than I had." And then he was gone and I've never heard from him since.

I guess my point is, I don't think he would have been yelling so much if the other people had been decent to him. My feeling is that the abuse or persecution of the mentally ill is what makes their illness so troublesome to others. They have no one to talk to and are so isolated that they just scream.

A lot of people will say, 'Well, those kind of people, why should we be nice?" But really, although I understand that they can be bothersome to light sleepers, I think there is a bigger reason to be nice, especially to small children who manifest mental illness. It's because we should let them be human. It's because the human race is worth treating well. It's also because everyone can do more than what they think they can and I believe when a mentally ill person can go to work and know that his co-workers will accept him or her. Then they'll be productive people, not relegated to poverty.

I just think the human race is worth the chance.

Amy Bradley

I'm a big TV watcher and I like crime shows. One thing that's best about them is that they put a lot of emphasis on the victim, who he or she was and what their families are feeling. I watch so many that they all fade into the background but once in a while, one sticks in my mind.

Amy Bradley.

She was a young woman on her way up with an exciting job waiting for her. She would have started it in less than a month. Her mother and father and brother went on a cruise. I will not name the cruise line. She struck up several light friendships on the ship.

One night the three other members of her family were all in bed. She was on the verandah and she stepped out of her stateroom to have a cigarette. She's never been seen again. Her family was convinced that she was secreted on the ship and demanded a search. The cruise line gave a cursory search and declared she was not on board and had probably committed suicide. No one in her family believes that. Her future was bright.

Years pass. Someone looking for her happened upon a prostitution site from the Caribbean. There she was but greatly changed. Her eyes held the tormented look that only a person in slavery can have. She was being sold to men vacationing in the Caribbean and several people have talked to her.

Neither the US government or the Caribbean nation will do anything to rescue her. She's been a slave for over ten years now, probably being moved about from place to place.

I was greatly disturbed at this story and felt like I wished I could do something, then I thought: her family is saying they want to keep looking for Amy and keep the story in the public eye. So I will put up the link for the website they set up and if you want to help keep this story in the public eye, could you Recommend on Google? That way more people will read about her and maybe be able to help. The Recommend on Google comes right at the bottom of the post. Thanks all.

 http://www.amybradley.net/

The Beauty Beast

It's just a fact of nature that women want to be beautiful. But I do think that we've gone a bit too far in this age. I don't know who set the standards for what is beautiful, I suppose all cultures have their standard, but in a world where there are all types of people, I don't see why there is one standard for beauty.

Whenever I meet women who are trying to conform, I like to ask them a question. If the genetic doctors could come up with a shot that would make your baby look exactly like Angelina Jolie, would you take it? How about a room full of pregnant women. Would they want all their daughters to look exactly the same? Carbon copy babies. The answer is always no. They want to see their baby, what she will look like and will love her just the way she is.

So why, I ask, don't you want that for yourself? Why do you want fuller lips, bigger eyes? Don't you want to look like yourself, a combination of your mother and father? What's wrong with a flat chest anyway? Who said it couldn't be beautiful?

Who is that masked man who is setting these standards?

I have seen women I think are beautiful with big, crooked noses or really tall women that were quite striking. What's wrong with unconventional beauty?

I guess I'm asking a  lot of questions but I don't know how it came to be that straight noses, thin legs, big hair and boobs became THE ONLY way to be beautiful. A world where everyone is a carbon copy of Angelina Jolie? Not that I don't like her or her movies, but, no thanks, I just want to be the way I am.

The Mountain City Bronzes at MuseItUp Publishing
 http://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage-ask.tpl&product_id=249&category_id=3&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

The Author Marketing Club

The Author Marketing Club is a new find of mine. It is a site which seeks to help authors promote their books. I have signed up for it for new ideas on how to promote The Mountain City Bronzes.

I think for authors, especially e-book authors, there is never enough or too much promotion. A traditional book promotion, author readings, reach only people in the town or city where it takes place and many traditional authors have war stories about their author readings. Don't get me wrong. I would do that if offered to me, but when you promote online, you know that the places you promote there are people going to that site especially for that reason.

So I think to get the word out about The Author Marketing Club is a good idea, you can visit or join and get e-mails with titles of e-books in them.

I think it works better than even TV promoting. Sometimes you see Tom Clancy or James Patterson books in ads but unless you're a name TV wouldn't work too well for e-books. Nobody would remember the sites to buy the book or probably even the title. Online, this link is right there.

I like reaching out to many different people. I'm eternally interested in people and what they think and how they came be what they think and the cultures. Even if some people seem strange or repulsive, like when you hear about Chinese cannibalizing their enemies in the Cultural Revolution, it still is worth is to come to conclusions about how and why people do the things they do.

Here is the link to The Author Marketing Club
http://authormarketingclub.com/

Animals In Apartments?

The one disagreeable thing about living in an apartment is that it's hard to have animals. I know some people do and I probably would if I could but my room mate has put his foot down. He believes it's cruel to lock an animal up in such a small space.

As a young man he kept Weimaraners, a big, gray dog that likes to guard his territory. He had three of them, Beethoven, Bach and Misty, the female. They were quite happy in the big backyard run they had and very joyously chased Jehovah's Witnesses off the property.

He, David, used to show them, which they took as great fun as he was not serious about it himself. He also used to drive them all the way down to Sandbanks Provincial Park every weekend so they could run on the dunes and swim.

As a child, my own dog, Cindy used to swim. I took her at least once a week to the beach. Neither David or I would be able to take our dogs swimming if we had them because now it's not allowed to let a dog swim where there are people swimming. I don't like this rule because, coming from White Rock, I know full well that children, when they don't want to bother going all the way to the restrooms, will just pee in the ocean. I can't see a dog being any worse than that.

But today I passed the pet store and saw some kittens. One black, two tabbies and one calico. So sweet, so cute but I knew what David would say if I bought one. Cruel!

So I guess everyone who lives in an apartment has to look to his/ her own conscience as to whether an animal living with them is a good idea or not. I've only ever had an animal in a house, with the exception of two Siamese cats that lived in an apartment where I rented a room. So I do know how much they want to get out and catch birds.

So for right now I'll just be happy looking at them in the pet store. Someday...

Well, I'll sign off now, with a reminder that you can but The Mountain City Bronzes at amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mountain-City-Bronzes-ebook/dp/B006M4HDEY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341091821&sr=8-1&keywords=the+mountain+city+bronzes

Chipmunk Playfulness

All the new findings of animals intelligence and playfulness take me back to the same place. My mother. She always said animals are more intelligent than they are given credit for.

My mother grew up in the woods of southern Alberta. Her father was a section foreman for the railways and they lived in places where the only population was the other people who worked for the railways. So one place was population thirteen and another population seven. She spent a lot of time observing animals and nature and was always happiest when she was near a forest.

I, on the other hand, grew up in a city. A small city indeed but there were a lot of people, in my view. I wasn't sure exactly how smart something like a chipmunk was.

Later on, when I was in my twenties, I went to the woods: Algonquin Park. I went twice. Once, I have written about, this is the second time.

I found the chipmunks enchanting and lively and at one campsite where I settled in one came to play at night on my tent. It was strange and something I never thought an animal would do. The little guy climbed up one side of my tent, which was a wedge tent, and then slid down the other side. It did this over and over again and I just knew it was playing a game and enjoying itself, yes, having fun.

Again and again the chipmunk would climb up one side and slide down the other. It was pitch black but I couldn't sleep, I was too entranced. The next night the little guy jumped into my food, which was hanging from a branch. So it figured out how to get my food.

I thought of my mother that night and wished she were there. Maybe she could tell me of times when she was a child and some wild animal had played with her, something that would let me know how she had known about animal intelligence. After all, although sliding is not rocket science, it would have taken some thinking to figure out that it could slide there.

Now I agree with my mother that animals are probably smarter than we think.

Perspective

It's funny what it takes to get a different perspective. Sometimes it's just a word from a friend but I find nothing works as well as going somewhere different for a few days.

When I was young, I went to Algonquin Park. I have written about my first trip there in three previous blogs. I did go again because I found the first time, getting away from the city made me appreciate things a lot better and also to get some things out of my system.

Crowds. Now Ottawa is not the biggest city in North America or even Canada but there are enough people to make a crowd. I'm not anti-social but I do like to feel that I'm alone, not all the time, but sometimes. Away from the rush of coffee shops and grocery stores where I have brought all my own food and drink out of a lake. I found this refreshing.

On the other hand, out in the woods has an element of danger. I could have broken a leg and then I would have to crawl miles back into civilization. I had my rules of the forest: don't run (to make sure you don't catch your leg in a hole made by some animal) and keep all food separate from the rest of your backpack. One thing they'll tell you about bears is: Never get between a she-bear and her cubs and never get between a bear and it's food; and your food is his food.

So I placed all my (it's) food into a smaller backpack and carried it in my hands so if a bear came around as I was hiking, I could just throw it to it and be safe. (I hoped)

I felt I would live my life from city to wilderness, when I got sick of one I would go to the other but it didn't work out so well. I found I like to feel safe and bears do not make me feel safe. I need shelter and good food and maybe a pool. So I guess I'm a nature quitter but I still like the fact that I went and experienced it.

But now I've just gotten back from a friend's house. It's good talk, we went to an antique fair, we've gone apple picking and swimming in her pool. I had a ball.

I've decided that instead of the outdoors, I might just want to go to small towns. They're fun and the people will actually talk to you. Not a bit like Ottawa where if you talk to someone they think you're out to get them.

I have my relaxation strategy now and hope it works for me for a long time. I'll have to write about my second trip to the park but right now I'm just looking forward to my next visit to my friend.

I've decided to post a link to my other flash fiction published in Apollo's Lyre.
http://apollos-lyre.tripod.com/id262.html

you can highlight and paste into the bar. I don't think the link is live.