The Kids and I are riding into the sunset for the immediate future.  That is to say we’re taking a brief hiatus from blogging.

“NOOOOO!!!!” you scream in response.

Calm down, drama queens.  It won’t last that long.

For your information, we’re only talking days, not weeks.

“How many days?” you demand vehemently.

A few.  Perhaps several.  But less than eleven.

And you weep, “Why?”

Because we’ve been going for more than four years and feel we deserve—let alone need—a break.  It’s only a brief respite, a mere sip from the well of rest from which we’ve for too long abstained.

During this time off, there will be no Random Thoughts and no Vocabularium entries.  As a matter of fact, there will be absolutely nothing.  No new content.  No photos.  No videos.  Nada.

As in nada damn thing.

See, I made a funny.

The point is we need a vacation from the blog.  We’ve grown tired, stressed from the continual grind, weary as it were.

But this isn’t forever.  It’s for some number of days not to number more than ten.  That’s barely more than a week if it even lasts that long.

I promise we’ll be back.

During this time we’ll be snapping photos, capturing videos, recharging our batteries, and enjoying a retreat from the digital mayhem that is online journaling.

So we’ll see you in no more than ten days.

[photos include mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos), American coots (Fulica americana), brown and white Chinese geese (a.k.a. swan geese, Anser cygnoides), wood ducks (Aix sponsa), unknown duck species, and perhaps a few creatures I couldn't recognize in these particular images]

You know how I am about web memes.  Don’t tag me with them because I won’t be imposed upon for content.  But that doesn’t mean I hate them.  Actually, I like some of them and include them here if they suit my fancy.  And this one does.

From Diva Kitty & the Fluffies comes the movie meme.

You’re welcome to play along in the comments if you wish, and you’re equally welcome to use this on your own blog if you have one.  I won’t tag anybody since it’s not my thing.

I’m taking great liberty in my answers as many ask for one and I’m giving a lot more (that’s just how I roll).

1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times.
Any Star Trek, Star Wars, or Godzilla film, all but the latest King Kong film, the original “The Fog,” “Dark City,” “Contact”, “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar,” “Stargate,” “Casablanca,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Roots,” “Donnie Darko,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “The Gods Must Be Crazy,” “Grosse Pointe Blank,” all of the classic sci-fi and horror stuff (”The Time Machine,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” all the Dracula, Frankenstein, and werewolf movies, etc.), and a great many others.  You have to remember: I’m an avid movie nut.

2. Name a movie that you’ve seen multiple times in the theater.
Several, but the one I’ve seen the most is “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”  The Casa Linda Theater—when it was open—once showed it at midnight every weekend.  I attended religiously.

3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie.
I assume that means actors who are alive since the dead folk won’t be showing up in anything new… or so one hopes.  Anthony Hopkins—and not more inclined but obligated to do so.  Even if I know the movie’s terrible, I’ll still see it once.  The same is true for Jake Gyllenhaal, Sally Field, Tim Curry, Ben Kingsley, Drew Barrymore, Jude Law, Whoopi Goldberg, Kenneth Branagh, John Malkovich, Glenn Close, Johnny Depp, Gary Oldman, Ian McKellen, Meryl Streep, Richard Dreyfuss, John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Michael Caine, Ewan McGregor, Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Julianne Moore, Gary Sinise, Kevin Spacey, Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Stewart, and Guy Pearce.  There are others, I’m sure, but that’s certainly the top of the list.  I can’t help it if I have a lot of favorites.

4. Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a movie.
Same assumption on being alive or dead…  Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Sandra Bullock, Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, Justin Timberlake, Cedric the Entertainer, Jamie Foxx, Sylvester Stallone, and probably a few (several?) I don’t remember at this moment.

5. Name a movie that you can and do quote from.
Hello!  I’m gay.  That would be every movie I’ve ever seen.

6. Name a movie musical that you know all of the lyrics to all of the songs.
“The Sound of Music” and “The Wizard of Oz.”  There are many others, yes, but those two stand out in my mind.

7. Name a movie that you have been known to sing along with.
See above.  And “Newsies” (I’m so embarrassed!!!!).

8. Name a movie that you would recommend everyone see.
“Contact,” “Das Boot,” “Dangerous Liaisons,” “Dead Poets Society,” “Pi,” “Following,” “Silkwood,” “Reversal of Fortune,” “Dark City,” “Casablanca,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Memento,” “The Silence of the Lambs,” “The Birds,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “Gods and Monsters,” “Hotel Rwanda,” “Philadelphia,” “Gorillas in the Mist,” “Se7en,” “The Bear,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and “Donnie Darko.”  I’d recommend more if I didn’t know it would bore you to tears.

9. Name a movie that you own.
A lot.  I’ve reduced it from several hundred to around a hundred.  How about “Edward Scissorhands” or “The Opposite of Sex”?

10. Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops.
Mark Wahlberg (although not terribly impressive, his acting certainly is an extreme dichotomy compared to his music).

11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? If so, what?
My goodness yes!  I grew up going to drive-ins considering sit-in theaters didn’t exist yet.  I remember seeing “Jaws,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” the 1976 version of “King Kong,” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” at drive-ins.  Plus a whole lot more.  You might even be surprised to know I saw “Red Dawn,” “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” “Casper” (HATED IT!), and “Congo” (HATED IT!) at drive-ins.

12. Ever made out in a movie?
Yes.  And more than that.  A great deal more.

13. Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven’t yet gotten around to it.
That list is a mile long.  There’s “Superman Returns,” “Zodiac,” “The Pursuit of Happyness,” and “father & son.”

14. Ever walked out of a movie?
“Laws, yes!”  “The Hard Way” immediately comes to mind.

15. Name a movie that made you cry in the theater.
“Philadelphia”…and there wasn’t enough tissue on the planet to sop up my tears.  I’ve cried during plenty of movies, but that one goes down in history for inducing the most sorrow in the theater.

16. Popcorn?
Large with butter—because my bad cholesterol hasn’t clogged all of my arteries yet.  Well, I get a large if I’m sharing, otherwise a medium or even a small will do fine.

17. How often do you go to the movies?
I don’t go anymore.  I think the movie and theater industries are gouging the public while offering crap for the investment.  Unless something ginormous comes along that absolutely must be seen on the big screen, you won’t catch me going to a theater.  When they get the prices under control, and when the MPAA stops acting like Nazis, perhaps then I’ll consider changing my stance—but probably not.  Besides, DVD brings better quality right to my own living room, and it does so at a fraction of the cost… and I can drink beer that way!

18. What’s the last movie you saw in the theater?
“King Kong”… and it’s a regret I’ll suffer with for the rest of my life.

19. What’s your favorite/preferred genre of movie?
I don’t have one.  My tastes are quite varied.  Although it’s easy for me to say science fiction draws me in easier than anything else, I’m rather eclectic when it comes to entertainment (movies, books, and music), so even that would be disingenuous.

20. What’s the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?
The first one I can think of is “Saturday Night Fever,” but I can’t honestly say whether that was the first movie I saw in a theater (obviously excluding drive-ins).  Something else might have come before it.  Now that I think about it, I’m positive several came before that one, but back then the local theater had Monday Movie Night for a dollar a film so they could get more of the old drive-in people to try out the new sit-in idea.  We were going every week and seeing something different, so I’m sure plenty of others came before that one.

21. What movie do you wish you had never seen?
“Dreamcatchers” even though it’s based on Stephen King.  All three of us—Jenny, Derek, and I—sat through it thinking the others in our party wanted to see it, but afterward all three of us admitted we wanted to walk out after about fifteen minutes.  There are times when silence and consideration for others represent a doomed policy that should be abandoned in haste.

22. What is the weirdest movie you enjoyed?
“Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” is probably the most esoteric film I enjoyed but that was considered “weird” by pretty much everyone else.

23. What is the scariest movie you’ve seen?
None.  Movies don’t scare me.  They never have.  When my brother hid behind the couch while we watched the original “The Fog” on television, I sat enraptured without flinching.  When my other siblings hid and diverted their eyes while we watched “The Legend of Boggy Creek” on television, I was fixated and had a hard time even blinking.  You see, I enjoy scary movies even though I think most are passed off under that label despite containing nothing more than cheap thrills and pedestrian scares.  I can’t honestly say any movie has ever frightened me, although plenty have provided the occasional, gratuitous shock.

24. What is the funniest movie you’ve seen?
“Mars Attacks” when altered; “To Wong Foo…” when altered or not.  I mean me when I say altered.

What a great story: Bald Eagle Returns to Philadelphia after 200 Years.  “America’s national emblem is nesting in Philadelphia for the first time in more than 200 years but it may be on a collision course with developers. A pair of bald eagles, a species that has recovered from the brink of extinction in the last 40 years, has built a nest in a former Navy yard on the south side of Philadelphia, the sixth-largest U.S. city and where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written.”

You have to see this video!  It’s of a duckling feeding koi.  I can’t tell if it’s intentional or not (i.e. the duckling may be trying to wet down its own food), but it’s still cute nevertheless, especially because the koi are large enough to eat the duckling.

Interesting research for those sharing life with one or more dogs: “Going right or left makes a big difference for tail wagging dogs, Italian researchers have discovered. Tails wag to the right when dogs are happy and see something they want to approach, and to the left when they are frightened and confronted with something they want to run away from, claim the researchers.”

Bizarre Hexagon Spotted on Saturn: “One of the most bizarre weather patterns known has been photographed at Saturn, where astronomers have spotted a huge, six-sided feature circling the north pole. Rather than the normally sinuous cloud structures seen on all planets that have atmospheres, this thing is a hexagon. The honeycomb-like feature has been seen before. NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft imaged it more than two decades ago. Now, having spotted it with the Cassini spacecraft, scientists conclude it is a long-lasting oddity.”  See the article for a photograph.  And I think it feels so 2010…

With the requirement to spend all my free time looking for a job now a thing of the past, I desperately need to get back on track with Dreamdarkers.  I had originally planned by this time to have it ready for outside review.  That didn’t happen.  I was on a roll with it through late 2006 but fell way behind over the last three or four months because my priorities shifted so dramatically—and necessarily.

So now that I have a job to start in a few weeks, it’s time to refocus on the novel.  I still believe I can have it ready for agent submission by early summer at the latest.  That is assuming, of course, that work doesn’t interfere or that some other catastrophe doesn’t pop up to take my attention elsewhere.

At this moment, the manuscript contains about 450 pages.  It will grow.  Does that mean the book will be that long?  I can’t say right now since this is only the first rewrite of the original “Darkness Comes to Kingswell” short story.  I know there’s much more to add and expand, but I also know the edit session to follow this rewrite will undoubtedly remove content.  That means its length will fluctuate up and down while I continue manhandling it throughout these various writing and editorial passes.

Keep in mind, as I’ve pointed out before, I don’t know how the number of pages in the document translate to the number of pages in a printed book.  I doubt anyone could know that.  The margins, font size, and spacing of the current digital text ultimately convert to something quite different, and even that depends on the margins, font size, and spacing of the bound paper.  There might be a relative correlation derived from some abstract, variable-controlled equation, but it would offer nothing more than a guesstimate.

Relatedly, one of the friendly folks at Starbucks has been following this project for some time.  She recently asked me what chapter I was on.  I explained to her then what I explained to you last November:

I know there are writers who include [chapters] up front, but I’m not one of them.  It forces my hand in a way that I don’t like.  Instead, I want the story itself to be my focus, not on how long each chapter is or where I need to go before including a new pause.  When it’s done, I’ll go back and work out where the chapter breaks should be.  They do serve a useful purpose, I know, and as an avid reader I appreciate them.  Nevertheless, guessing at the number now is being foolish.  Once I’m happy with the story, I’ll go through it and find the places where a reader can comfortably pause without losing the spirit of the chronicle, and that’s where I’ll put in chapter breaks.

With that in mind, I have no idea how many chapters are in it now or how many will be in it later.  For me, that’s not relevant and is something I’ll figure out once I’m happy with the story.

I still intend to follow Dreamdarkers with End of the Warm Season (assuming that’s what it’s called).  I have explained to both xocobra and Jenny in the last few weeks this very real truth about that story (from an e-mail to Jenny):

The more I think about that one, however, the more I think it’ll be two books.  Either that or a very long single book (like [Stephen] King’s The Stand at almost 1200 pages).  We’ll see how it works out.

I say that because the narrative spans centuries (whereas Dreamdarkers spans a few days).  Likewise, the second tale is based on two antagonists and their slowly yet ultimately intertwining lives.  It also must cover a methodical discovery by the protagonist(s) regarding both the bag guy and the bad god, what they’re up to, what could happen if either or both accomplish what they wish to accomplish, and how to stop them.

Oh, and it will also delve into a bit more history surrounding Kingswell, my little East Texas town, as well as a secret or two from Dreamdarkers that won’t be told in that novel.  I can’t promise you all the answers the first book doesn’t share, but I can promise a surprise or two will be contained within the second story that will shed light on what really happened in the first.  I won’t give any hints on that since I think it makes for a great surprise to see how Dreamdarkers ultimately is told from Dave Lloyd’s perspective versus what you find out in End of the Warm Season.

I won’t guess beyond that story.  I do still have plans to write The Breaking of Worlds, a lengthy series of books to number perhaps 6-8 novels.  Will it follow immediately upon the heels of End of the Warm Season?  Or will there perchance be another story more centralized on Kingswell before that larger tale unfolds?  Or more than one?  Only time will tell.

[Update] One more thing…  There will be no more excerpts from Dreamdarkers posted here.  I’ve shared enough to give a feel for the book.  I’ve shared enough to reveal some of what it’s about.  At this point, sharing any more tidbits would become obsessive behavior used to hide a lack of other post material, I think, so the rest of the story will only be available in the final book.

But I know you don’t want it just so you can turn around and sell it…  Right?

I figure since I just talked about them, it’s an appropriate time to share some photos of recent visitors.  I took all of these pictures over the last three or four days.

First: Aethon.

Second: Psiwa.

Third: Larenti.

Last November I discussed my Hobson’s choice regarding the neighborhood cats I had been feeding.  The problem that ultimately forced me to realize I had to stop came from the presence of Aethon, an unsterilized male who had decided the food supply belonged entirely to him, and he was willing to enforce that claim with unremitting hostility and violence leveled against any other cat who wished to share in the bounty.  In fact, he eventually began sleeping near the food throughout the day as a measure of guard duty.

I witnessed on many occasions his savage aggression toward the other cats I had befriended.  When one night he unleashed terrible brutality on Larenti as she approached, my heart broke with the realization that I could no longer feed them without endangering the gentler members of the neighborhood feline brigade.  I wept as I concluded the banquet must end.

Yet a few days later I mentioned to xocobra during a visit that it wasn’t just Aethon’s malfeasance that spelled the end.  At that time, I already faced a growing financial disaster.  Add to that the cost of feeding my own five cats along with at least five regular outside visitors—and all with prescription cat food that isn’t cheap.  It seemed, as I admitted to him, that my Hobson’s choice was a double-whammy.  I was spending a fortune on expensive cat food whilst simultaneously engendering a rather volatile situation with the various outside cats (all because of one specific cat, mind you).  I was unable to monitor the situation around the clock in order to intercept Aethon’s tyrannical terror, and similarly I was unwilling to visit upon him any harm or fright because his actions were not intentionally evil.  He was, after all, simply trying to survive, and being unfixed meant he was a slave to his raging male hormones.

And therein rested my Hobson’s choice: stop feeding them or chase him away.  Since chasing him away was impossible and unpalatable, I really had only the illusion of a choice.  My course of action seemed all to clear…  I had to stop feeding them to address both the financial worries and the growing discord and harm being done in response to the availability of food.

But did I stop?  Yes.  For a short time.

Too often I was visited by any number and combination of these cats, and each time I died a little more, lamented their need and my unwillingness to fulfill it, and suffered a thousand wounds when they called out to me or stared at me with the questioning want of a cat accustomed to being provided a meal but who suddenly finds itself going without.  Nevertheless, I knew I had to stop, at least temporarily, in order to break Aethon of his habit, that of staking his claim early in the morning and remaining on sentry throughout the day so as to attack any interloper who wished to share in the feast.

And it worked.  Perhaps a week went by as his visits grew less frequent and shorter.  He would arrive and take his position.  He would watch me closely with eyes asking the question his mouth could not articulate.  Finally, after seven or eight days, his early arrival stopped.  He began making infrequent visits throughout the day and night, each time checking to see if the situation had changed, and each time finding it had not.  And then, after about ten days, his presence became occasional, one defined by casual strolls and jaunts through the area as part of an irregular schedule.

The damage had been done, though, for the same could be said of the other cats.  I rarely saw any of them, and certainly a few seemed to have disappeared altogether.  I feared for them, shed tears of worry and sorrow on their behalf, and eventually succumbed to my own humane heart.  I began feeding them again.

Since then, most have returned at least from time to time.  All except Clance and Chira.  Clance I saw rarely after that, and now I’ve not seen him for a few months.  I do carry a great deal of concern for him.  My hope is that he was adopted, rescued by some other loving person, but I also realize that’s probably more self-deception than anything else.  He could still be around but not visiting because the meal became unreliable.  I simply don’t know.

As for Chira, the last few times I’ve seen him he has been wearing a collar.  As I had suspected and hoped for some time in response to his less frequent visits, it appears someone has at least taken to providing him with love and attention, not to mention some kind of stable companionship and care.  My apprehension based on his absence lessened tremendously when I realized that.  In spite of not seeing him since early January, I have at least some measure of hope that he’s being taken care of and hasn’t just gone missing like too many stray cats do.

Henko still visits.  Being as aloof and skittish as she is, she’s still the hardest one to see.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t see her.  Almost every morning like clockwork, I watch her slink by the windows nearest my desk where I work.  Rather than bother her too much, I give her plenty of space.  She’s a small, frightened lass, one subjected to quite a bit of unnecessary chasing by the others, something due in no small part to her size and position in the local pecking order, I believe.  So I give her space and don’t attempt to visit with her too often.

Psiwa’s presence is almost as regular as Larenti’s.  He comes and goes throughout each day and enjoys his time at the public table.  He’s grown quite accustomed to me, something that pleases me to no end.  Instead of running away each time he sees me, he’s now so comfortable with my presence that he’ll sit right by the fence as I put out additional food.  When before I couldn’t be within six feet (two meters) of him, I’ve actually been able to touch him a few times over the past month or so.  That is tremendous progress between us.

But now that I’ve ranted ad infinitum about all of these cats, and without mentioning the few new visitors I’ve seen on very rare occasions, I come to the crux of the matter.

My relationship with Larenti has developed to a new level.  She now talks to me even when it has nothing whatsoever to do with food.  She responds to my presence with comfort and affection, shows excitement when I’m around, and shows up constantly, sometimes sleeping right outside the patio fence for hours at a time.  This is nothing like Aethon’s similar behavior last year, mind you, for Larenti is not violent and is not protecting the food.  She’ll lie quietly and without interference as other cats—especially Psiwa—come and go.  For that matter, she hangs out with Psiwa quite often.

The point is, though, she’s grown used to me and has developed a bond with me.  It’s comfortable and welcomed.  And it’s in danger.

You already know I intend to leave Dallas at the end of the year, give or take, an uprooting change in my life intended to get me away from concrete jungles and too many people.  I want to live in a place that will indulge my growing need to commune with nature, so it’s certain I will relocate closer to the family farm in East Texas.  I want a place where the natural world is not as tainted as it is here, a place where walks in woodlands and along riparian landscapes are not deceptive illusions as can be found here at the lake where I presently reside.  There is ample nature to be seen here, yes, but it’s not natural and it’s not free of human overcrowding.  It’s a habitat located within the city, one surrounded on all sides by urban and suburban sprawl, one a mere stone’s throw from downtown Dallas.  I’ll post some maps momentarily to show you what I mean, but this lake is nothing more than a brief hallucination in an otherwise vast landscape of civilization.  It is no escape from humanity’s constant drivel and activity; it’s a blink right in the middle of the mess, one you could easily miss if you didn’t know it was there.

That’s not the life I want anymore, and it’s not the life I’ll have when I move.  Or at least that’s what I hope.

Which leads me to Larenti and the other cats.  When I leave this place, I must leave them behind as well.  It’s simply not possible to rescue them all, methinks.  But could it be possible to rescue one or two of them?

I think it is in at least a small way.  Since I don’t know where I’ll move to, though, I don’t know if trying to do that would even work.  And I dare not move them simply to keep them as outside cats.  They’re comfortable in their current territory with lives that are somewhat stable and secure, at least as much as can be had under the circumstances.  Uprooting them and placing them into a new, wilder environment would simply put them in greater danger.  I’m not willing to do that.

I still think it could be possible to adopt one or two of them before I go.

Having six or seven cats would be a tremendous change, I know.  It would be disruptive to the current five assuming one or two new members could even be integrated.  That’s a huge assumption.  But aside from that consideration, what else can I do?  I would be leaving them without my support—the biggest part of which is food!—and would essentially be abandoning them to their fates.  I’m sure they’d survive given that they survived before I came along.  They are cats, after all, and that means master predators and cunning beasts whose only real threat is people.  And starvation, disease, larger predators, parasites, and whatever else might befall them.

Therein lies my worry and pondering.  When I move, what do I do about them?  If anything, who do I rescue?  And will any action even be possible?

I have months before this quandary is faced directly.  I already stress about it nevertheless.  I can’t wait until the last minute to decide and act.  My greatest fear is that I’ll simply have to disappear from their perspective.  One day the food will stop.  One day the affection and attention will end.  It will be so abrupt and unforeseen.  And what will they do then?  How long will they continue to visit hoping for my return?  And who will occupy this space after me, and how will they react to these cats who keep coming around and waiting?

There is much that must be considered in all of this.  I realize that without hesitation.  It doesn’t change the consideration, though.  Not at all.

Since I’m in a bit of a spry, devil-may-care mood, let’s do another fun word with hazy etymological roots.

slapdash (slap·dash): / SLAP dash /
adverb

(1) in a hasty, careless, or haphazard manner; done without skill or in a reckless way
(2) directly; unswervingly; straight or right, as in straight or right into something

adjective

(1) marked by great carelessness and haste; offhand; slipshod; untidy; unskillful

[Etymology uncertain.  The word dates from around 1670-1680 and is the combination of 'slap' (adverb) + 'dash.']

Usage: We have a longstanding tradition of not promoting employees who regularly do this kind of slapdash work.

Your mind is now filled with old thoughts. Not only old thoughts, but mostly someone else’s old thoughts. It’s important now, it’s time now, to change your mind about some things. It’s what evolution is all about.

— Neale Donald Walsch

With the qualities of cleanliness, affection, patience, dignity, and courage that cats have, how many of us, I ask you, would be capable of becoming cats?

— Fernand Mery

[Grendel]

I’ll be making another trip to East Texas on Sunday, April 1.  I mentioned the night I returned from there that it was highly likely I’d go back sooner rather than later so I could perform some much needed work on Mom’s computers.  Not only that, but I start working again the week after that and don’t want to take any chances on it being longer than necessary before I visit—and fix her various technology problems.

As I did last time, I’ll make a dedicated effort to keep my camera with me.  I still have many photos to go through from the last trip, but there’s likewise still much more to see that I will try to capture.

I’ll be sure to schedule some posts for that day so it’s not a complete wasteland around here.