Deirdre on reading, writing and living

My new essay, "The Grinder" was just published on Drinking Diaries. It's a follow-up to my "Video Tour of the NYC Bars." I chose one of the places I talked about in the video and expanded on it.

All of this is a spinoff from my as-yet-unpublished memoir Drunk Dreams.

I hope you enjoy the essay (and the video)!

Current Location: New York City
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: silence

I hope you enjoy this special supplement to my (as yet unpublished) memoir.

Current Location: New York City
Current Mood: excited

I'm happy to say that my manuscript Drunk Dreams: A Memoir was chosen to be one of ten finalists for the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference's Manuscript Contest. The conference is in July from the 24-26th. The winning book will receive $3000 and a publishing contract. I'm thrilled to be one of the finalists and will keep you all posted on the result.

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Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: silence

For anyone who missed my reading, here's the video. Tell me what you think.

Either go here.


( Or Play Embeded Video Under the Cut )

Current Location: New York City
Current Mood: sore
Current Music: Silence

The Contents of My Black Leather Jacket -- Last Worn in the 90’s
By Deirdre Sinnott



A slip of paper that says: Cleo owes $3.

One cigarette lighter from Havana.

One can of pepper spray.

One Magnum condom, unopened.

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Current Location: New York City
Current Mood: shocked
Current Music: Silence

One of the chapters from my as-yet-unpublished and as-yet-unnamed memoir was published in the new literary magazine Cadillac Cicatrix. It is here.

Careful, if you're a minor! Yes, there is a sex scene in there, so all you teens out there -- beware.

Current Location: New York City
Current Mood: excited
Current Music: Silence

Over the last ten months I've been reporting here about the books I've read. There are a few blanks because some of the books were to be reviewed in ForeWord Magazine so I couldn't post anything about them.

At this point seven of the ten reviews I wrote for the magazine have been published.

The ones I have reviews for are:

* Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, by Dr. Robert W. Kellemen and Karole A. Edwards, 6/17/07

* Fall Scaping: Extending Your Garden Season Into Autumn, by Nancy J. Ondra and Stephanie Cohen, photos by Rob Cardillo, 6/8/07

* The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas after the Civil War, by Gerald Horne, 4/8/07

* In The Shadow of the Civil War: Passmore Williamson and the Rescue of Jane Johnson, by Nat Brandt with Yanna Kroyt Brant, 4/29/07

* The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading and Writing Personal Narrative, by Thomas Larson, 3/9/07

* Tell Me Another Morning, by Zdena Berger, 1/26/07

* The Door of No Return: The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade, by William St. Clair, 1/7/07

All of the reviews can be found here.
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Current Location: New York City
Current Mood: lazy
Current Music: silence

I wanted to invite you all to a reading that I am doing in New York City, Sunday, October 14th, at 5:00 p.m. The reading is part of The Phoenix Reading Series organized by Michael Graves.

I'll be reading with Vittora Repetto, author of Not Just A Personal Ad. Her book of poems is an exploration of her life on New York's Lower East Side. Her poems sing of love and lust, neediness and loss. Repetto describes herself as "the hardest working guinea butch dyke on the Lower East Side" and her poems prove it.

There will be an Open Mic following the featured readers.

Hope to see you there.

Details:
Deirdre Sinnott
Reads Live at Bangal Curry
Sun., Oct. 14 @ 5 p.m.

65 West Broadway, in Manhattan (below Chambers Street)
Between Warren & Murray

DeirdreSinnott.com

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Current Location: New York City
Current Mood: good

Lawn mowing never occurred to me. I wanted a get-away house. With it I got grass. Because we first looked at the house in November 2003 and bought it in January 2004, my first thoughts were about the inside--not the outside. One day in early March, I said to Charles, "Oh my god. Spring is coming."

With spring came mowing. My experience with the task went back to my high school years in Clinton, New York. Sitting on two acres, our house required much outdoor maintenance. My father had a riding mower that my sister and I used on the front lawn. Dad had responsibility for the back yard. The front yard was a long hill that dropped off suddenly into a steep embankment before stopping at the quiet street.

Since the brakes on the small tractor weren't that great, I pressed furiously on them beginning at the middle of the downward trek, trying to slow the vehicle.

With every pass, I imagined flipping over and tumbling down the tiger-lily-covered embankment when I had to make the sharp right turn at the bottom of the hill. After six years of mowing terror, I was released to go to college. My parents sold the big house and moved to a much more reasonable place with a postage-stamp-sized lawn. My life in New York City never involved much grass, so I forgot how demanding the stuff can be.

Spring 2004 in the Catskills, I decided that spending over $150 on a gas-powered mower seemed ridiculous. I believed I could get by with a simple electric weed whacker. For the five months I dragged the contraption back and forth over the grass and weeds that made up our driveway and side yards. My arms grew strong from the sweeping motion required. I pulled a long orange cord up and down the slope of our property, cursing constantly.

Each time I did the job, I promised myself that I was going to just go out and buy a damn lawnmower. I waited until the sales kicked in and in September I bought myself a sleek, black, gas mower. Since it was already fall, and since I had no out-building to store a gassy combustion engine in, I decided to not use it until spring 2005. All winter it sat in the basement, pristine and untouched, bursting with potential energy.

The grass began growing and I began chopping at it with my mower. All went well until the day in July I ran over a sizable stone and bent the blade. The repair job would have cost almost as much as a new machine. Depressed, I went back to my weed whacker.

During the summer of 2006, I became a neglectful mower. I let two weeks pass before I forced myself to drag out the hated machine for what was a one hour ordeal. By this time I knew that I wasn't going to get another gas-guzzling engine, and the electric whacker had to go, but I couldn't find any person-powered mowers in my area.

During the winter I planned and plotted. I saw the old-fashioned push mowers in the Vermont Country Store catalog and I also knew that Home Depot got them in every spring. In May of this year, I grabbed one.

And I love it. The blades whir along quietly. I can see what I'm cutting. I get a 30 minute aerobic workout. I don't use gas. I don't have to worry about storing it away from the furnace. I don't feel guilty. I gave the old mower away to a guy who hoped to slice the blade down and get it working again. I just wished him luck.

The neighbors may laugh, but that's fine. Everything is ready for guests to spread themselves out on and enjoy a few moments out of the City on the soft, green, perfectly-cut grass.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For more on my garden, including two photo galleries of flowers and garden upgrades, visit my brand-new website Digging the Learning Curve.

Current Location: Catskill Mountains
Current Mood: mischievous

Just yesterday, I was thinking that I couldn't grow food and that I ought to give up and just plant perennials. Today, after I ate lettuce, a pepper, dill, and some raspberries from the back garden, I'm willing to rethink my position.

I wanted to post a little story about berries. I hope you enjoy it.

Digging the Learning Curve: Berries, by Deirdre Sinnott

The berries were just out of my reach. I was in a hurry because I only had a few minutes to collect them before I drove to my Mom’s house for a visit.

My mother loves berries. It's one of the few things that truly delight her. Her eyes light up and she "aahhh’s" her approval. Seeing her so happy gives me an "eureka" moment because, in that second, I feel loved. I used to look for that unreserved approval after presenting her with a good report card or, more recently, with a discussion of my potential wedding, and never see it. But when I give her a few berries, freshly picked or purchased at the farmer's market, I'm the one she appreciates.

As I stretched to reach a particularly fruit-laden branch in the middle of a patch just off my driveway, I remembered my grandmother's berry pile.

When I was growing up, my grandmother had a large pile of old wood in the back. It seemed rotted enough to have been part of the leftover junk from the construction of her house, 60 years before. Grey and blackened boards lay at crazy angles forming a mound to the side of the lawn in the far back yard, near the edge of her property. The pile wasn't that high, only about four feet tall, but it stretched twenty feet wide and fifteen feet deep. Over the years wild blackberry bushes entwined with the wood, feeding off the old boards' moist decomposition.

Hundreds of sprigs shot up in all directions. In spring thousands of tiny flowers bloomed offering the promise of a summer harvest. I used to visit the pile often, checking on the progress of the berries. I watched as the flowers opened, attracting bees and hummingbirds. Soon the petals dropped and small dots appeared from the center of each flower. Rain helped to plump the seeds, encasing them in a fleshy cocoon. In July they neared their full size. The sun transformed the green into red, and then into maroon, until finally fully-formed and ripened blackberries clustered on each branch.

One sunny August afternoon, upon arriving at my grandmother's house, I ran back to the pile to see if the fruit was ready to be picked. Ripe berries dangled near the edge of the patch. As I gently pulled them off their stalks, I pictured her reaction. Whatever she was doing would stop. I'd be the center of her attention, but for a good reason. She'd eat a berry and sigh with happiness. Imagining her pleasure spurred me on. So, with full hands, I ran back to deliver my treasure.

"Thank you," she said. She pulled each one from my hand, inspected it and popped it into her mouth. "Those are good. Were there more?"

Pleased, I nodded slowly.

"Let’s get you a bowl or better yet a bucket," she said.

Armed with a small bucket, I returned to the pile. As I surveyed the task, I noticed that the best berries were just out of my reach. The branches deep inside appeared to be sagging under the weight of the black gold. I nimbly placed on one foot on an old board that stuck out of the pile. As I slowly offered it more of my weight, it held. Confident, I stepped into the bramble patch, collecting as I went. Each inch deeper into the pile revealed more berries, as always, just beyond my reach. My bucket slowly filled. I never explored this far into the pile before, but I was determined to bring back a brimming offering.

Getting Mom's approval had always been hard. She was usually busy or reading or irritated by something. When her attention finally turned to me, the youngest of three children, I desperately wanted to show her my good side. Because if she was happy, I was happy. My moods swung with hers.

I stepped gingerly onto another beam in the berry patch, but it began to wobble. I grabbed a stout looking berry stalk and tried to steady myself. My hand slid up the branch as I fought for balance. Thorns bit into my palm. I yelped and my foot broke through the board.

Shaken, I looked at my bucket. They were all still there. The blackberries, piled one on top of the other, were safe. I stood still trying to catch my breath and noticed that my right hand ached. When I flipped it over for inspection blood ran freely from several tears, mixing with squished berries. I rubbed my hand on my shorts. Tears stung the corners of my eyes, but I didn't cry. I extricated myself from the pile. When I approached my mother, I saw the alarm in her eyes, not the look of excitement that I wanted.

"What happened?" she said, standing to meet me.

"I fell."

"Let me see you. Are you all right?" She inspected my arms and legs pausing when she found the cuts on my palm.

"I brought you these," I said holding the bucket of berries out to her.

"Well that's good, but you hurt yourself," she said as she ushered me toward the house.

As she gently cleaned my hand, wiping off the berries and the blood, I began to cry.

"Does this hurt?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Why are you crying?" she asked.

"Because I wanted you to be happy," I stammered. "I wanted to give you the berries and make you happy."

"You made me happy," she said. Pausing, she looked into my eyes, "You don't have to kill yourself to do it."

As I stood in my driveway, one hand over-flowing with freshly-picked berries, I laughed. Here I go again, I thought, trying too hard to be acceptable to my mother. Now, as an adult, I had my own life filled with people I loved and who loved me. The internal satisfaction that I finally found needed no outside approval. I washed the berries and put them in the car. I still prize making my mother happy. And I know that she loves me in her way, fruit or no fruit.

------
Visit my new website Digging The Learning Curve.

Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: relaxed

Vera, our little black cat, was acting strangely. She seemed to be trying to get at something very far above her, outside the screen door to the porch. I looked up and saw nothing.

"What's the matter with you?" I asked. She meowed.

I decided to go around to the kitchen window and see if I could catch a glimpse of whatever she was after. Hanging down from the upper door jam was the tail of a snake. I screamed for Charles, my partner. Unlike me, he is not phobic about snakes.

We went outside to the porch door and saw this.



Charles tried to reach for it with a thing we bought to pick up stray trash on our morning walks, but finally tried the fruit picker.



That darn snake slithered into a hole above the door and now, despite taking off the door jam, we can't find it.

There is nothing to do at this point. It was a milk snake so it's not poisonous, but still... it gives me nightmares.

It's my second milk snake here in the Catskills.

Here's a story about the previous encounter.

Digging the Learning Curve: A Great Year for Garter Snakes, by Deirdre Sinnott

There's a small garter snake sharing the backyard with me. I see it when I walk toward the raspberry bushes. It usually moves from its sunning area to hide between the rocks that ring the "refrigerator" garden. (It's called the refrigerator garden because when I bought the house there was a half-buried refrigerator hull that the previous owner used for burning garbage.)

I completed the stone wall in there, simply continuing the path that enclosed the back of the area. Whenever I move rocks around my garden, particularly the flat ones, I wonder when I'm going to disturb a snake.

Snakes and I have a very uneasy relationship. Prompted by animal care specialists, I've touched them and even watched them eat; but they still terrify me. When I was in high school my mother chased me around the garden with a snake that was so dead its body didn't straighten out when she picked it up and waggled it at me. Even thought I could see that its body still held an "S" curve I ran, fueled by fear and the flight response.

To this day I still occasionally wake with a certainty that snakes are coming out of my pillow. Only bolting from bed and snapping on the light will relieve the feeling that, lurking just under the blanket, is one of my serpentine "friends." Paging Dr. Freud.

My first full summer in Roscoe, watching as frequent rain created a jungle out of the untended garden, I found myself alone for a few days. Normally this is no problem. I've been alone for great stretches of my life and found the time to be quite satisfying. However, this was alone alone. Charles flew to Seattle for a conference and being a singular entity in the country felt scarier than being the same thing in New York City. To stave off low-grade anxiety I invited a friend to visit me for part of his absence. Teresa and I spent two fun days walking and talking, generally enjoying the outdoors and each others friendship.

On the morning that she left I watched her back her pickup truck out of the driveway. For some reason she cut a sharp angle and ended up rolling over a drainage grate cover and dislodge a blue reflective marker at the end of the driveway. I waved as her truck moved out and walked over to recover the reflector. As I got to the spot I saw a long snake squirming to get back under the drainage cover.

Adrenaline coursed through my body. I could barely focus and my hands begin to shake. Was it red against black or red against yellow and what was that damn rhyme? When I finally calmed down enough to get a look at it there was no red or yellow, only a thin snake, brown and tan with diamonds down its back.

Just the week before a friend and I discussed the rattlesnake question. As a life-long New York State resident I would have told you that the wasn't-no-sucha-thing as rattlesnakes in this state, but I would have been wrong. Rattlesnakes live in these parts. "And," my friend informed me, "They always travel the same paths to get to water. They follow these paths for generations. If your house is in one of the paths look out... because they'll be in your back yard."

I stared at the wriggling body of the struggling snake and the diamonds on its back seem to be pulsing, announcing: "I'm a rattler and your house is in my path."

Its head was under the cover so I couldn't see if it was the traditional triangular shape, but I believed I saw something on its tail, possibly a rattle.

I looked around seeking some kind of help. With no snake identification books in the house I needed a local person. A truck pulled up to a neighbor's house and stopped. I'd never seen the guy before in my life, but he began to drive toward me, looking at each house, clearly searching for an address. I moved out of the road and looked to him hopefully. Please ask me what I'm staring at, I thought. He drove on by.

Next my neighbor, Ray Bull, pulled into his driveway. Ray, a tall fellow with an open, friendly face, had always been very nice, doing little and big things. I've often felt bad about asking him questions because he always goes beyond the call of duty, but this was a snake emergency. I walked toward him. Without my distance glasses I couldn't see the expression on his face and for some reason I figured he might be angry. Maybe thinking, "What now?"

"Hi Ray," I say, trying to sound casual. "You got a minute? I've got a snake and I don't know what kind it is and it's hurt, I think. And..."

His face lit up. This apparently is one of the tasks that didn't turn his blood cold as it does mine.

"It's a great year for garter snakes, lot of them around," he said happily. Now I'd been bracing myself for uncovering a garter snake in the garden, so far I not feared any I've seen. But the idea that there are lots that year didn't bring a smile to my face--more like a shiver.

"Well, I'd be happy to discover that this is a garter snake, but I don't think so," I said as I led us to the spot.

Ray's yellow Labrador went right in, nose first, to grab the snake and we warned him away. Ray got up real close too and said, "Nope, that's not a garter snake, is it alive?"

"Yes, I saw it moving. I think it got run over when my friend left, but it did move."

"I think it's a milk snake."

Dying to ask if it's poisonous, I just held my breath. I didn't want to appear too wimpy.

"It's harmless," he says. "I'll get a stick." He dove into what I now believed to be snake-infested bushes and plucked a stick.

Ray poked the snake a little it moved very sluggishly. He maneuvered it onto the fork of the stick and held it up for inspection. "I don't think he's gonna make it." He started to cross the street to deposit the snake on the other side, in the wild area across from my house. He looked back at me, stopped and headed a bit further down the road. "I'll put it over here, but I don't think he's too good. May not last long."

I sadly agreed. I didn't want the snake to die; I just didn't want it to be anywhere near me.

"I thought it was a rattlesnake," I said sheepishly.

"We don't have any around here. Long Eddy, Hancock, they've got plenty, none around here." I felt slight relief.

"Thanks Ray, you're my savior," I said as we parted. After searching the Internet for milk snakes, and seeing a photo of the exact snake I saw, I still couldn't get the feeling of fear out of my body--like I had an adrenaline hangover. I knew I had to go back outside, into the sun and work on the garden. If there was a horse around I had to get back on it. I couldn't be afraid of my own yard.

After hauling on my heavy hiking boots I grabbed my weed whacker and took to the grass, confidant that whatever snakes existed were no match for me.
So today, when I see the movement in the grass and part of the garter snake's long body sliding easily up to the stone wall and through one of the holes, I no longer worry. I may feel a tingle of fear, but my heart doesn't pound. I just say "garter snake" and keep going.

Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: scared

Yesterday a flash flood tore apart a road near my house in the Catskills. Several people are still missing and presumed dead. There have been four devastating floods in this area in four years. I wrote a piece about water last year after the third flood.

Here it is:

Water, by Deirdre Sinnott

Water, can't live without it. Of course if there's too much then it's: water, can't control it. Last week there was too much water. It began with a few days of rain, mostly in the afternoon. One of the websites I check obsessively is Weather.com and they predicted heavy rain all week. I could see the bands of green, dark green, yellow and red percolating on their map. Some tropical moisture or something was being pushed, ever so slowly, up the east coast. Devastation followed in its wake.

The beginning of the week I read about Washington, DC and the flooding that shut down the government for a day. Weather.com's "ten day" outlook seemed pretty dismal, but I still hoped things might clear up by the end of the week. For the first time in three years my sister planned to visit the house. I wanted to be able to clear the garden of the hundreds of developing weeds. It's not that my sister, Kelly, cares about that sort of thing, but it seems that I do.

For more than four days the rain just kept coming. It eased up on Monday for a while. Enough time for me to run out to check the garden and discover three streams had developed. One track was right through the arbor and over the stone wall into my eggplant and pumpkin plants. Small sticks, mud, and debris washed down from the neighbor's yard and gathered near the stalks, almost knocking them over. On the side of the house I discovered a running river had reappeared. My new river ran along the periphery of the lawn and took a sharp right turn, across an open space and into the lower half flower bed. And thirdly, a babbling brook bubbled happily from under the rock outcropping. It looked like it wanted to go right into my basement. Luckily my cement patio, installed last summer diverted the water away from the house. I smiled because that was its original purpose. The side benefit was having the perfect place to sit in the afternoons for reading and bird watching.

Since the ground was absolutely saturated everything simply ran down the hill our house sits on, taking particles of topsoil, leaves, small plants, and rubble with it. At the bottom of the hill runs a calm creek called the Willowemoc. It joins with the Beaverkill at the edge of town forming a swirling haven for trout and the people who want to catch them called the Junction Pool. It's said that the trout can't decide which path to follow, up the two rivers or down with the current and a much stronger Beaverkill. So the trout linger, weighing the pros and cons of each choice. And that's one of the places that the fishermen linger as well.

All of the rain, with all that it carried along its path drained into these two creeks transforming them from beautiful, clear, occasionally lazy threads of moving water to raging, brown, debris-filled agents of destruction. They swept over roads, pulled trailers off their foundations, delivered large trees to people doorsteps, filled the village's only Laundromat with five feet of muddy water, soaked hundreds of books in the small library. In the grocery store water destroyed refrigerators full of food, and pulled up vinyl tiles. The homes at the center of town suffered through soaked carpets, dampened furniture, and destroyed plasterboard. The rising rivers drowned the center of town in brown water.

Pieces of the asphalt roads were picked up like giant pancakes and spun downstream. Small streams that normally are just trickles of water raged far beyond their banks catching lawn furniture and toys in their torrent. Bridges were breached and north of us, beyond two towns that spent a day submerged, two truck drivers traveling in opposite directions on Route 88 plunged to their deaths when the roadway disappeared under their wheels.

In the next town the creek grabbed an entire home, smashing it. A 15-year old girl was killed inside the house. It seems she ran to the safest place she knew in the world, her bedroom. Her body was located days later downriver.
As the water moved downstream it picked up speed and additional strength. Each town and city in its wake had to endure greater and greater quantities until the ocean absorbed it all.


Similar floods occurred in September 2004 and then again in spring 2005. For some reason Charles and I found ourselves in Roscoe each time. After listening to details of the first flood, on the area's water-powered radio station WJFF, we wandered down to the town to find that the intersection at Roscoe's only stoplight was impassable. Curious, we decided to drive in the opposite direction, trying to see if the way out of town and toward New York City was open. We were soon turned back. Floodwaters were rushing over the banks of the creek and washing away parts of the road.

Somehow the experience awakened a not-too-deeply-buried need to stockpile food. I always looked with envy at the bygone days of a well-stocked bomb shelter. I never saw one, but there were hundreds on the TV shows. Rows of bottled water and enormous cans of beans suited my be-ready-for-any-eventuality personality. I took the mantra "be prepared" personally. But what I began with enthusiasm, usually end ended with procrastination. I have enough food for four or five days. I even have a few sterno cans in both New York and Roscoe, but hunkering down for the nuclear winter? Not quite.

When the floods hit this year, we were actually cut off for days. The grocery store was devastated, the nearest town and its grocery store were also flooded and unreachable except by authorized personnel. Even Route 17, the "Quickway" through this region, was closed. I began emptying the refrigerator, cooking all food, scraping together three meals per day.

Actually we did rather well, dining on defrosted tuna steaks and thawed jambalaya. For the first time since we bought the house, I ran out of lettuce and my cereal collection ran dangerously low. However, we never even made it into any of the canned goods. No real threat to our habit of eating. The water system on our road is independent of the town's and runs completely on gravity. I never even considered using the six gallons I have tucked away.
The minor inconvenience of problem of being grocery store-less put a dose of reality into my general paranoia. If each flood gets worse, and each time more of the banks of the rivers and creeks are moved downstream, then who's to say that three "once-in-a-lifetime" events won't become a regular occurrence in this crazy-weather epoch?

It may be overly-dramatic to say that this is a sign of global warming. I don't know and it's very hard to experience a single event and draw any scientific conclusions, particularly if you're not a scientist, but it's simply one more drop of information in the ocean.


The floods shut down several counties and numerous roads, however it didn't stop Kelly and my cousin Nick from driving 130 miles from Utica to Roscoe the day after to visit. Normally the trip takes two hours or so. I drive the route when I visit my mother. Kelly and I talked that morning on the phone. The rain stopped and, at least in Roscoe, the waters receded.

"I don't know if you should come," I said. "I'd love you to come, but I don't know if the roads are passable."

"It doesn't seem so bad around there," she said. "I can talk to Nick and see what he thinks."

"According to this website Route 8 has had a 'bridge failure' near Sydney."

"Bridge failure?" asked Kelly. "That sounds serious. Hard to get around that."

"Look maybe you could get around it," I said. "Maybe they will direct you through the village or something."

"Nick's doing the driving, so let me check with him."

Nick, a consistent optimist, was already planning alternative routes. So they tried. After four hours, and numerous detours, including a close call with a washed out bridge, they arrived. The sun shone and we sat on the patio. It was almost like the flood hadn't happened. But it had. After a few hours of visiting they turned around and went back to Utica, shaving the trip down to three hours.


Since that day we haven't had much rain. Ironically for the last week I had to haul water up to my plants to my garden. Last night a loud thunderstorm passed over our house. I heard rain in my dream. The soft hum of water hitting leaves reminded me of wire brush quivering over a cymbal. As more water fell from the sky I rose from my dream into an uneasy wakefulness. Lighting lit up the bedroom. One of my cats, Noodles, slept near my head and kept one eye open, ever watchful of me. I tried to count the seconds between light and sound, but lost track, overwhelmed by the frequency of both.

A bright bolt and an instant explosion shook me. I screamed involuntarily, something primitive vibrated in my brain as fear grabbed my heart. Charles moved quickly to press up against me, holding me. His warm body acted like a calming pond of warm water, draining the tension from my flesh. A second clap and I started again. I struggled to calm my breathing. Logical thoughts progressed rationally thought my head. I don't fear lighting. I don't fear thunder. I'm safe in my bed. The storm is passing. It must be passed by now. More flashed filled the room, but always with a slight delay before the thunder rolled across the sky.

When a third close bolt renewed my shivering I said, "I don't know why I'm afraid."

"Because it's scary," said Charles. "I'm going down to the porch, want to come?"

From the porch we could see that the storm had passed. The show continued for another ten minutes. Both cats joined us as we watched the trees light up with an eerie white-blue glow.

"Don't you know you're supposed to be scared," Charles said to Vera, our small black cat.

"Too silly," I said. My eyes searched the walkway, expecting a bear or a man to be illuminated in the next flash, but there was nothing there.
We returned to the bedroom, slipping between the still-warm sheets. My heart began to return to a normal speed. I listened to the rain and thought about how each plant conducts water to its base, leaves acting as funnels and stems providing a path for the flow. Economy of resources. The rain could boost my garden, invigorating tender shafts to continue their reach to the sun. The birds outside our window began their pre-dawn routine, chirping, waking each other from nest to branch until the entire chorus sang.

Water still fell. I knew that it wasn't the deluge this time, but the replenishment we needed. Finally I slept, without dreams, until the sun demanded my attention.

Xposted to: Blog, Gardening, Creative Writer

Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: anxious

A tall stalk of purple flowers first drew my attention. I saw it as I drove around our circular street. I was prowling for garden ideas, noticing what my neighbors had and wishing that my garden wasn't an overgrown mess, but a place with filled flowers and veggies.

The sight of the mass of blooms looked familiar, but it wasn't until I consulted one of my books that I understood I was viewing a biennial treat. Foxglove (Digitalis purpuea) flowers every other year, and is both medicinal and deadly. I wanted one.



At the time the area I now call my garden was filled with unwanted trees, forsythia that leap from one parent bush to fill 16 feet of space with a jumble of children, and weeds--many, many weeds. In the first summer I pulled some things out, but I mostly just waited to see what the previous owner had left me.

The second summer I noticed that there were tall plants, that I took to be weeds, stretching up out of the lily beds. Once they opened, I was pleased to see foxglove scattered about. Each flowering spike looked glorious against the green backdrop of the too-thick tiger lilies. However, I am never one to leave well enough alone. I worried, what if I have none next year? According to my books it was an every other spring kind of thing.

So the third summer I went out and bought two plants from Agway. I'd be damned if I was going to be denied my beautiful bells. I transplanted and watered the plants with care. One morning, I noticed that something had devoured the main stem. Gone in a moment, I thought naively. The plant had a "Plan B." It retaliated with seven more flowering arms and was stunningly beautiful. Not only that, but I noticed that there were both blooming and non-blooming foxgloves all over.

I mowed around them, gave them a wide berth when I planted my veggies, and was careful to preserve this summer's crop.

Well the result is a Foxglove forrest! And I couldn't be happier.









Xposted: Blog & Gardening

Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: satisfied

The summer is getting busy. Not only am I the MC at four "Open Mic" events in Sullivan County, but I just got invited to read in New York City.

For anyone in the Catskills I hope to see you at the first "Open Mic" Sunday, May 20th 2-4 p.m. It should be lots of fun. I'm sharpening up my patter and trying to decide what to read. Everything I've written seems so shocking. Hopefully the folks who come to Hamish & Henry Booksellers in Livingston Manor that day will be ready for a little controversy. I mean who doesn't love challenging (and fun) literature? We'll be there, microphones open, on May 20, July 1 and 29 as well as August 26, so there are multiple chances to come and perform your work.

The other gig is part of The Phoenix Reading Series, at High Chai, 18 Avenue B (Google map)
Saturday June 2 @ 2 p.m.

This one should be interesting because poet Vittoria Repetto is the main reader. Her book Not Just a Personal Ad is wonderful. I wrote a review of it here.

For anyone interested in seeing a tiny video of a few small bits of my last reading, you can find them on my website. It's just a sample of a longer story called "Right-Sized Rats," but check it out.

Current Mood: cheerful

Low and behold someone out there found one of my personal essays worth publishing. After fattening up my "rejection letter" file for a few years, I'm happy to announce that my humorous take on growing up Catholic was published in Della Donna Web-zine.

Here's a link to "On Being Catholic" by Deirdre Sinnott.

Current Mood: optimistic

I'm getting ready to go to my first Open Mike night and feeling a bit nervous. I plan to read a short piece called "On Being Catholic." I hope it's funny. I hope that I can read it without too many errors. I hope that I don't get that "gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now" feeling before I stand up. I hope I'm neither first nor last on the list.

Most of all I hope that this is just the beginning of me bringing my work out into the light of day.

Cross posted to: Blog, Bibliophily.

Current Location: home, waiting
Current Mood: nervous

I'm trying to finish with a rewrite of my book and find that I'm avoiding the last stage of the process. I have done so much difficult work on getting the manuscript to where it is and I'm tired of it. I'm guessing that I'm also a little frightened of finishing and turning it over to an agent.

Today is Wednesday and each day this week I've found a reason to not read through what I have, compare it to the copy my readers have returned to me, and finally finish. Once this book is off being reread and accepted or rejected I can get back to other career building activities.

I know that if I keep taking the next right step, I'll make it through, but the first one is always a doozy.


x-posted to: personal journal, bibliophily

Current Mood: frustrated