Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Last week an unfortunate person died when a shark bit into him while he was in the water with some fellow water loving comrades.  Naturally the news media headed each report of this unusual incident with two words:  shark attack.

With all due respect and condolences to the family of the victim, while my eyes were drawn to the news items in the papers, the term “attack” did annoy me a bit because it isn’t a totally accurate portrayal of what likely happened.

Sharks are primitive creatures that basically, as mentioned in the movie Jaws, swim around looking for food and the chance to reproduce, with an emphasis on the swimming and eating parts.  Sharks are not known to discriminate as they encounter objects in the water, nor are they known to target humans specifically as prey as carnivores like the great cats might, so they will try anything that may serve as food if it is in its path.  This is why sharks will try out boat hulls, surfboards or any dumped junk that may be in its field of vision.  If it digests, fine:  if not, the shark will probably die with it in its digestive tract (you do remember the necropsy in Jaws in which a license plate was pulled from the gullet of a suspect shark).

It is possible–and I dare say likely–that the shark involved in this incident took a different turn and got off its usual path while cruising off the California coast and happened upon some activity that it wound up investigating.  Afterward, it swam off and was not picked up again by helicopters or other ocean searching techniques when the patrols went out in search of the shark.

Instead of calling these incidents shark attacks, I would like to kindly ask the media to start labeling them as deadly shark encounters.  The word shark automatically draws public interest, of course, but the word attack implies that the animal sought out and committed conscious slaughter when that cannot be logically or scientifically proven.  Instead, get public attention with the word deadly and call the incident an encounter, which implies an unusual meeting event.  Who needs bunches of blood thirsty fishing newbies out on a Frankenstein style pillage of the waters looking for a creature that obviously has not stayed around to establish any sort of reputation as a man-eater and become a threat to the shore?  It is a shame that somebody suffered such a horrific accident, and by airing this pet peeve of mine I do not wish to be misconstrued as somebody with no sympathy for mankind.  I just have issues about mistaken labels being applied to any creature undeserving of it.

At the last meeting of my favorite writer’s group, we were asked to reveal our favorite tools for writing that we just can’t live without.  My list was pretty simple, so I’ll share:

Writer’s Digest and The Writer magazines:  They are old favorites from my high school days, and are still relevant today.  They manage, each in their own way, to kick-start my creativity when I’m in a slump, and they stay updated on current affairs that affect any style or type of writer.  Subscriptions are a must (although sometimes they hit the newsstands before my mailbox anyway).

Pentel R.S.V.P. Pens:  Every color is on my desk (they come in regular and gel types for bouts of fanciful doodling), but the standby black is always a good choice for extended moments of creativity.

BIC 4-Color Pen:  For times when you don’t want to, or should not, carry a bunch of different colored Pentels around with you, one of these will help you take effective notes and separate the Eurekas from the chaff when you put them down in red, blue or green.  Still, the black ink runs out first, but they’re refillable and are sold in pairs.

Sticky Notes:  3M’s are always top notch and don’t tend to leave funny residue anywhere you stick them, and you can find a size that’s perfect for you to jot down those sudden Eureka ideas.  If you haven’t gone down that aisle in the office supply place for awhile, break out your trusted credit card and go now, because you are guaranteed to come out of there with something you’ll be thankful for.

Without some good tools, it would be hard to keep track of all the ideas that I exorcise from my head onto something tangible.  The challenging part is pulling all those sticky notes out of each magazine issue and getting them typed somewhere else, but at least magazines and sticky notes are portable and smaller than the tiniest laptop.

I’m on a week’s vacation and working on a few things, but I just want to know one thing about politicians:  if they have such wonderful ideas that they feel they could implement as President, why the heck didn’t they start building the groundwork for these same ideas while in other positions?

Heck, with all the mud-slinging and misinformation we get about McCain, Obama and the other lady whose name escapes me, how about this:  I’ll vote for the candidate who promises, on pain of impeachment, that they will abolish Daylight Saving Time.  So there.

See ya in a a week.

I started a new job that requires a longer drive on one of the state’s most wild and crazy freeways (“free” meaning that, if you want to save money by not taking the turnpike, this is the way to go).  The speed limit is supposed to be 65 along some admirably well kept stretches, but try telling that to my fellow drivers who zoom past me and give me a glare as if I’m a granny in a jalopy for trying to keep within the law.

I finally figured out why the fines for speeding are incremented the way they are based on how fast you were clocked:  most people break the law at 12 or more mph consistently, so if the cops catch somebody going fast enough to be illegal but slow enough to safely pull to the shoulder,  it’s almost guaranteed to be a high enough fine to crimp their style.

The hidden law of the road is to follow the flow of traffic, so normally everybody is going at the same (illegal) speed.  What also happens, though, is that we are all gambling against the odds of a freak event that could put us all in an accident.  Tires shred, deer take a wrong turn and folks do sometimes fall asleep at the wheel, so we run the risk of getting into an epic multi-car mishmosh when we go too fast together.

Try telling that to the morons who amp it up to 70 or more to pass the “slowpokes” just because they have someplace to go.  As long as they pull up at their destination on time, it doesn’t matter to them.  Unfortunately there are times when we are all parked on the highway because of a multi-car mishmosh, and even as we are passing aluminum balls that used to be shaped like cars we huff and cuss because the victims slowed our rush hour.  Maybe we should just go for a slower rush hour ourselves.

Being able to drive 65 legally is okay, but I don’t like the baggage that goes with it every time I enter that road.

Next year television is going to change.  You’ll need to have a specially adapted television and/or special equipment from some big conglomerate you actually have elected to pay for the privilege of watching more than six or seven networks that used to arrive freely from the public airwaves.

Nobody has mentioned, though, that portable television will be the market most strongly affected by this change.  How do you take a converter or cable connection to the beach with you to watch the game?  Your little portable Viewguy or that nice little set you prefer to use in the RV won’t work, if the information coming out in the media is right.

And are the people who don’t have the money for high definition going to be discriminated against when they see only semi enhanced images on their old standby set?

How much will service fees go up when the cable companies have to switch off analog next year?

Yeah, I’m stirring the pot of contention.  I’m an American with a limited income, and that’s what I do when I have a question.  Instead of a soapbox, maybe I should stand on some old discarded portable television.

If everything I need is at the local WalMart, why do I always leave empty-handed?  They didn’t have my driveway melter, my facial scrub, my favorite underwear or a box of oatmeal.  I wasted ten good minutes of my one hour lunch break time, and the result was a big zero.

The writers have reached an agreement with the entertainment industry, thank goodness.  I genuinely feel for those folks who try to make a living by wordcrafting.  It’s not like the less-shaky ground of working in an office, where you have a place to go and a cubicle to sit in, and your presence is usually sufficient to guarantee you a paycheck as long as you’re productive and don’t commit any professional indiscretions.  I’ve written gratis for years, probably because I have a fear of getting paid for writing and suddenly finding myself in an unknown income bracket, with tax collectors breathing down my neck or stalkers waiting around the corner ready to poke a quill in my ear (hey, I saw Misery too, you know).

Not that I haven’t gotten recognition for my writing from various small venues over the years.  They just don’t have awards shows and red carpets for “little” writers.  I did get a fan appreciation award once for contributing to a newsletter with regular articles about current events.  Once, a celebrity even took the time to respond to an article I’d written, which was one of my top ten emotional highs of all time.  I didn’t feel I needed a paycheck for those moments.

Writing for a living must be mentally trying.  Days and months of effort can result in no pay at all, a promise of publication can go south if market conditions change, and only a handful of novelists get to be as big as Stephen King (and the peak of that roller coaster ride has just as precipitous a drop on the other side).

Sure, when a writer produces a work, they should be paid for it if that is what they are doing as a profession:  it doesn’t matter if the work appears on a flatscreen television, the Internet or a Dick Tracy wristwatch.  Musical artists are having similar problems with compensation (which is why I still shop carefully and stick with tangible media like CDs for my fave artists).

Now that the writers are back, I’m looking forward to some quality stuff to come out.  It will take time, though, because they don’t just sit in cubicles thinking up professional indiscretions to commit, you know.

The road is becoming more bizarre all the time.  Sure there are the prima donnas who apply makeup behind the wheel, the cell phone addicts who stare out the windshield with their eyes  slanted vertically because they’re sandwiching the thing between their shoulder and ear, and the Indy 500 wannabes who just have to get one car length ahead (until they get to the next “one car” up ahead).  Sometimes, though, people earn undue attention by the accessories they put on their vehicles.

I don’t get the meaning behind those. . . .putting this in somewhat medically proper terms (hide the kids’ eyes). . . .trailer hitch testicles.  Maybe you’ve seen them:  plastic reproductions of dangling male gonads in natural, blue or red (I don’t even want to entertain the question why somebody opted for red as a color choice) that some folks sling under the doohicky knob that hooks up the camper.  It’s a head-scratcher to me, and even more so when I get the chance to see the driver.

If it’s a woman, I wonder if the setup is a reference to some guy who done her wrong.  If a man, I’m not as sure what gives with slinging yarbles from the back bumper; do modern humans like to display body parts in this manner?  Is the driver claiming he has testicular fortitude?  Even stranger, is he saying he has no need for ’em ’cause he’s got his SUV and a full QWERTY keyboard and, by gosh, that’s manly enough for him?

Maybe it’s just a trailer hitch tool disguised as man-oysters.  I don’t know.  What I do wonder is how some poor church-going mother would explain the setup to her little daughter while waiting for the light to change.  “Oh dear, I guess he had a piece of plastic melt all over his trailer hitch, honey.”  Maybe a funeral pyre is just the thing needed for this accessory from “Carz R Us.”

On Saturday I was insulted–albeit innocently and unintentionally–by a seven-year-old.

We were gathered at a friend’s house to celebrate a young lady’s birthday.  Because she already had been feted by a gathering of friends her own age, we adults got together to have our own party with her.  It gave us an opportunity to enjoy each others’ company after only having been out once the entire year.

So we were sitting around the kitchen table playing “I Spy,” when the object in question was something red.  The birthday girl circuited the table, zeroing in on the red in question using our prompts of “hot” or “cold.”  As she came around to my end of the table, I did have a red object, but she asked if it was my spots on my face.

I’ve had acne since I was 12.  I’ll probably die with acne.  I cover it as best I can without dooming my poor facial skin to premature aging or glop that has to be chipped off with a crowbar, but I still look splotchy most of the time.  Some people, I’ve been told, go into seclusion rather than go out in public because of the stigma attached to not being pristine.  It’s not that acne is a plague spreadable by casual contact; it just stands at the top of the list of aesthetically unpleasant stuff nobody likes to look at or acknowledge.

What happened after the comment was made?  We had a laugh about it.  I laughed, too, though I did have to momentarily suppress a wave of discomfort.  The words I used to get hurled at me in high school crept into my subconscious:  pimple-faced palsy was at the top of that list, as were the commonplace zitface, scuzzface and the lot.

Of course I realize that the age gap between the young lady and me is wide enough that I can pass off the comment as being non-malicious.  She meant no harm, really; another friend’s gingham blouse was the topic of humor as well, so it wasn’t just a matter of my mug being singled out for a light jab.  However, since adults tend to be more quiet about bringing such shortcomings to light in public, I hope some time will pass before I hear another reference made about my face that reminds me of how imperfection can be so painful in life.

We spend a lot of time in our lives just sitting down.  Everything we do is based, to some degree, on being able to sit all or some of the time.  It begins when we get out of bed in the morning, which requires a least one second of butt-roll time just to leave the mattress behind (bad pun & unintended).  We sit in the bathroom.  We sit at the table for breakfast (or in front of the television), then plant our glutes in the car to drive to work, the market, the doctor’s appointment.  School is often spent sitting in hard chairs, on bleachers or on the floor.  It’s a never-ending part of daily life.

The people who don’t stand for considerable periods are grocery store clerks, tollbooth operators, street workers and (dare I say) streetwalkers.  They often wind up with swollen feet or ankles or get dog tired from prolonged standing, so I guess sitting is a necessity to give the body a break.

Sitters, though, get flat behinds.  This is especially true of cubicle rats like me (and you while you’re probably reading this sitting down).  The need to exercise to keep the buns from deflating gets us on our feet long enough to appreciate just how lucky we are that we can sometimes sit down to recuperate from a hectic life.

Yeah, I did quite a lot of work this week, all of it from a seated position, but boy am I worn out from it.