Short Circuits

Dorien Grey

Description

Lambda-nominated author Dorien Grey (The Dick Hardesty Mysteries, The Elliott Smith Mysteries) knows more than just how to write a great murder novel. He's also had amazing life experiences in the military and around the world. Here, for the first time, are the collected blog and journal writings of this prolific author. As Grey notes, "Sometimes things are more clearly seen through the eyes of others." The hope is that the reader will see similarities to his/her own life, and recognize the commonality of the human condition.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: Untreed Reads
• Date de parution: 24 juin 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611871234
• Langue: English

Extrait

Short Circuits: A Writer s Life in Blogs
By Dorien Grey

Copyright 2011 by Dorien Grey
Cover Copyright 2011 by Dara England and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
http://www.untreedreads.com

Short Circuits: A Writer s Life in Blogs
by Dorien Grey (Roger Margason)

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
AND YOU ARE?
The Hill of Time
On Birthdays
Happy Birthday
High School
Remembering Family
The Teens
The Yeast Years
A Simple Man
Emotions
Softie
Puck Was Right
The Power of Touch
Requited Love
Laughter
Identities
Pennies
The Lazy Perfectionist
Delusions
If Only
That Which I Should Have Done
Political Correctness
Rejection
The Doctor Is In
RULES OF THE ROAD
An Agnostic s Christmas
Beliefs
Three Rules
Simple Rules
FROM FERTILE SOIL
Life in a Sardine Can
Grandpa Fearn
Grandma Fearn
Aunt Thyra
Uncle Buck
Time and Coffee Cups
INSIDE THE BONE-BOX
Anticipation
Frustration
Secrets
Role Models
Impatience
My Garden of Phobias
Phobias Redux
Embarrassment
On Being Bubbly
God s Snowflakes
Why?
On Dreams
Questions
On Being Naive
Confessions
In Praise of Me
Fretting
Neverending
The Other Side of the Window
Perspective
Worthless
As Ithers See Us
Leaky Boats
Flotilla
THE LIFE OUTSIDE
Cars
First Jobs
Jobs from Hell, Part I
Jobs from Hell, Part II
Jobs from Hell, Part III
My Days in Porn
OK, More Porn-Days Stories
Pebbles
Ice Cream Social
Pride
The Mind s Eye
Unforgiving
Unforgiving, Follow-Up
Laziness and Priorities
Sing Out, Fagin!
Nausea
Coffee Time
Bureaucracy
Routine
Habits, Routines, and Ruts
Naps
Revisiting Naps
Domesticity Yet Again
PLACES IN THE HEART
Fairdale
The House on Blackhawk Avenue
Homes
The Lakes
Harry Morris
Northern Memories
Now Playing
The Bittersweet View
Chicago Life
Time and Dreams
NOTES ALONG THE WAY
Earthquake
Letter to a Nun
Modern Science
Aliens and Hypocrites
My Life of Crime
Gnats
WE TWO
Triumvirate
The Man Behind the Curtain
To Each a Dorien
Dreams and Dorien
Teeter-Totter
Losing Roger
MINE ENEMY GROWS OLDER
Me and J. Alfred Prufrock
Change and Endings
A Spot in Time
Mind and Body
Poor Loser
The Spelunker s Rope
Things
Things, Again
Tangibles
PJs
Time in a Jar
The Pity Pool
The Glass Half Full
In the House of Cancer
A Bologna Sandwich
Off to Mayo
And Thus Are the Days of Our Lives
Oh, the Nobility
The Train to Omaha
The Captain and the Ship
Dirty Old Men
This Way to the Egress
Teapots
Friends and Ships
A Seat on the Bus
Backward, Turn Backward
Condescension
THE REAR-VIEW MIRROR
In, But Not Of
In, But Not Of, Part 2
Epiphany
The Shallow Pond
Letting Go
Giving Thanks
The Trompe l oeil Mind
Navy Talk
Don t Ask, Don t Tell
Tar Bubbles
Obsession
Get a Horse
Chicago Then, Chicago Now
Shaping Clay
Trains
A Day at the Movies
Time Was
Generations
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
Worst Enemies
The Likes o Me
Normal
To Catch a Raindrop
Endless
Falling Short
Conspiracy
Paranoia Rides Again
The Computer Conspiracy
AT T and Me
Charlie Brown
Shiva
Logic
Why and Because
LOOSE CHANGE
The Ice Cream Cone
Alice Ghostley
Gratitude
Colds, Specific, and Stoicism, General
You Is or You Ain t
Reading the Signs
De Profundus
The Pleaures of Drear
Potpourri
Pebbles II
Compared to What?
THE HUMAN FACTOR
Phil
Simple Delights
Friends and Time
A Letter to Norm
Aftermath
Miss Piggy s Nose
Lief
Russ
Bye, Bye, Birdie
Stu
Pat
Nick
Requiem for Uncle Bob, Part I
Requiem for Uncle Bob, Part II
Lost Friends
Robert
Robert s Return
Kids Play
Pets
Catharsis
A Cat s Tale
TO SOOTHE THE SAVAGE BREAST
Marching On
Dangling Wires
The Sound of Music
Songs
Marches
I Sing the Body Electric

INTRODUCTION
The circuitry of the human brain is often compared to electrical wiring. In most people, thoughts flow smoothly, like direct current passing through a wire. But for some thought processes more strongly resemble a downed power line, whipping about madly, spewing sparks of random thoughts. I am one of those people. I channel as much of the power flow of my mind as I can into my books, and the random sparkings and sputterings result in blogs-brief flashes of one man s life and thought.
The short-circuitings contained herein are gathered loosely into general topics, but there is no smooth flow to them, no direct link between most of them. Each is a separate sparking; each is a spontaneous response to some random stimulus. Put together, they outline and define a life.
While they all stem from my personal experiences and opinions, they aren t purely an exercise in egocentrism, but a game I hope you might find some pleasure in playing. And as to who you will be playing with....
The beginning is always a good place to start. But I ll skip the traditional I was born in a one-room log cabin on the prairie on a cold winter s night... bio. You may or may not already know who I am (Dorien Grey, author of the Dick Hardesty and Elliott Smith mystery series as well as the western/adventure/mystery/romance Calico ). But you are obviously curious enough to be reading these words, and I thank you for that.
Actually, I m in effect two people: in everything having to do with writing, I am Dorien Grey. In all other aspects of my life, I m Roger Margason, the name with which I was born. It s a complicated arrangement, but it works very well for me.
I ve written a total of 17 books so far, and well over 500 blogs. This compilation is the first of two planned. This first one is primarily designed (though the words designed and blogs really don t go together all that well) to let you get to know me and how I got to be a writer. The second book concentrates more on the fireworks display of topics which piqued my interest-and hopefully, yours. And, also hopefully, by the time you re done, you ll be able to see where the various themes and topics come from. All were gathered over four years of my Monday/Wednesday/Friday postings on my website ( http://www.doriengrey.com ).
Perhaps because I ve always been acutely aware of the human tendency to feel unique-which we are-and alone-which we are not, I am compelled to emphasize our commonalities and how they bind us. To that end, I write books and I write blogs. Books tend to be more complex, generalized and cohesive than blogs. They require some degree of control on the part of the writer, and considerable structure, and tend to connect with the reader on a different level than blogs, which tend to be more spontaneous, shorter, wide ranging and therefore in a way more personal. If books are a painting, blogs are an Etch-a-Sketch drawing.
I also write to leave some evidence, once I m gone, that I was here. As a gay man with no children, my words are my progeny. And while I m here, I write to let you know I m aware that you are here, too, and to hope you might find in my words some connections to yourself. But at the foundation of it all I write, quite simply, because I cannot not write.
Though you and I have probably never met, I like to think we know each other. I hope by the end of this book, you might feel the same. I would be truly delighted to think these little short-circuiting sparks and sputters might not only illuminate some of who I am, but might afford you a glimpse or two of who you are.
Roger Margason, a.k.a. Dorien Grey

AND YOU ARE?
THE HILL OF TIME
One of the relatively few advantages of growing older is that the higher you climb on the hill of time, the more you can see when you look back over where you ve been.
I was born fourteen and a half years after the Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I; eight months and eleven days after Franklin Delano Roosevelt s first swearing in as President, in the darkest days of the Great Depression. I had just turned eight when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and remember listening to President Roosevelt s declaration of war. I was eleven and a half years old when he died. (Because I was too young to yet realize the importance of history, my primary concern was my unhappiness that, for three days following his death, all regular radio programming was cancelled, the radio playing nothing but music, forcing me to miss out on my favorite kids programs.)
I was raised in a world of iceboxes and Dixie cup ice cream, of 3-cent postage stamps and twice-a-day mail delivery; of black-and-white movies with newsreels and travelogs and cartoons and 10-cent bags of popcorn. Railroad trains were pulled by steam engines, and there were no interstates or four-lane highways. Cars had running boards. Laundry was washed either by hand or by machines with wringers. Wet clothing was hung outdoors because driers hadn t been invented yet. To call someone, you picked up the phone and, if no one else was talking on