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 |  It's who we are. It's what we stare at in the middle of the night. It's a bug zapper. |
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My friends, When we were young and newly hatched—also young and in love—my husband and I lived with our four young children on the Space Coast of Florida. The massive propulsion of rocket and shuttle launches from Cape Kennedy often rocked the windows and doors of our little love cottage. We were always properly respectful and impressed by the reach of mankind’s achievements. It was a point of pride to stop whatever we were doing (dishes, dinner, dancing, sleeping, fist fighting, etc.) to watch the eastern horizon—hands on hearts, tears in eyes—as the United States of America raced into the frontier of space. One deep, dark morning (about 2:00 am) I shook my husband awake to watch yet another triumph of human advancement. “Get up,” I mumbled to Sherwood, “the shuttle’s going up. We gotta’ watch.” Sherwood moaned, “The garbage is out all ready. Let me die.” He did not open his eyes. “Come on. We should watch. Night launches are amazing.” He dragged himself upright and clung to the window ledge behind our bed. We knelt, with our chins braced on the ledge, our bleary eyes fixed on a blazing light in the eastern sky. We watched. The light did not appear to move. We stared some more. The light remain fixed. We struggled to focus. The light blazed away. We waited for the light to fade into the blackness of space. It did not. We watched and watched and watched. The light stubbornly refused to move. At last, collapsing back into my pillow I said, “Honey, go back to sleep.” Sounding confused, miffed, and a little whiney Sherwood asked, “Why?” “Because for the last eight to ten minutes we’ve been staring at our next door neighbor’s bug zapper.” He went back to sleep. And I lived to worship at the altar of space exploration another day. This story pretty much sums up who we are, and how we got this way—excessive staring at bug zappers. And this is my blog, a space-age way of recording one’s thoughts, ideas, embarrassments, and foibles for the entire known world. Once upon a time, I would have made this record on papyrus, rolled it up, stuffed it into a ceramic jar, and asked to have the whole thing buried with me in my sarcophagus. I still might. Disclaimer: Some of the stuff you will read here is true. Some of it is not. Some of it is the result of wishful thinking. Some of it is the result of too much thinking, and some of it is the result of too little thinking. But all of it will be written with joy and laughter, because the alternative is despair and weeping, and isn’t there more than enough of that stuff out there? Thank you for your support, Linda (Zippity the Zapped) Zern |
| Sherwood Zern’s Ten Tips For Hobby Farmers Sweat dripped off the end of my husband’s nose as he filled in the hole. Water gushed up from the ground. There’d been a lot of rain. A smear of muck marred his cheek. “Don’t be discouraged,” I said. “I’m not,” he muttered, “but while I was digging I thought up a list of tips for hobby farmers.” “Okay. Let me hear it.” He began: 1. Buy the best livestock available. 2. Buy the best feed you can afford. 3. Construct shelters and jungle gyms for the animal’s health and wellbeing. 4. Know your vet well enough to invite them to Sunday dinner. 5. Purchase the best shovel you can. 6. Have the backhoe man on speed dial. 7. Don’t buy property with any trees. Roots are right out when you’re digging holes. 8. Keep your shovel handy. 9. Keep your backhoe man handy. 10. Dig deep. “Or you can buy a shovel, dig a hole, throw money into hole, cover hole, and you’ll be left with a good shovel and a close relationship with your backhoe man.” Not discouraged much? I would add to that list this advice. Don’t look at your neighbor’s goats—that live in the wild, give birth in the wild, nurse their babies in the wild, and haven’t seen a vet in their lifetimes. Here’s to farmers and farming everywhere. Good luck and God bless. Linda (Heartbreak Hotel) Zern |
| Recently, I have responded to a couple of political comments, posts, thoughts, memes, and flaming crosses on Facebook. I’ve learned something. Diversity killed unity. And now we (I mean society, not you personally, unless it is you personally) can’t agree on anything—not even what constitutes name-calling. What’s name calling in your village might be terms of endearment in mine. Diversity. Live with it. Name-calling is a time-honored tactic in many villages used to cause spluttering, spitting, and/or high blood pressure. It’s the lowest common denominator in the argument pointy triangle. Name-calling is a word or condition that can be inserted into the sentence, “You are a (fill in the blank) as in: You are a brat, rat, gnat, or you are silly, slippery, stupefying. The worst name-calling offenders, in my experience, are those that claim the moral high ground like folks who say, “I believe in unconditional love . . . you brat, rat, gnat.” Unconditional love is simply love that has no conditions. Examples of this kind of love without rules, conditions, or standards include: You just smashed me in the face with an axe; I love you anyway. You just rolled me in cornflakes and poured motor oil all over me. I love you regardless. She just lied, cheated, stole, betrayed, and blew her family to tiny, bloody emotional bits. I’m in love. Sure. Sure. It’s all about love but LIKE, that’s a different story. I love you fine, but I wouldn’t recommend you for the job of dog walker, because I don’t LIKE the way you tie cat’s tails together and sling them over a clothesline so they can fight. You are a creep. This is name-calling—also judging. I love you fine, but you’re a creep. Names are descriptive. Names highlight diversity (always a good thing.) Names help us find birds with feathers like our own. Names keep us honest. So, in the spirit of do as I do, I shall now call myself a name; I am a FLIBBERTIGIBBET. A flibbertigibbet is a Middle English word referring to a flighty or whimsical person, usually a young woman. In modern use, it is used as a slang term, especially in Yorkshire, for a gossipy or overly talkative person. Cool. I own it, and I’m calling for all flibbertigibbets to unite, unless they’re too busy being flighty. And unless you are an insecure, flakey flibbertigibbet—who needs constant re-enforcement and self-esteem stroking—you understand that names truly cannot hurt you . . . not like sticks and stones. Get a clue, maroon. Linda (Short Stuff) Zern |
| As soon as I registered my business name [Linwood House Publishing] the game was afoot and the emails started rolling in: buy this, sell that, take my classes, invest here, download that, purchase podcast hours of someone talking, talking, talking. I quickly realized; business was a game. Everyone is selling something or everything and the first one to buy something or anything from anyone—loses. Writers are, in our heart of hearts, artists. Making money for our art feels like grubby fingers around our elegant creative, swan-like necks, squeezing . . . squeezing . . . and yet . . . I have never seen or met a single “world famous” writer that gave their books away for no money, not even to poor college students who had come to worship at their world famous feet. There was a lot of talk of fairness and equality and re-distribution for $12.99, and then they move to Florida where there’s no state income tax. Ah . . . art! Money. I want some. Unfortunately, making money from selling books is as challenging as figuring out how to get your characters out of that tree you’re supposed to chase them up into. Note: It’s a writing strategy. A writer is supposed to run their characters up a tree and then throw rocks at them. Then the writer is supposed to figure out how to get them out of that tree. And that’s why the above paragraph is funny. Money. I want some. Unfortunately, there are a few obstacles. Tabletop publishing and print on demand have swamped the market. SWAMPED IT—1.17 trillion new titles are published every 6.9 seconds. These statistics could be slightly fabricated. Erotica is keeping the big publishing houses going. It’s jazzy. It’s addictive. It’s like potato chips. I don’t write erotica. I could. I’m jazzy. I’m addictive. But I’m more like fried chicken than potato chips. I don’t know any heavy hitters like Oprah. But I do wish I had a dollar for every time someone has said to me, “Your books are great. You should send them to Oprah or the Queen of England.” Yeah. Great idea. You wouldn’t have the queen’s private cell number, would you? There is a learning curve shaped like a roller coaster to building a platform. A platform is your social media presence on the fiber optic, satellite generated, router pumped world that is ONLINE. No matter how many sites you have (Facebook, Website, Blog, Email, Pinterest, Instant Message, Dating Profile) there are at least sixteen more you SHOULD have. Unfortunately, for every new Internet gadget you have there is the time it takes to figure it out, password it tight, and get it ramped up. And then they want to upgrade you—for money—which takes us back to the beginning. Business is a game. Everyone is selling something or everything and the first one to buy something or anything from anyone—loses. And the game is afoot . . . Linda (Feet First) Zern From Shakespeare's King Henry IV Part I, 1597: "Before the game is afoot, thou still let'st slip." |
| The day starts like any other. The sun comes up. Clouds sail by. Goats meet me at the door because they’ve jumped the fence—again. Sherwood and I start to plot ways to construct a goat prison. The grandchildren come over to visit the goats and to hang from trees off of ropes, and then a tree frog got the jump on me, the horses stampeded, and a strawberry faked me out. It’s winter here in Florida. We put sweaters on and walk fast to our cars. However, winter is challenging for the amphibian living in the door handle of our front door. The amphibian is a tree frog about the size of a goat’s nose. He snuggles up in the handle, turns a sickly gray/yellow, and looks like I feel when the air turns a bit nippy. On the day in question, I had to run outside to wrangle goats/kids/a sprinkler after which I rushed back, grabbed the door handle, squashed the squishy frog living there, and screamed. Not that big a deal you say. Ahhh . . . but then I did it three more times . . . in a row. I screamed each and every time. Frog – four. Linda – gross. And then . . . “Tramp the Goat jumped the fence. He’s wrestling with Mr. Medina’s girl goats,” a random grandkid screamed. I sent yet another random kid over the fence to goat wrestle Tramp the Tramp back to our house. “Stampede!!!!” still another random grandkid suddenly yelled. Someone had left the pasture gate open. The sound of pounding hooves skipped through the air. Children screamed. Mothers screamed. Children scattered. Mothers screamed and scattered. The horses thundered around the corner of the house. Kip (aged 7) made a valiant effort to outrun our horses, lost the battle, and threw himself into a hedge next to the house. We train for this. We call it home school P.E. or how to outrun stampeding horses, bison, and goats. Because of the stampede, I wet my pants. It’s a self defense mechanism I’ve developed when snatched up by predators or giants or experience intense panic. Just like snakes and frogs, I pee on my enemies, hoping they’ll be startled enough to drop me. I rounded up the herd, checked the bushes for survivors, walked inside, sat down, and heard the unmistakable sound of kid screaming. Reagan had smacked Scout in the cheek with a door handle. The screams grew in decibel and horror level. Sadie joined in. “Her tongue. Her tongue is gone,” Sadie shrieked. I raced to Scout’s head to pry her jaws open and saw that her tongue was indeed rolled up in two wads—one blood red wad in each cheek. I screamed. “Her tongue is gone. Dial 9 1 . . .” Scout’s mother joined the hysteria, pried the kid’s mouth farther open and said, “It’s a strawberry. It’s two wads of chewed up strawberry in her cheeks. Her tongue is fine.” “Okay, well in that case don’t dial anything.” I went to change my pants—again. And that, my friends, is some of the stuff I couldn’t make up if they paid me or gave me to a giant to sit on enormous golden eggs for a year. Linda (What Now?) Zern |
| When I realized that my kids, a third and second grader, could not read, write, or compute basic mathematics, I took them out of public school and began homeschooling. No one seemed worried that they were growing up to be illiterate dunces, but a lot of people were very concerned that they would not be “socialized” properly or get to go to the prom. As their mother, I was more concerned about phonics than cummerbunds. Over the years, I have found the socialization arguments . . . well . . . muddled. What exactly is socialization? And will I recognize it when I see it? “I hate my family,” the young college student said, flipping a trendy fringe of hair out of his eyes. “But they’re paying for my college so I’ve got to go home for Thanksgiving. What a pisser.” Wanting to be social, I tried to figure out how to respond, because being curious and interested in others is my favorite social strategy. “Maybe you should pay for your own college?” “Are you nuts?” he spluttered. I thought it might be possible. In a moment of companionable socialization, I shared with some of my classmates that college algebra was giving me hives and panic attacks. A highly social young man offered to help. He whipped out his cell phone. “Just put this,” he said, holding up his phone, “in your sock and then I’ll show you how to get the answers for the test by texting.” “You’re assuming I can text,” I said. “Are you nuts?” he said. No! Just arthritic—and honest. Recently, before class, I was chatting socially with a few of my young college classmates. One highly social young man (I know he was social because he NEVER stopped talking about himself) began regaling us with tales of his high school cheating years. “Yeah, so I had the answers written on my arm, from my wrist to my juggler vein.” He laughed. “When the teacher got wise to it, I smeared the answers off, destroying the evidence.” Everyone joined in his clever, social laughing. “Don’t you feel bad about cheating your way through high school?” I asked. “Are you nuts?” Apparently. When my wildly educated professors use the “F” word in class or hilariously cop to having smoked dope once, twice, or always, I realize that they’re just trying to be hip and social and one with the organism known as “the group.” I get it. I was a social creature once. Now, I’m just nuts, because I don’t care what the group thinks about my being a drug free, sober, religious, monogamous, honest chick. It’s not social. I know. But it does allow me to sleep better at night. Besides, I’m the one those people try to cheat off of . . . the jerks. Linda (Eyes On Your Own Paper) Zern |
| They come in batches. That’s my theory on babies. I call it the Baby Batch Theory. My worldview [And you have to respect it, if it’s my worldview. That’s what I learned in college.] My worldview is as follows: This is not our first go ‘round. We lived before—as spirits in Heaven or Valhalla or whatever you’d like to call it. I’m open-minded. What’s a spirit look like, you say? Just like you look, except without the zits and stretch marks. So, spirits wait to be born into this life: to get bodies, to get experiences, to get eyes to watch the stars with; that sort of thing. Remember! This is my worldview. I am diverse. [Also a thing you must respect. I listened in college.] So, back to my theory on Baby Batches . . . God sends those spirits in batches. I’ve done the study. [Studies are the science of crooked lines. They tell us what’s real and what’s wonky. Again—college.] For thirty plus years, I’ve watched the nursery at church. Last year, it was a wild batch, and when I say wild, I mean children that refuse to be potty trained, curse before they can talk, and are convinced they were born knowing how to drive the family car. We call them pips. And I’ve seen the years when it was a mellow crop of little darlings. These are the children who won’t walk until they get around to it, laugh at dust motes, and find life a stunning marvel to be embraced with chubby arms. They give us a nice break from the pips. Of course, there are outliers. [You can’t believe how much I paid to learn the meaning of that word]. In every “batch” there are babies who groove to their own tambourine, thus proving the crooked line theory. My husband was born into a poke ‘em first, ask questions later batch. Every family has one. You know the kid. He/she/pick a sex [Gender neutrality. College 101] is that kid who can get a perfectly quiet batch of mellow kids screaming in 2.4 seconds. My husband is still at it. He picks, mostly online. My brother was a picker. Might still be. Which brings me to my next theory. God uses the batch method to keep the distribution even: one picker in the group—max—one pip to balance it out, throw in a mellow baby and shy one every once in while and poof; you’ve got a family. I’m sure more studies are needed. In fact, I feel they are necessary for world peace and stability. So . . . I probably should get started writing that grant proposal for the additional funding further studies will require. Me? I was part of a smart mouth, know-it-all batch. Linda (First Born) Zern |
| My youngest son and I were in the checkout line at Kmart. He was confessing. I was trying to look cool and unfazed, while choking on my own horror spit. Youngest son was telling me that he and a couple of his buddies had been experimenting with an incendiary device of the low cost, high flammability variety—also illegal—sweet Mother McCrea. I won’t bore you with the details, and that way you won’t have to testify at the trial. “But don’t worry, Mom,” he assured me, “we couldn’t get it to blow up.” Sweet Mother McCrea. Beyond shocked, but still trying to play it cool, I looked to the gentleman behind the register and appealed to him for some kind of mature adult support. I was hoping he would roundly condemn the mercenary actions of my son and his gang of four. The male cashier said, “Ah lady, that ain’t nothing. Me and my buddies burned down a bridge once, a big one.” The elderly man behind us in line started to chuckle gently. The cashier joined in, giving us a conspiratorial wink and looked wistful. “They still don’t know who did it, but that was in New York.” Another man in line sighed—nostalgically. I am ever puzzled by maleness. I have never, ever had the overpowering desire to ignite, blowup, or dynamite anything. I do, occasionally, burn some lemon-scented candles when I soak in the tub—but not the same thing—I’m thinking. I have never heard my daughters chortle and exult with triumph because they can (and did) urinate on a fire. I have never had one of my female type friends confess a bridge, barn or hay wagon burning to me. I have never heard any women of my association rejoice in their penchant for mayhem by saying, “Come on girls, let’s get some rags, stuff them in a bottle with some gasoline, light it up, and see what happens next.” Let me think . . . nope . . . don’t remember any sleepover stories like that. Men are such a puzzle. If men aren’t from Mars then where are they from? They’re from a place a lot farther away and hotter than Mars. That’s where. Burning down bridges. Indeed. “And if you don’t put that sharpened stick, chunk of rock, or spear down this minute, mister, you’re going to lose an eye, and then how are you going to see to light up all those Molotov cocktail fuses?” My tips on raising boys include setting up checkpoints for full body searches and always assuming that where there’s smoke, there is fire . . . or there’s going to be fire . . . or urine. Always be ready to remind your boy-child that burning down a bridge may sound like fun now, but does he really want to be working in the garden department at Kmart when he’s fifty-seven. Pssssst . . . I have no idea how bridge burning and garden department cashiering are inter-related, but that’s one of my strengths—verbal gymnastics and convoluted reasoning. I’m a girl. Linda (Fire Marshall) Zern |
| Liberal arts colleges run to liberal politics and those that embrace liberal ideas. That’s just how it is. When I comment on the phenomenon to my engineer friends, they snort and then scoff. Sometimes they use their words, but that’s not one hundred percent of the time. When they do comment, they often say things like, “What did you think you were studying ‘the hard sciences?’” Then they solve for “y.” What are hard sciences anyway? Science that is solid like cement? Or is it just a lot of math disguised as fun experiments? I am a writer. No, strike that. I am an author. No, that’s not quite right either. I am a novelist first, then a blogger, then a smart mouth with a lot to say in a soft sciences discipline. I am also conservative by today’s liberal art’s standards. I know that making this admission is tantamount to stripping naked in public and NOT having a Chinese word tattooed on the small of my back—but it is what it is. I also know that I run the risk of being dismissed for the sin of . . . being . . . staid. Staid is a word that means tattoo free—also boring. During one of my college classes we were regaled with the lively tale of our soon-to-be-retired professor’s adventures of smoking pot in an RV during the wild, cool, hippy years of her youth. Everyone laughed. Her hipness had been established. The point made: cool people get stoned, drunk, and experience all of life’s wild, hallucinogenic drama, so they’ll have good stories to tell the other villagers before complaining about drama monsters. Staid people remember growing up in a house with a cool parent. It’s hard to fool me when it comes to the consequences of certain wild, untamed, screw the Ten Commandments behavior. No, strike that. It’s impossible to fool me. Full disclosure: I have an agenda. I am the grandmother to fourteen [in May] . . . that’s children . . . not hamsters or pot belly pigs. I’d eat a hamster if I got hungry enough, just like they do in South America, but I digress. I will have fourteen grandchildren and teaching them the right way to live and be happy is part of my job description. It’s a village thing. Sending messages to the young and impressionable that living stoned or drunk in someone’s garage and racing around on a giant human hamster wheel on the Internet is ‘living’ are right out. Can’t risk it. I have a pretty big garage and a barn with a hayloft. My agenda is that cool can get you crabs and staid pays off in the end. Hard work, personal responsibility, and being honest with your fellow villagers are the messages around here. It ain’t flashy or hip, but it keeps the baby villagers from having to worry that the Daddy villagers will drive the family station wagon into a gator lake—again. Fuller disclosure: Smoke, dope, screw, and live a life of fluctuating, sand shifting relative values all you want. It’s your life, but please don’t think that you’re going to live in my hayloft like a giant human hamster when the power goes out. Liberalism is about change. Change is dramatic. Drama is exciting. Drama is also expensive and exhausting and everyone says that they’ve had enough of it. Linda (Straight Shot) Zern |
| Screw neutral. Let’s paint the walls gold and hang giant school maps from the 1950’s on them, and then let’s call it the eclectic boho gypsy decorating style. My family mocks me, for my bold use of the color yellow, my relentless devotion to butterflies, and my nutty love of big maps. Tough. Decorating should reflect the inner spirit of those that live in a house. My inner spirit is a giant yellow butterfly in the shape of Greenland. I don’t rent my house. My walls belong to me—mostly. So I hang things on the walls that make me happy: hats, maps, nests, teeth, bones, baskets, skulls, quotes, words, and a Maori dance skirt. I do not use colors of paint that can be described without an explanation point. And books. Books everywhere. I wouldn’t even know what the words eclectic, boho, or gypsy meant if it wasn’t for books. Thanks books. My children are at an age when they are making children. Those children then grow and fill up the houses they live in, causing the buying and selling those homes. Their tales of having to turn their houses into neutral tan, non-threatening palettes of blah for potential buyers makes me sad. I understand the theory. Tan goes with everything—and is therefore neutral. Tan makes people think they won’t have to paint just yet. Tan is non-threatening. Tan is the underside of a leach—a neutral, non-threatening leach. For some reason people are comforted by that when they buy a house. Buying and selling is not as much fun as being a wall hoarder, which is what my daughter’s husband calls her. She likes to hang picture frames on the wall full of old ballet toe shoes and mod podge . . . everything. Hey! That’s not wall hoarding; that’s her own kind of beautiful. It’s nice when the buying and selling is over and the living begins: even if your decorating style resembles the inside of a tambourine tied with gypsy scarves. Linda (Butterfly High) Zern |
| It’s a new year, following the old year and just in front of the year to come. Time to disclaim. DISCLAIMER: noun 1. The act of disclaiming; the renouncing, repudiating, or denying of a claim; disavowal. 2. A person who disclaims. 3. A statement, document, or assertion that disclaims responsibility, affiliation, etc; disavowal; denial. 1. To begin, I would like to renounce, repudiate, deny, and disavow the rumors. I am not crazy, zany, wacky, or “intense.” I don’t know how these rumors get started. I mean one person sees you wearing a king’s crown and waving a scepter—at a laundry mat—and people start talking smack about you—the rotten gossips. Listen! The problem is that I don’t have that voice. You know the voice: that mealy-mouthed, butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth, I might have mice living in my vocal cords girl-voice. When I speak I sound taller than I am, and I come across more intimidating than a grizzly bear. Just play dead and I won’t maul you. When I write I sound smarter than a grizzly bear. I can’t help it. I’m Irish. We have a way with words and a penchant for using words like penchant. I renounce the gossip. Dressing up in period costume is a time-honored way to confuse evil spirits and boring people. I repudiate the false narrative that meek means weak. I disavow any embarrassment about zumba. Zumba is a Latin based exercise. Hips and booty are involved. When I zumba, I zumba, and my hips don’t lie. I’m easy to pick out in a zumba crowd. My stuff is actually moving. It’s because I lived in the Bahamas when I was a kid, and the first “live” band I ever heard was a steel drum band. It’s in my blood. 2. I have been writing weekly blogs for more than a decade. No one makes me—except me. Most of what I write is based loosely in reality, coated liberally with lies. I’ve won national prizes for my humorous lies . . . er . . . um . . . I mean essays. It’s true. Humorpress.com sent me money. That’s how I know it wasn’t a lie. 3. This is my official semi-yearly, once-in-a-while, now and again disclaimer. I am not crazy. I’m confident and adamant. People hate that. I don’t suffer fools lightly. Fools hate that. I love words and all the dazzling things you can do with them. The last book I wrote, Beyond the Strandline, is a grid collapse/survival/action/adventure/romance, and it’s intense. So intense I had a couple of Beta readers let me know that they couldn’t finish it. It was too scary. At first, I thought, “Oh no! What have I done? It made people uncomfortable and worried.” And then I thought, “Oh no! What have I done? I was able—through the power of pen and word—to move people to FEEL uncomfortable and worried. Interesting.” The tips of the writer’s fingers beat a contemplative rhythm against each other as she smiled evilly. I’m not bad. I’m good. Linda (Sound Off) Zern |
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