Stories and More From A.M. Moscoso
If you like my Enduring Bones
you might enjoy getting Lost with me at my other blog
I’ve sworn off of communicating through Facebook
and to replace it I started a second blog. There’s more reading involved then what I do at FB, but that’s not such a bad thing when what you do is WRITE.
I hope you will visit that blog too for all kinds of random stuff by me
your
Faithful Writer/Blogger/Reader
Anita Marie Moscoso
:::My Writer’s Journal:::
I was taking notes and drafting some stories for my daily posts this Halloween when I reached for my phone to check out my Facebook.
There’s a lot of hating going on out there right now- and there is loads of meanness and all sorts of skullduggery.
I put my phone down and considered this:
I’m writing horror stories and what I saw going on courtesy of this Presidential Election season freaked me out and dare I say…horrified me.
Think about that one.
May 25, 2016
Some of you, who are not pure of heart and spirit, may remember the joke people made when they got caught reading Playboy:
” I only read it for the articles.”
We all knew that was balderdash- people weren’t reading Playboy they were LOOKING at Playboy.
I’m not here to judge- and if you want to look at pictures of naked people be my guest.
What I’m here to do is point out that people are dragging that sold old punch line out and they’ve applied it to…
FACEBOOK.
Facebook is all about the pictures- we just have a hard time admitting that. So we write little quips and string together one liners and call it communication- but really it’s all about the pictures.
I think it’s fine if people are using Facebook as a way to communicate if they’re housebound or in a place where for some reason making actual human contact is a challenge.
Moreover not everyone can be a storyteller- so if you want to share your dinner or pictures of your dog and kids and night out with your friends with other people who do that- knock yourself out.
But if you’re a writer ( for example ) Facebook is a creative killer.
Instead of taking those ideas that could turn into actual stories or posts or articles, they disintegrate into a Meme. Or you skip it altogether and instead of turning a person you know or met by chance into an interesting character you just slam this on your wall and call it a day:
That’s not writing.
It will never be writing.
If you’re a writer don’t fool yourself, you’re not sharing an idea or telling a story. You’re doing the hi-tech version of writing on a bathroom stall.
In the old days picture above would have ended up in the margin of my notebook and I’d have turned it into a story about two people who end up willing to fight to the death for a parking space- and then when they realize they’re deadlocked they make a deal with the Devil.
Nobody ever will comment under that picture” and what happened next?”
The point I’m trying to make is, if I want to share something a story about my dog or how my same old daily bus ride is more then it appears or how I saw something strange or cruel or funny- I can do more then slam a picture on FB and post under it:
LOLZ
Or
REALLY?
I’m supposed to be a writer. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be or do.
I shouldn’t settle for doing less when I know I have so much more to offer.
The trick is letting go of Facebook.
I’ve bought into the notion that this is where people ‘live’ now and if I don’t live there I will not be living at all.
That can’t be true.
It just can’t be.
I didn’t find this story on a piece of paper floating down the street.
In the real world nobody uses paper to send notes- they don’t even Write anymore. They print. Probably in blocky letters because that’s what we see on our phone screens and laptop screens and what ever screen is attached to the electronic device that we HAVE to carry with us.
I mean, all of these devices are our secondary brains now.
You know that right?
My sister told me this story and it was so weird and almost unbelievable that I went and looked it up.
Some schools are no longer going to teach cursive and do you what some of them have offered as a reason? It’s a waste of time. Funny considering most kids can’t tell time on a clock with or without numbers on its face anymore.
I have a theory, people aren’t writing at all anymore. They communicate in pictures.
Check your Facebook wall.
We use pictures with little quips to express complete thoughts and ideas.
The Egyptians did that. They wrote in pictures- but guess what. Those symbols made the same sound ever single time.
You couldn’t use random pictures to express random ideas or to let someone know your dog or cat died ( pictures of rainbows over a bridge…that’s all you have to ‘write”) You just slam that on the interwebs with your dog’s name and everyone will know what you ‘mean’.
I remember when I was learning cursive in the 3rd grade ( I’d have been about 9 years old ) , we had these workbooks and until you got the exercises perfect you had to print your schoolwork.
I worked like a son of a gun to be ‘perfect’ so did my friend Darren.
But we had the worst penmanship in class and the only reason we got to final write in cursive was the entire class had perfected their penmanship so we got in by default.
Still, I loved writing in cursive even though our teacher told me and Darren in front of our entire class if he could had held us back and forced us to print for the rest of the year he would have.
So he came up with a new grading system just for us. I could get an ” A ” on my spelling test and an “F” in penmanship so it would knock my grade down to a ” B” or ” C”. Didn’t matter if I spelled every single word write and got the answers right on my test, he still bust me down to a lower grade because my writing was bad.
He didn’t do that to anyone else but me and Darren- because you know, we had the worst writing so it was a special system just for us.
Just as a side note, our teacher went on to be a Missionary. I had hoped he’d end up in one of those places where there were head hunters and cannibals and he’d end up with his head on a stick or stewing in a pot.. Instead he ended up in a place where he hated the people and they hated him right back. So he returned to our school a few years later where he talked about the ” ignorant savages” who couldn’t be saved ( you really shouldn’t talk smack in a small town ) and when I saw him I said, with genuine disappointment:
” Oh. You’re alive.”
My point is this: I worked hard to learn cursive- and I had to learn it from a teacher who thought cetain kids were ‘savages’. So it was a struggle and the day I was allowed to write in cursive was a big day- even though I took a verbal slap to the face on the day it happened.
Cursive isn’t just putting pen to paper- along with telling a good story, or writing a letter it should be pleasing to the eye and the brain. It takes time and it’s worth it.
It actually helps you think about what you’re writing when you can’t just throw up a picture or race across a keyboard.
For a moment, just consider the Egyptians.
Consider all of the work that went into it when they wrote.
When you look at what they wrote you can see the beauty and the grace in it.
What’s wrong with having that in your life? With being able to create it, even if it’s just on a shopping list or a note telling your kid to feed the dog.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it at all.
We could all do with a little more of those two things in our lives.
I can’t remember where I heard it or when but I’m guessing it was from my friend Clyde who knew about all things Dinosaur Related.
Clyde was seriously into Dinosaurs- we were about ten years old at the time- and I was into Archeology and all things Mummy Related so we always had a lot to talk about.
Anyway one day we were slamming the tether ball around the pole and trying to hit each other with it ( I think it was called roping when you grabbed the rope and whipped it around ) and Clyde informed me that the way you could tell the difference between a rock and a bone was that if you put a bone on your tongue it would stick because bones are porous and if it was a rock it wouldn’t,
I bounced the ball off his head. ” Really?”
He assured me it was true.
” You just want me dig up a bone and lick it?”
It was one way to be sure, Clyde told me. Besides, it was the only way he knew.
I bounced the ball off of his head again. ” Good try short stack. I’m not falling for that one.”
Clyde changed when we were in high school.
We would be talking and his eyes would roll up into head and he’d start talking to God- sometimes the Devil and when he came back he would hold my hand and tell me it was getting harder to hear hear his own thoughts anymore.
One day, Clyde was just gone- I mean the person who I grew up with. His body was there but he would talk in random words and numbers.
His family moved him to an institution in the same state his Uncle lived in. Clyde and his Uncle had always been close and he wanted to care for him.
I went a few times to visit but Clyde didn’t know me, didn’t know himself.
After the last trip I took I went home to my Mom’s because my dog had died ( thanks for the kick in the head God ) and I was in the backyard gathering up his toys when I came across one of Sham’s chewed up ham bones.
I thought about what Clyde had said.
I held the bone up and shrugged.
I went to the hose, washed it off, wiped it on my jeans and set the bone on my tongue.
I’ll be darned- it did stick to my tongue.
It tasted like earth, like sadness. I chomped it a bit and wondered what it would be like to snap it in half with my jaws, what it would feel like to crunch at the shards, to spit out the remains and keep working at it until nothing was left.
My friend was gone, my dog was gone too and I was in my back yard chewing on a bone and you know what?
At the exact moment I needed it I felt very much alive.
My friend who I called ” Clyde” in this post died in 2001.
Name five things in your house that make it a home.
So are these five things that make my house a home material, spiritual are they those little Anubis Knick Knacks I picked up all over the place when I was learning to be an embalmer?
Are they memoires? Dreams? Hope? Nightmares?
The First thing that makes my house feel like a home is the lack of mirrors.
I would have to learn three other languages just so that I could fully express to you how much I hate mirrors. I hate their coldness, their lifelessness, I hate they way they hang there and though they don’t judge you, they make it oh so very easy to judge yourself.
Mirrors are demons.
And these demons are not entertaining and funny ones that are on shows like Supernatural or The Kardashians
My three black cats and my dog.
Hamish, my dog and Kolchak and Darwin and Micey are my cats.
I’ve always had a dog and cats, when I was living on my own and had no dog and no cats my house was empty and scary and I only showed up there to sleep.
And that was not easy to do for a couple of reasons.
My Grandma told me cats could see and protect you from bad spirits and angry ghosts. I used to suffer from sleep paralysis and it was worse when I didn’t have cats
I have cats, no sleep paralysis.
Problem solved.
As for the dog- well, they’re there to watch over the home. I always felt vulnerable with no dog in the house.
All of my dogs have been sweet and loyal and smart and they’ve had big freaking teeth.
Just FYI.
My Herb Garden
I used to have an herb garden.
I tended it everyday with my cat Wolfgang.
He enjoyed walking through the plants, he loved to chew on the cilantro and mint leaves, so he always smelled like a pizza.
It was OUR herb garden and it was an important part of our home.
And then Wolfie died and most of the garden went wild and I don’t have the heart to make it what it once was, so I let it be what it is and that’s okay.
The Ghosts
Call them memories or reflections, but my house is full of ghosts.
I’ve lost a lot of friends and family members to death.
I’m not saying they walk my hallways and hide under the bed or stand in shadow choked corners ( it surprises me more that they do not ) but their presence is there.
I can feel it, sometimes I catch a wiff of perfume or a drink and I know they’re there.
Sometimes my cats and my one year old Lab Hamish refuse to sleep where Domino and Cerbie used to sleep. They’ll start to and then they’ll jump up like somebody just poked them with a pin and they’ll tear out of the room, on other days they’re fine.
But these ‘ghosts’ are part of my home too and it would be less of a home without them.
So those are the things that make my house a home:
Memories, security, stories, people who have been there and have either moved on and some ( both living and dead apparently) come back sometimes for a visit.
My Home.
It is so much more then lumber, wires and stuff.
What commonly accepted truth (or “truth”) do you think is wrong, or at least seriously doubt? Why?
When I started to write again I joined a few Writing Groups.
One was a mixed bag- various genres and there was almost an equal number of male and female writers.
I liked that group. It was supportive and competitive- not so much with each other but when we read our work you know we were working to take the room over, which is good. We were competing more with ourselves then each other.
Then I spent some time in a women’s group.
Cheese and wine and poetry and writing about deep feelings were involved.
For this group I got dressed up.
I didn’t focus on my horror writing which was ok, but when I went for straight up drama or journaling and read what I wrote I felt like I was going for a job interview.
In my other group I went straight from work and I work in a warehouse.
Dust and Pringles were involved.
I read whatever I had been working on that week.
What I found interesting was that in the Women’s group I got criticism where the listeners felt obligated to tell me before the offered their advice where they went to college.
And then:
” I’d have done it this way….” I heard that a lot in the women’s group.
I’m firm on this:
” I’d have done it this way “is not a criticism.
It’s showing off.
It felt like they were taking my story and making it your own. It was like watching someone flirt with my husband.
Ugh.
So I started to wonder about this concept about ” women helping women” thing.
The best advice I got was from my mixed group, I’ve worked in what were non-traditional fields ( Funeral Industry, Warehouses) and at the time there weren’t a lot of women doing that work.
So I wasn’t helped or hired by other women.
I was hired and mentored by men.
On one hand I understand that when you feel secure you don’t mind holding that door open or giving the advice because you’re feeling good about your position.
So I’m wondering, is this idea about women helping women and ideal we’d like to accomplish?
Is that important?
Or should we be helping and encouraging each other no matter what sex we are?
When I meet other writers who excite me I don’t care if they’re men or women, young or my age. I want to read them, engage them and encourage them.
Shouldn’t it be that way?
