Stephen motivated me to write more in one of his posts.  So this is my third post in 3 days.

Just wanted to talk about the joy of having the futon I got free at Santa Cruz out on my back porch.  I sit out there in the morning, look at the view, read, and have coffee.  It’s awesome.  I stretch out on the futon when I get tired, take a nap, and feel the breeze pass over me.  I can feel the love of God.  Well, maybe it’s just my imagination, but it’s what I think it would feel like if God was trying to comfort me and make me feel like all is right in the world.

 

I got rid of the weight machine yesterday.  What a relief.  It was blocking the view on the deck because it was covered with a tarp and I couldn’t see Mt. Lassen when I was sitting on the futon.  Guess that futon was just the motivation I needed to see about pawning the machine off on someone.  I was a little sick over it because I spent about $700 when I bought the machine and the motor for The Spotter Stephen and I worked on.  I guess I was the only one to have an investment of money and that’s why it was more important to me that we do something.  However, in the end, it doesn’t take much to defeat a dream and I’m as susceptible to negative thinking as anyone else.  The people I gave it to were as happy to have it as I was to get rid of it.

This morning I went out and had breakfast with Sue Edmondson and her husband (Sue reads my writing and offers critiques) in the little town of Dana.  G.C. (Grover Cleveland) is her husband’s name and he makes banana pancakes when they’re in town.  They mainly live in Reno.  I’ve stayed a few times with them there.  Sue offered some great suggestions for the book I’m writing on the society where only 5% of the students are taught to read.

My neighbors down the road were reading my other book, Consequences, which is about the consequences of prejudice, but they said they stopped reading because of the religious aspect of the book.  But I appealed to their reason and flattered them by telling them their opinion means a lot. (Which it does).  They called me today to say they’d finished it.  I’m anxious to see what they have to say.

Lastly, I’ve been converting all my books to epub so the computer can read them to me.  It’s an awesome way of editing and evaluating a book.  I’ve already listened to Consequences and it’s almost ready to go.  It’s a great story.  I was listening to A Warrior’s Son this morning in bed and then on the way to the Edmondson’s and back and got all the way to page 51.  I thought it was very good except for the first few paragraphs.  They didn’t flow very well.  There was another section where Jake and his friends went to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban.  I thought it was a bit too long.

I’ve always had a concern about the chapter where Jake thinks he might have sex, but it is well done and not as risqué as I thought. I believe that this book will have a real place in the lexicon of American literature as related to children, families, and war sometime in the future.

Well, I managed to write almost 600 words, so will stop.