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I’ve had a blog of one form or another since 2003. There was the first Pondering Tree at Journalspace, which blew up and sucked most of the material down a wormhole back in 2008. And of course there is this one.
In the Fall of 2007 I started teaching at roughly the same time I started publishing fiction. I never expected to teach given the screwball interpretation of the hiring policies at a sister campus. The change in jobs meant a change in what I could and could not post about. Obviously I could not talk in great detail about what happened in the classroom, my own scruples would prevent that if the law didn’t. Nor could I post on certain topics which might be seen as unprofessional.
The entries changed and so did the readership. In many respects it seems to have fallen off since 2007. Part of that is due to the ongoing stall in my writing career, which seems to be holding steady at two story publications. It would help if I would write fiction, send it to market and revise older projects. However, as I type this blog I have the earphones in because the television is going.
I simply can not write any fiction with any verbal audio input. I’ve tried over and over again with the results of staring at a blank screen in total frustration. That frustration bleeds into the relationship I have with the Woman I Love and causes endless havoc. As it stands, writing a blog entry or doing non-fiction with the earphones in, tuned to instrumental music, is borderline difficult.
In any case, the solution to that problem is a writing space where I am alone and it is quiet. I’ve blogged about that before so I won’t beat that horse again.
I find it unwise to blog about the relationship I’m in, or other relationships, which also causes grief from time to time. There is an ongoing feeling that the blog should be a couples blog, which it is not. It is a writer’s blog. Maybe it might be worth the time to create a stand alone couples blog but then it wouldn’t really be mine, it would be OURS.
There is also the feeling on my part that some things truly should be private. The world doesn’t need to know every detail about my relationship with Trinity. Even the Facebook feed doesn’t feature every aspect of our love affair for each other.
Further, writing anything that even feels remotely critical runs the risk of starting a problem. Such comments are often taken as a sign of unhappiness on my part and that the relationship is in trouble.
Which it isn’t. I can’t write fiction when ANY other human being is around. I had a bitch of a time doing it when I lived with my parents as a kid and again in my adult years. I can’t seem to get it done in a coffee house or any place else where humans are talking.
It is what it is.
As for blogging about my summer job, as with my teaching, there are things I can talk about and things I can not. I love the job but I have had my frustrations, the sort of frustrations that would bleed out there in years past. To be candid, I think my greatest frustration comes from enabling parents who put their children at risk with their own behavior. That said, I can’t really go into detail about that either.
Thus, I’m left with little to say most days. If I do have something to say, it is something that can usually be conveyed in less than 420 characters at Facebook.
At Facebook I’ve had some pretty lively discussions over one thing or another, the sort of thing which used to happen here at the Tree. I also use Facebook for many of the admin functions this blog used to serve, such as an online post it note, a record of things accomplished and yes, the things we ate for dinner. Sometimes I vent my spleen there, as I have done here.
Thus I find myself wondering about the future. Perhaps a day will come when the bare dirt around the Pondering Tree becomes overrun with the pixelated weeds and creeper vines of the internet. Should another server crash take place, perhaps it won’t even be that, nothing more than digital oblivion thrown to the four winds of words written and lost forever.
Who knows?
Year 2011 – Fall Semester Prep
We went to breakfast this morning at Corner Cafe in Liberty, the last hurrah for Summer 2011. Below is a shot of the place.
After a Wal-Mart run for some last minute items, I dropped Trinity off at the Pod in order to get some work done on the car. It took longer than I thought it would to clean the windows, wash the car and organize the trunk.
On the Guy Front per the car, the plan is to organize a maintenance kit for each vehicle. Once upon a time in the Army, I had such a kit for my privately owned piece of shit S-10 that my Father fucked me over with after I got back from the Gulf.
Desert tan, folks. Not only had it been through three engine blocks by time I got it, but it was desert tan.
I really, truly, deeply wonder sometimes what that man was thinking. I should spend my independent study session with Terri Lowry writing up some material pondering that particular question.
In any case, the plan is to have a basic kit in both cars by October. Contrary to popular belief among my extended family, thanks again to my Father, I am capable of rudimentary maintenance work on the vehicles. By rudimentary I mean that I can change a battery, change the oil (not that there is a place to do that here at the Pod), check fluids, change tires . . . you get the idea.
I also need to get a full sized spare rim for the ZX-2. It makes me nervous, driving around on the pathetic sort of donut that they give you these days.
Lastly, I’ve all but decided to get a new keyboard, one of the old school clickety-clack Model M keyboards. At the beginning I can hook it up to my laptop and possible make some headway on various tasks which need doing. Later on, perhaps when I convert a space at my Mom’s into a true writer’s space, I can get a writing only computer to go with it.
Then we can see about getting this writing career of mine back on track!
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Last night I made an end of winter break steak dinner for Trinity and I using a new cast iron grill pan. It didn’t turn out too badly for a first effort though I suspect my technique needs a bit of work.
We haven’t had much snow until this morning though. Here is what we woke up to.
Well, at least it isn’t flooding like it is in other parts of the world.
Turns out Trinity came down with some sort of bug, probably the same one that has been trying to undermine my health for the last few days. Given that the roads were terrible and her health not the best, the decision was made to keep her here on this first day of the new semester.
I spent part of the morning reading the paper on the new Kindle.
For the record, that is black tea.
Later the Commanding General took over the couch while I worked on my very first batch of homemade chicken noodle soup.
The above is edited to clear up some of the underexposure. For those that have been to the Pod for parties, we see the living room in normal configuration.
Finally, the soup was more or less ready.
It seems a little bland and not salty enough for my taste but Trinity kept it down. Plutarch is taking a break so riding shotgun there is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. On this reading I notice that Scout has a thinly veiled contempt of the public education system. In fact, her attitudes mirror my own.
What I like best is that it is subtle, woven into the general narrative without cracking one upside the head with a ballbat. I wish writers would get back to this method.
So it goes. I’ll get my workout and my writing in a bit later.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
We went on a tour of Boulevard Brewery today yet sadly we failed to take pictures. Trinity had her new iPod Touch but forgot about it until we were enjoying the samples. I’ll blog on that visit tomorrow in any case.
In the meantime, I cleaned up my office area. Hopefully I can get some use out of it in the coming weeks. Normally any given desk I am assigned becomes a sort of catch all for paperwork. Just ask my cubicle mates at Longview about that.
We’ve got the basics here. Hanging on the wall behind the desk is the new dry erase board which is designed to help me keep track of everything. It has been pretty handy so far. The clock on the desk was an apartment warming present from the Woman I Love. The beverage is iced tea served in a Boulevard collectors glass honoring the USS Missouri, the latest addition to the Virginia Class submarine force.
Here you can see my evolutionary path in terms of technology. Trinity purchased both iPods though I have to admit I didn’t get much use out of the nano until she got me a Touch. The Touch, especially if you are around a reliable wifi source, is just slicker than snot on a doorknob. The Kindle is the latest addition to the electronics suite. I’ve read some newspapers on it so far but not much else. I’m going to try and get some book reading done over the next week.
Here we are in work configuration. I had fiddled with a keyboard dock for my laptop a couple of years ago but it just doesn’t work. It is best, it seems to me, to pull the keyboard drawer out and mount the laptop there. I’m typing this entry in that manner now and it seems that the keyboard does not stick as much when I type this way.
It isn’t always about me. I made brownies for us a few days back using the heart shaped pans. They turned out pretty fair.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Tearing Down Tuesday Photography
I’ve got some more shots today. Perhaps I should start by saying that just about everything I used is a combination of two or more real world elements. With the exception of Ketchum Road, I almost never used something whole cloth from our own world in Tearing Down Tuesday. The town of Circeville, Missouri, to my knowledge, doesn’t exist. But the primary model for that town is Maysville, Missouri up in DeKalb County.
I suppose some folks will insist that this is a Mary Sue story. I don’t think it is but then you can’t control what others say. And frankly, so what if it is a Mary Sue story?
Ketchum Road
I had to edit this photograph to a degree due to under exposure. This is the road Kyle travels down at the start of the story. The sky would have been clear but roughly the same hue. Obviously the wind turbines, the razorbrush and the snagglethorn are missing, but otherwise, this shot pretty much shows the road I had in mind.
The Driveway
In the opening, Kyle makes his way down this driveway past the first two robots we encounter, Saturday and Sunday. They are working on a series of salvaged wind turbines. Obviously the turbines are absent, but the driveway is there.
Abandoned Tool Shed
This was another inspiration for The Tinkerin’ Woman’s Shop in Tearing Down Tuesday. Though it has fallen into disuse, it was the original tool shed when I was a kid. Much of the clutter you saw in a previous entry was present in this shed.
And it did have a beer fridge.
The Weatherby, Missouri Post Office
This is the post office in nearby Weatherby, Missouri. Circeville probably would have looked more like this image here, very worn down, tired and battered.
The Dry Hole Bar and Grill, Circeville, Missouri
The Dry Hole Bar and Grill
Andrew Leroy, Owner
Dry before Five and Wet until Last Call
Whenever that is.
This is half of the Dry Hole Bar and Grill, the Maysville Town Diner, which has changed names over the years. Since it was Sunday morning we weren’t able to go in and even if we did, it would not represent what the interior of the story’s Dry Hole Bar and Grill looked like.
The interior is actually inspired by The Quaff down off 10th and Broadway in Kansas City, Missouri.
Not everything came from the Country as it were.
Other Shots
Additional Photography can be viewed at my flickr link, http://www.flickr.com/photos/30730762@N04/ . Someday when I grow up, I’ll be able to hotlink it.
I’ve also got more photographs to add as time permits.
Perhaps it is a bit self indulgent to go through this exercise, or maybe a bit too self promotional. Well, I am a bit shameless in that respect and I have to admit that I wish I saw more material like what I am putting up. I’d like to see photographs and images of what inspired my favorite writers. What are they drawing upon when they create my favorite places and characters?
So it goes.
The Writing Front
I wonder if I am not building up for a return to the Tearing Down Tuesday universe? At the same time, The Limb Knitter universe continues to speak to me. I should take pictures of things which inspired TLK at some point.
I did work up some plot info on a possible project but it turns out as I work on it that I’ve probably got yet another novel length project on my hands.
Perhaps what I need to do is pick up at copy of The Year’s Best Science Fiction and read some of my favorites for inspiration. The 26th Edition is out and Al Reynolds has a story within so that would be worth the price of admission alone in my book.
The Teaching Front
I’ve got to work up my American History One notes over the next few days. I’ve got a gap where Andrew Jackson is at on the timeline and I still need to figure out exactly what I am going to cover.
Teaching assignments will probably arrive in the hopper shortly before classes start. I’m pretty sure I’ll get two classes at the minimum, hopefully three to four. I’m hoping for four classes.
So it goes. I’m chomping at the bit.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
I’m way past overdue for this project but the road trip up north finally gave me an opportunity to take some July photographs of some of the places which inspired scenes in my first short story publication, Tearing Down Tuesday.
The Tinkerin’ Woman’s Shop: Audrey Young, Owner
Kyle’s parent figure of sorts is Audrey Young. She owns a sort of salvage and fix it shop headquartered out of a white barn on her property. The Murphy Family Barn in this shot is one half of the inspiration. It is actually an old hay and livestock barn.
The Seven Days of the Week in Tearing Down Tuesday make their home in the Tinkerin’ Woman’s Shop.
The Murphy Farm Tool Shed
The Tool Shed in this shot represents the other half of the inspiration for The Tinkerin’ Woman’s Shop. Oddly enough, my Uncle Paul had this John Deere Gator in for work, so you could say this gives a pretty good impression of what I saw in my mind when I created the John Deere Farmerbot Model 805, aka Tuesday.
I love the clutter of this space and the mingling of dirt, grease and other scents. You could hear the methodic beat of the electric fence generator in the background.
Lake Murphy, DeKalb Co, Missouri
In the story our protag, Kyle Hackshaw, reaches a decision point while swimming in a rock quarry pool. This lake inspired that scene, even if it is not a quarry. I think Kyle would have seen the same sort of Simpson’s July Summer Sky.
We used to swim in that lake but the algae blooms and snakes have made that untennable.
Overall Impression
I have mostly positive memories of my summers on the Murphy Family Farm. My Uncle Paul and Uncle Mike still farm up there and while things are a bit worn, the place still feels comfortable and welcoming to me. Strange that I’d set such a dark story in a place of incredible beauty.
To my eyes, the photographs, especially the emerald landscape against the brilliant blue sky, represent what Missouri truly is, a farming state with a culture and history worth retelling in fiction. The sad thing is that these days, most science fiction writers would be quietly appalled at the lack of bandwidth, Starbucks and the like in this environment.
I’ll try to post more photos this week along with other photos of the road trip.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
This is Trinity with one of her grandkids, code name: Noodle, if my memory serves correctly. We spent yesterday with the trio of them.
Which is why my entries have been sparse as of late. I’d post a longer one but Trinity is at church and I have a rare moment of time to myself. I’m going to try and get some writing done.
Later.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
Nothing X rated for readers of The Pondering Tree. Sorry to disappoint.
Corner Cafe’s Half a Heifer Burger
Trinity’s youngest son, fresh from Marine Boot Camp, said something about wanting to eat healthy. It is possible to order something healthy at the Corner Cafe in Liberty, Missouri (you may have heard of the town, a guy named Jesse robbed a bank there once) but he got this burger instead.
Since many readers are Burger lovers, I thought I’d show you what the Corps put away on our big day out last Thursday.
Half pound of angus beef with bacon no less. And it is possible to get the full pound of angus to which the Marine commented, “I could have fit it.”
Kids. Cue eye roll.
The Spring Break Photos at Sunset Acres
While the teens of the college campuses went to raise hell on various beaches around the country, Trinity and I made our way to Sunset Acres Bed and Breakfast. Our first night alone with each other took place at this establishment so it has a special connection for us. It was also an opportunity to get some time away to ourselves, recover from the last six months of pure insanity and effect some repairs to our relationship.
Well, here it is. There are three rooms here and we always go with the room whose name I can barely pronounce and can not spell at all without spell check. There is an excellent patio by the poolside and our room is the lower one with the sliding glass door. Plenty of sunshine to be had as well, which both of us, suffering from seasonal affective disorder, desperately needed.
Brenda, our host, had a picnic lunch waiting for us when we checked in. Color us spoiled.
I’m going to have my own gravity well at this point. I can’t quite figure out why I look so cross in that photo. It was a good day, I was a happy man and I had food in front of me. My sinuses were clear (something I couldn’t say about NYC where my sinusues were about to explode) so I don’t know what the deal was.
I probably waited about twenty minutes too late to get this shot. The sun had already set. I’ll spare you the kissing photo we got.
Brenda’s establishment is a working farm in many respects with a sizeable congregation of fainting goats. Yes, the goats do faint if you scare them. No, I have not seen this happen. No, I am not sadistic enough to try it (if only you could make the students faint). Trinity was going to try it until she saw the set of triplet infant goats who were hollering for their food. One of the highlights of the trip was watching Trinity and Brenda feed the goats while I watched.
I am not much of an animal person myself. I don’t actively dislike most animals, but I don’t seem to react to them either. The exception to the rule tends to be horses, who seem to trigger something in me. In any case, I didn’t feed the goats but I did help put down more newspaper because the little buggers have very active bladders.
One advantage of Sunset is the hot tub. We missed it on the last trip but not this time.
It was nice, folks. Crisp and cold outside yet hot and inviting on the inside. Trinity and I enjoyed that tub, which we had all to ourselves, a great deal.
We came back much restored and relaxed. I think the relationship is stronger for it (sometimes you have to get away from everyone who is naysaying the relationship and we have a lot of them running around). It goes without saying that in April we’ll make another trip out there.
I supsect in two weeks of college insanity, we’ll need it.
Summer Prep
I’m beating the bushes for summer jobs in a shitty employment environment. I might snag a course at the last minute but there is no way of knowing. Best not to plan on it.
So again, as with the last two summers since the Exodus from Uniguard, I am trying to find a summer job that doesn’t ruin my life. Something that gives me time to write, which isn’t too strenuous, that doesn’t chew up massive amounts of my time. I’ve got some ideas, one of which is to collect fees for the county at one of their lakes. Another is to apply for a position at Watkin’s Mill, which is a living history park that requires people in period clothing to give tours.
I have experience with that from James Country Mercantile and my time as a Civil War reenactor. Toss in two years of teaching (Jesus, two years already?) and the research credits for John Birmingham and I should be qualified for the job.
So part of the tasking this week is to get applications in for those jobs.
The Writing Front: Fan Fiction
I wrote and submitted another piece of fan fiction for the Without Warning universe created by John Birmingham entitled Coming Home. It probably isn’t up yet but I hammered it out in a couple of hours.
I may do more fan fiction for Without Warning simply because I have a level of freedom in that realm which I do not have in short story markets elsewhere.
The Teaching Front: Spinning up for the Second Half of the Semester
Tomorrow we hop back into the saddle. I start my second eight week class of American History. We’ll hit the ground running hot and heavy, trying to clear Reconstruction as soon as possible. We will also get started on their writing assignment immediately. That will use up the last forty-five minutes of class.
In my 0800 class we are moving up to the second exam. Once I finish World War I on Wednesday we’ll be in striking distance of the test. I am a little behind but not much. The class is moving smoothly enough this semester though a number of people who are not showing up are about to be dropped.
I’ve still got some grading to do for my first eight week class. Grades are due on Tuesday so I’ll try to get that knocked out. Pretty heavy attrition rate this time around. I am not bothered by that. Many students sign up for the eight week classes thinking that they will be easier.
I do my best to disabuse them of that notion.
Finally in my noon substitute class we are moving forward with the French Indian War. The syllabus says I’m supposed to test them this week but that isn’t going to happen. I think I can get them to a testing point by the last Monday of March. We’ll see. I’ll have to talk to the full time peer I am standing in for to see what their status is on their return.
Other Fronts
My new glasses will set me back $725, which is a massive chunk of change. The good news is that my eyes, given how nearsighted I am, are healthy and are correctable. The doc said I was lucky to be correctable to 20/20 vision given my condition. Still, the glasses are a bit high.
Health care? Don’t even get me started. I’m sure The Messiah will mandate mandatory health insurance for everyone. Given my opinion of insurance companies (they aren’t worth a fuck in my opinion) I am sure we will pay an undeclared tax which will make insurance companies richer without providing people like me a damned thing.
Maybe I can use the VA as an exemption, not that they are worth a shit either.
So it goes. Long entry folks.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
The Teaching Front
Today we covered the Philippine Insurrection and two pieces of literature from the time period. Most students have never heard of the Philippine Insurrection (our Nam before the Nam as I call it) nor do they know about the Anti-Imperialist argument against our involvement there. I spent time on that, telling them that the Philippines were not protected by the Teller Amendment (which prevented us from doing the same thing to Cuba) and we discussed the argument that the Philippines were not ready for self government.
Which, to my ears, sounds very much like the debate about whether or not you could get a Federal Republic established in Iraq. “They simply do not have the cultural experience,” and blah, blah, blah.
According to the research I did for my notes nearly two years ago, over 200,000 civilians were killed between 1898 and 1913. We lost 5,000 troops killed in action (that is more, at present, than we have lost in Iraq and Afghanistan) and far more than the 379 lost in combat during the Spanish American War. Granted, we lost 5,400 during the war but most of those were disease and medical mistreatment.
Finally, we discussed two pieces of literature. The first was Rudyard Kipling’s The White Man’s Burden, which is basically an open letter to the United States saying, “Welcome to the Imperialist Club.” Kipling is not often discussed these days because he is politically incorrect, fairly racist in his attitudes (racist insofar as we in the 21st Century judge him, no doubt in the 22nd Century we will be seen as just as racist in our own way) but I wanted to illustrate the Imperialist argument as it manifested itself in literature.
The second was a YouTube presentation of Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens) The War Prayer, which presents the Anti Imperialist side. Now personally, I have very little use for Twain, as a writer or as a political commentator. I also find him to be a chicken shit of the first order. Two reasons for this, the first being that he ducked out of military service before the Civil War truly got started. The second pertains to this very story.
The War Prayer was not published until long after Twain’s death. He was told by his publishers that he was committing career suicide by trying to get this story published. Twain, preferring the comfort of his pocket book, trunked the story.
That I disagree with some of what Twain says in the story is not the main reason I have a problem with the man. The main reason is that he took the easy way, the comfortable way, he slipped away from the Fight just as surely as he did in Missouri back in 1861. If he had the depth of his convictions, he would have said, “Damn the Torpedoes.”
That said, I thought I’d share The War Prayer to you, the Readers of the Pondering Tree. It comes in two parts.
It was animated in 2007 if memory serves correctly, mainly for use as an Anti-Iraq War protest tool. In any event, it allows me to convey the Anti-Imperialist message with far more conviction than I could personally do on my own. I let Twain have his soapbox, even if I find his own conduct as a writer to be rather pathetic.
Photography
Some random shots, some of which will serve as new entry icons.
Yours truly playing a Fencer.
Some personal research shots in New York City.
For those looking for more after action briefs, I’ll try to get to those soon. I’ve been a bit busy with teaching, lecture prep and trying to work the tire off of my body.
Later.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
US Burgers at Rosano’s with Birmo
I can’t figure out why this one is blurry because I didn’t take the picture. As for the yellow tint, that is a mystery too.
From Screen Left: Tarl of New Hampshire, Myself, Trinity, going across the table to CraigWA and finally the Master Burgermeister Himself, Birmo.
Trinity’s Meal
My Meal
Note for the log: That was some fair sangria there.
And earlier in the day we took care of the obligatory NYPD photo for Trinity at the Times Square Subway Station.
It is a funny thing. I never ran into an asshole the whole time I was there. Well, except for that twit who is kissing Trinity. I need to kick his ass. 
More later.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
A sample of things to come. After Action Briefs later today and this week.
Umm, the hot chick is Trinity. I don’t know who that asshole is she is kissing.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
Those that done said stuff