thE other room

I've begun a new project that, for the moment, I'm titling The Other Room. Newly adopted Freya Greyl is only fourteen years old, and with the adoption comes an old weathered and faded manilla envelope with a small scrap of iron bearing a strange glyph, and a drawing... a diagram of a key.

In time the key shows her to another room within the room given to her by her adoptive parents. This Other Room, however, is as large as a world, pristine and devoid of anything, to her knowledge, other than a small island in the center of lake, the small empty cottage that sits upon it, and a forge.

I'm not at all sure of where this one will go. But I do know it is an allegory of sorts. It's not written with adults in mind, but neither is it written for young readers. There will be adult themes. There will be courage, integrity, treachery and death. Not a C.S. Lewis styled allegory, but close.

frustrations

 The last couple of years haven't been easy. The last few months even worse. At the risk of sounding too much like our First Lady, I have never been more ashamed of my country, in my entire adult life, than I am now. I hate what the president has done to us. But enough of that.... I never thought I'd be this close to homelessness. My wife can't find work, and the work I have, while rewarding personally, doesn't pay the bills. A few sentences back I made more than a suggestion as to the reasons for my dissatisfaction with the way things in this country, and my own personal life have gone.

I am NOT better off than I was 6 years ago, and I have a truculent, self-aggrandizing-- as well as media aggrandized --leader to thank for that. He is puerile and borderline evil. A man who repeatedly says he's neither king or dictator, and yet does everything such leaders do... rule by decree. 








I hate the old, now resurrected style of skin tight leggings I see on women everywhere. Like right now, at the library, I'm sitting at a computer, and there's a woman bending over in front of me not three feet away, looking at books. Nothing is left to the imagination. I can clearly see every curve, cut and line of her buttocks, legs, and 'inbetweens' (i'd hope she'd be offended or even ashamed that I'm writing about her ass right this very minute!). These are things I don't need to be looking at... it's too much fodder for fantasy! Worse still are all the obese women affecting the same 'fashion sense' ...every curve, cut, line, and lump.

 I'm a man. I eat with my eyes. Women complain that men don't pay them enough attention, yet complain all the more when the attention they do get is not what they had hoped for, or had in mind when they dressed for the day. If she walks into my view wearing skin tight top and bottoms, I'm going to look... she has to know that.