Do You Care?

DO YOU CARE?

I was driving down the highway just when afternoon rush hour was letting up a bit. My exit was coming up and I maneuvered over to the right lane. I thought about putting on my headlights, but I also think about taking piano lessons, and numerous other things that I should do, all the time. Having my headlights on wouldn't have helped me see but it was that twilight time of day when oncoming and passing traffic is much more easily seen when they have their headlights on. But since I don't take piano lessons, I didn't have my headlights on. Anyway, as I was exiting off the ramp, I noticed that the guy in front of me was acting as if he were looking for a parking spot in the middle of the exit ramp. It really wasn't that astute of an observation seeing as if I didn't have a windshield I could have reached out and stolen his rear license plate, or if I would have turned on my windshield washer I would have sprayed his trunk, and I'm sure that I'm exaggerating to say that my wiper blade would have combed his hair (because he was wearing a hat). So I hope the picture of him going too slow is clear, and if it isn't let me just clarify it by saying that he was motoring at a insignificant fraction of the 45 M.P.H. speed limit posted. Though the ramp was wide enough for two cars it wasn't meant to be a two-lane ramp, just an extra wide one-lane ramp.

I decided to be a good citizen and not jam up traffic as this car was going to do if he kept at this pace. Did I mention that it was a blue Chevy? I'm not sure what year, because that is not one of my talents, and honestly the only way I even knew that it was a Chevy is because it have small, steel lettering above the keyhole to the trunk. I don't know why I mention the fact that the car ahead of me was a blue Chevy seeing as it has nothing to do with the story, and the outcome of the story would not be changed even if it had been a Ford. I think the only one who it would have mattered at all to was the owner. And since who the owner of that car, that could have just as well been a ford, but, in fact, was a Chevy, is doesn't matter I think I'll just forget about it. So, seeing as I am such a good citizen, I decided to pass this blue Chevy, whose owner isn't significant to the storyline, on the exit ramp that was wide enough for two cars, but probably made for one.

To make a long story short ... I hit a Beaver as I was passing another car. I saw its eyes look up at me seconds before I felt its furry body under my wheels. I'm sure that if you would consider one of those Bearskin rugs to be dead then you would second my opinion that this Beaver was dead. I knew it as soon as I looked in my rear view mirror.

After I felt my tires pass over him I slowed down a little but when traffic started catching up to me I put my foot to the gas and drove home. No, I didn't stop. I already own a bearskin rug…

I forgot about the incident at the next traffic light. The only reason I remember it now is because I needed something to write about. When my conscience asks me if I feel bad for killing a Beaver I shrug and say, "I don't care." Actually I don't say it aloud, I just think it so that no one thinks I'm weird for talking to myself. People might think me weird for shrugging for no reason, but not for talking to myself.

Now I admitted a situation I was involved in where I really didn't care about the outcome, where someone else might have. What I would like to know from you is if you care about things such as whether your next-door neighbor has a job or not?

Do you really care about the starving children of Hollywood or where ever? Don’t you leave food on your plate in a restaurant sometimes, and then afterward find that you're still hungry and pick up a snack somewhere else?

Do you give to charities? What a noble and forthright human being you are! I bet you also like the tax deductions. Would you still give the same amount to charities if it wasn't tax deductable?

Oh, I know you. You work for one of those Endangered Animal organizations, don't you? Do you really care when a species becomes extinct? Why does it seem you only crusading for the cute ones?

Are you one who fights to get the violence taken off T.V.? I bet you're also one of those gawkers who slow traffic to look at accidents to see if there is any blood. The violence in real life promotes the violence on the tube. When there is a bad accident I like to watch the passers by, safe in their cars. More people turn toward the accident, counting off bodies on their fingers, than people who turn away searching through their glove compartments for an old Burger King bag to show their inner feelings. And the networks know this! Violence sells -- it's clear and simple. The viewing public wants to see blood and gore, both in real life and on the screen. If enough people were turned off by it they would turn off their sets and the networks would get the message a lot faster than from the few hundred letters from the "weird" portion of the population. The rumor that T.V. sets explode if off for more than fifteen hours a day is not true! You can turn it off. T.V. withdrawal is not fatal, nor are the symptoms permanent.

Maybe T.V. is the best thing that has happened to the modern world. Maybe it keeps all the gooks minds blank so their warped minds can't function and find destructive things to do with their idle time. Maybe T.V. is beneficial. I hate to think of what the "Dukes of Hazards" fans might do if they had the extra time on their hands. We should be thankful that there is enough worthless broadcasting to keep these type of people busy sitting in front of their boxes day and night.

So do you really care about starving children, endangered animals, charities, auto accidents, and T.V. programming? Be honest now…

Honestly Yours,

èim  Uhr

P.S.   I care about all those things…

Oh yea, about the Beaver story,

I just made it up. I knew it would

be easier for me to get you to admit

 to all your faults if I pretended that

 I had one of my own.

This ALMOST looks like a setup

Another DO YOU CARE

A blast from the past...

A FRIENDLY DRIVE

I was driving down the road the other day, when I flipped out. It wasn't a new song on the radio. It was the curb that caused it. Before I knew it I was doing summersaults.

My car landed right side up and I staggered out. I, literally, spit glass out of my mouth as I gazed disbelievingly at my car. People stopped and were asking me questions, but I just alternated nodding and shaking my head without listening to them.

My car ... me?

Not a bruise. Not a cut. The glass didn't even cut the inside of my mouth. Not one thing was wrong with me… No, I wasn't wearing my seat belt.

As my brain finally started excepting messages my eyes were sending it, I noticed my windshield lying a few feet from the car, shattered, but nearly whole. My newly bought side mirrors were, naturally, broken off. There was mud allover my car as luckily I had rolled on grass instead of pavement. The passenger side of the roof was smashed in a bit, my door was bent in, and the right rear fender was smashed.

Someone said I must have been listening to the radio to hit a rock and roll.

Somehow I got the idea of trying to start my car. Since no damage was done to the hood or anything under it, I got the car started without any trouble.

I ended up driving the car home, with no windshield in below freezing temperatures. I shook all the way home, partially from the cold and partially from shock.

One the way home I thought of something that Winston Churchill once said, one of my favorite quotes—

 "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."

I made it home without getting pulled over, even though it's illegal to drive without a windshield.

I can still remember (in flashes) that sensation of turning upside down and rolling. Things flashed by so fast. I saw parts of my life in quick, unrelated glimpses. Then, in mid roll, I thought to myself, "This is a dream."

Microseconds later I realized it wasn't a dream, that my car was rolling over and I was in it, and that I would be late for work. I wondered why it rolled. Was I rolling up a hill? Through lanes of traffic? Was I dying? Had I ever lived? Was my car paid off? Did I have clean underwear?

A feeling soon to be forgot, but a time long remembered. If the feelings that one has during an uncontrollable moment in one's life could be totally recalled, I doubt if many mistakes would be repeated. But the only thing that is truly remembered are the after affects, and they never seem to be quite as bad.

Yes, how easily feelings are forgot.

Trying times can test us and show what we're made of. I'm not sure what I'm made of, but I know that I don't like tests.

It sounds unusual, but I think Cicero made a lot of sense when he said,

 "There is something pleasurable in calm remembrance of a past sorrow."

Maybe it's just the fact that the adversity has been survived, and it makes present adversities seem conquerable. Something Friedrich Nietzsche said helps shed light into Cicero's statement:

       "What does not destroy me makes me strong."

You are stronger from living through past sorrows. Also past troubles seen through memory's eye always are less sharp and out of focus then is the pain of present problems.

Remember the lesson of the day — Brakes, steering and even good friends can fail. To remain strong without becoming bitter is the trick. Friends don't care about your failures, and they care only to beat your successes. The best one can ask of a friend is to tell the truth when you need it, also to lie when you need it, and to listen nearly as often as they talk. Many times I find myself praying like Marshall de Villars.         — "God save me from my friends

                  I can protect myself from my enemies."

I expect distress from my enemies but when it comes by way of friends it is unbearable. I guess I just have to learn something that Agnes Macphail put well by saying,

“Do not rely completely on any other human being, however dear. We meet all life's greatest tests alone."

I guess when you have news that makes your life miserable the best thing a friend can do, from his point of view, is to exclude you from his life so you don't make him share in your misery.

"Heaven for climate, hell for company." — James M. Barrie.

Half my friends are in heaven, and the rest just have their heads in the clouds.

Dearly befriended,

èim  Uhr

P.S. It's funny the way

       one thinks of friends

                          in times of sorrow. I

                          can usually think of

                          them, but I can't talk

                          to them. 

Drive me away                                       RIP or RID(rest in drive)

                            We all crash alone

Extremists and Other Extremities

Extremists and Other Extremities

                                                                                                     By Tim Uhr

            Follow your body… lose your mind. To lift weights -- or to read a book, my choice was as easy as the choice between a dumbbell and a scholar. My choices were clear, but my answers were opaque. As I wrestled the choice over in my mind, I grew weary and fell asleep.

Was my body seeking sleep as a form of rest, or was my mind searching to find new universes in the realms of sleep?

While I slept I dreamt of chocolate covered army ants. They were still alive. Helplessly struggling in waves of chocolate. They were almost cute, with their little blindfolds. You had to shoot them before eating. I didn’t have the heart, or a small enough riffle…

So much to do, and so much time. I only lack the energy to succeed at everything.

From networking to needlecraft, each stated phrase speaks to the coming phase that leads to a craze, which can only bring me more grays.

Which train do I board?

Any nice tunnels ahead?

With so many openly going on the wagon, while multitudes of others coming out of the closet, and still more standing for this, or sitting for that, it all makes me kind of dizzy. And with my head spinning will I miss my turn?

Right of Left? Sure we should all vote, but when I finally make my mind up—the light turns red. Leaving me faced, with red. And I’m not bluffing, just blushing.

But I try to fit in. I bought an exercise bike, a self hypnosis tape, a computer, went to karate class, bought a crystal, a fax machine, a gun, a pair of one hundred and fifty dollar tennis shoes, a cell phone, a case of Dove bars, three jazz records, a flower, and meditated in my spare time. That was last week.

Needless to sat I never actually got around to meditating, and my list wasn’t quite as long as I wanted because my sixteen charge cards were all over the limit.

I soon found out that you can’t have it all. I was getting close but I was robbed and left with nothing but the bills. When they say “You can’t take it with you” I hope there talking about the debts.

Life is full of little choices: You can exercise the biceps or the brain cells. There is no middle ground. One side detracts from the other. It’s like a balance scale where one side is physical and the other is mental. On this roller coaster we call life – hills abound and the scale is never balanced.

Physical fitness seems to be winning the war—every where you go there are muscle men and women. On the beach the muscles have become more important than the tans. I call it the “parade of chests.”

But is this fitness thing just a fad? Will it go the way of hula-hoops, pet rocks, and mood rings? One can never tell. Who would have ever thought that rock n’ roll would still be around after more than a quarter of a century? The Who indeed.

Staying in shape is an important goal, but anything taken to extremes scares me. Just as Hitler went to extremes in trying to rebuild Germany (rebuild it into the whole world????), as did Diane Witt of Worcester, Mass., by letting her hair grow for eighteen years. Her hair was measured at ten feet, nine inches in 1989.

I guess I never did believe in being an extremist. I have never allowed myself to get wrapped up in anything. I like to spread my interests around, this keeps me from succeeding at anything and thus I don’t have to focus my attention on any one area for too long, keeping me from ever growing bored. People well-rounded are like balls that bounce from one thing to another, never coming to rest in any one place long enough to be at the top.

Specialization is the modern way. If one puts their concentration in any one area, chances are they will become very good at it. It can be very gratifying to be able to say that at least you were good at one thing.

It used to be called “having a one-track mind,” but that was before it became “in.” Perhaps that’s why there are very few athletes who play more than one sport. It goes against the grain of specialization. Sometimes it amazes me that so many people are baffled when someone tries their hand at two different sports. You think that there aren’t a lot of baseball players that can’t play football, and visa-versa? But I like it. I think it’s healthy. I wish we could bring back a little of that “jack-of-all-trades” philosophy. There are exceptions. But most likely it will never become common. Try finding a handy man these days.

Nothing is permanent. Nothing lasts forever. Muscles turn to fat, which eventually turns to dust. Even taxes, which grow, eventually get so large they explode into the controlling government’s face. This isn’t what the government.

Health and fitness is slowly replacing the couch potato mentality. Don’t believe for a minute though that TV will suffer, because soon it will be that instead of eating potato chips and drinking beer in front of the tube, it will be lifting weights and exercising while watching your favorite TV show. TV is the base of all modern human life.

I once succumbed to the fitness frenzy. I bought weights. They were heavy. Hard to lift. Lifting them made me tired.

After lifting the dumbbells a few times, I actually felt weaker! So I immediately ran to a mirror and I swear I could see no difference in me. I didn’t think I looked at all like one of those body builders I see on the beach. When I’m with a girl and I come across a muscle man I always try to point out that I’m probably smarter than they are. Maybe.

So, if after lifting a weight, I don’t see any improvement in my physical stature, what is the sense?

After a week of depression from my failed foray into musclebound mania I came up with a solution. A plan. A blueprint of success. Thinking power to solve the mystery of the physical:

Instead of lifting these artificial weights, I decided the smart thing was to go natural. I found the environmentally sound solution. It starts with drinking beer and eating potato chips and ice cream. With this strict regiment I figure I could gain an extra twenty pounds around my mid-section within a month. Then, by lugging this extra twenty pounds around all day, instead of just a few minutes with those artificial weights I would get fitter more quickly. Naturally. (Isn’t he the shortstop?)

Life is what you make it. Adversity is how you take it. And to get to the top you sometimes have to fake it.

I have a problem with faking anything. The only one I can ever fool is myself. What fun is that? Probably rates right up there with exercising. And with this thought I finally hit upon my ultimate solution—I will fake exercising. Therefore killing two birds with one stoned. And everyone must get stone. Or is that rock?

Remember: A beer in the hand is worth two bushes…  Or is it buds?

No. No. No! “A dead bird in the bush is worth two hands.” Or is it, “A rolling bird gets stuck in the moss, and thus can’t fly.”

Anyway, you get the point. I hope.

I think it’s time to run (I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to run around the block a few times to clear my head) before I start mixing metaphors or something equally as revolting. Because it is important to remember that when you mix a metaphor improperly the cake batter turns out lumpy.

End.

Did I just awaken my spirit?

Can it Dance?

Where am I now

that I am awake?

Let me know which of the above links you like the best...

The Sun Is Normal

The Sun Is Normal

What is love?

I was in love once, but then the mirror cracked…

My shattered love tumbled to the floor in shards that glistened up at me and my reflected tears.

I doubt that I could ever fall in love again. Love just isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I have never had anyone love me. Nobody likes me, so how can anyone love me?

My heart has never been broken. I am still, basically, in one piece. I have never felt that special ache in my heart, and dryness of the throat that no amount of liquids can quench. When my throat is dry a beer or a coke will usually do the trick. It is said that the sun appears brighter through the eyes of a person suffering from love. Well, at least I don't need sunglasses!

Who needs love? Can't plains, trains, boats, houses, poles, and rocks function just as well without love in their lives?

Love makes the world go around, maybe that's why everyone is so dizzy. You say that love is blind: I say to get some glasses and steady your head as well as your sight. But why is it that those who walk steady fall so hard? It would seem they only fool themselves by believing it impossible for them to ever fall, so they don't see it coming even when it's obvious to all those around that one more step leads them over the edge. Thus, the unprepared fall hurts all the more.

With a philosophy like that you may wonder how I ever hope to keep from falling. But remember, you have to be on your feet in order to fall. I don't plan on falling, especially with my back pressed firmly to the ground.

So this "low" view of the world brings me all the more close to my foes. After all, how low do you have to go to be an enemy of mine?

What is hate?

I hated someone once, but that person found out and left me all alone.

I doubt I'll ever hate anyone again, it always seems to hurt me more than the person I hate.

I have never had anyone hate me… nobody knows I exist (or cares), so how can anyone hate me?

My eyes have not burned with fury for quite some time. My eyes are blank now, like openings of a cave. My brain stalagmite. I can be found starring off into space, or walking the streets late at night just to feel the wind blow through my brain. No thoughts are cleared by the breeze, and none enter by way of it. I only walk at night so as to come across as few people as possible. Well, at least I don't need sunglasses!

Hate makes the world ever changing and exciting. If we could all just get along, it would be boring. We would all be peaceful and healthy – probably living forever. But I’m not sure what the “official definition” of “alive” is. I mean, is a petrified forest considered “alive?” Living forever in a mummified state, the wrappings separating you from any potential conflict doesn’t seem too satisfying. I’m not too sure anyone lives in such a state of bliss today. Doesn't everyone seem to have ulcers? Hate causes arguments. With arguments there is a conflict of opinions, and this many times has been known to lead to enlightenment.

I am a liar. Earlier I said that I do not love or hate. I stated it knowing full well that it is not so. Thus, I lied. For I love to hate and I hate to love. Only the man above can decide my fate. I, just a man, not great, sometimes good, sometimes bad – but most often sad. My tears – dry before they fall – know no hope. Justifying a dope, I still give it my all. For my tears will pass, sorrow will last, but my heart won't fail.

But tears are just water. They can be shed in sorrow or joy. The heart is just a muscle doing its job, efficiently but with no emotion.

I am a mere human. A mass of protein and nucleic acid. I am the result of millions of years of evolution. Cells grouping together, taking on individual functions to better serve the whole. My blood, devoid of its cells and proteins, is just seawater. A soul is untouchable, so it does not exist.

I have no soul.

I do not love and cannot hate.

 I am.

Therefore I am.

But I don't care…

                                                     Normally Yours,

èim  Uhr

P.S.     I love starting out a weird article

           (I thought they were all weird), but

           by the time I reach the end I hate it!

          (Is that why they're always extra short?)

P.P.S.

         I just added this to make it a little l o n g e r.

Slice me

On Writing

Funny Things: Like Rain, or Writing Mistakes (Like Too Long of Titles Which Take Up Two Lines, Instead of the Usual One Line, For Most Titles.)   P.S:  Three lines for a title are okay.

Rain is a funny thing.

What is rain? Be it beast, person, or mineral. Surely it is not living, but if this is so then why do we say “It’s raining cats and dogs,” and not ‘it’s raining like cats and dogs?” Of course these cats and dogs could be dead, and even if they were alive before their descent, I’m sure that would no longer be the case for long after a fall from a cloud to the impact with the ground. It’s a long fall… Yet, winter seems to come quick, and last long, but spring, unlike fall, or, I should say autumn…

Rain? Oh right, back to the subject…

Is rain good? Is it bad? Is it indifferent? Is it necessary? Is it wet?

If you faithfully answered, “Who cares” to the above questions, chances are that you won’t read on. So now all that I have to do is figure how many people are going to express that universally common, valid feeling, so that I can determine if I should go on writing. Read on. Right on. Write?

Well, let’s see. A quick review… I started off by saying that rain is a funny thing. That is a pretty catchy thing to start off with, but does it make sense? (I would rather make dollars than sense any day!) I mean, is rain really funny? Have you ever seen anyone looking out a window on a rainy afternoon and laughing hysterically? Has anyone even chuckled politely at rain?  Has rain ever been a punch line? Well, actually I can picture a line for punch, especially if it’s spiked! But who would wait in line for rain? Would even being caught in a rainstorm without an umbrella make anyone giggle?

I bet not.

No, maybe I didn’t get off to such a good start… It isn’t good policy to start off and article with a false statement. It works much better if you slip them in somewhere in the middle. This isn’t political writing but I would at least like it to have the same semblance of deception.

So change the first sentence to “Rain isn’t a funny thing.” There! That’s true enough and still catchy enough to satisfy for an opening. It may not be brilliant, but remember that there aren’t too many who can squeeze water from rocks, and I would rather have rocks upstairs that a totally empty belfry. That would drive me bats!

Then I ended the first paragraph. Should have I have ended it? Yes, I think so; it’s complete by itself. Also I don’t want this article to be run down by long, tiring paragraphs, and especially long sentences which seem to drag on and on and on with no end in sight, making the reader’s eyes water, and wearing down, his or her, which ever the case may be, brain to a point where he or she, again – which ever the case may be – doesn’t feel like reading on, and the whole point is lost and the readers begin to wonder if maybe the keyboards period key is broken, or some possibility such as that, if they are tenacious enough to make it this far, which most people today have the attention span of a teensy-fly, so they probably baled out long ago and are now watching funny videos on You Tube of people falling down, which all tends to draw from the whole message the writer, me, is trying to make, even if it is a worthwhile cause. So I’ll try to stay away from that.

There are many writing problems. I come across them often enough. Because I write them down when I see other writers make them, I totally avoid them.

The worst mistake that I can think of is not necessarily the run-on sentence. The incomplete sentence can also very often get on a person’s nerves, and don’t think that for one minute, or maybe even two, that just because a sentence happens to be extremely long, seeming to run on and on forever with a deluge of words, like standing under a waterfall looking for a drink of water, turning the trusting reader blue without a chance to take a breath (which may actually be the most healthy thing for you). I promise to avoid them, too.

Another thing I try to do is to keep my printer heads clean so that the e’s and o’s are not all colored in. That can also be a great strain of the reader’s eyes. Yes sir, I really try to keep up with my e’s and o’s.

But I guess that as long as the article is interesting and makes sense with a strong ring of truth to it, that either warms his heart or conversely chills his soul, the reader can put up with a few extra long sentences, along with some extra short ones, and maybe even a few colored in spaces. As long as the piece in question draws a solid conclusion and doesn’t just sort of ramble on at the end as if the writer doesn’t exactly know how to end the article. Possibly because there was never any purpose to the whole mess and no final conclusion could be drawn from his work on a day when he really had nothing to say, you may know that I’m a fanfaron, but I don’t like to boast about it. You may feel embarrassed spending your time with no form of remuneration, trying to grasp the meanings of niggling prose scattered throughout. You feel especially obtuse if you went through the trouble of looking up some unmomentous words that he tossed about, because you felt left out in not knowing their meaning. You find no punch line at the end because the writer really had little to say throughout the whole mess of words except a few fragments of thoughts that he never really tied together. Tying ideas together is sometimes like tying your shoes, if the stings are weak, nothing’s going to hold. By the end it becomes obviously clear that these random thoughts could never possibly be joined in a conclusion understandable to anybody, especially the writer.

So as not to do any of the above mentioned I will end this article right here and now and leave you in awe of it.

                                                   Mistakenly yours,

                                                                                                     .                                                                                èim  Uhr

            P.S. Next time I won’t try to write about rain on a sunny day...






South Central Rain                    England Rain?
               Madonna                         Is your reign wet?                             When Wet --- Sing!
   Drops                      ...and Mondays                              whatz dis bout?

From the archives... "What's next?"

WHAT'S NEXT ?

I'm not sure I will ever write another word again…

After years of rolling dice and drawing lots, of struggling with characters and plots, to just trying to think of something that I haven't already said, I just may shut my mind off and go to bed.

Starting approximately ten years ago with cartoons and puns, I realized I couldn't draw, and grew bored with tangled verse. I dropped the comics all together, or maybe they evolved into the never-ending scribbles present on every single long land first draft I have ever written on any topic. The puns turned to poems and satirical verse. I envisioned many of the poems with music set to them, to someday be heard on the radio, although I can't write music. Eventually, I realized it was all for naught, they would never be set to music because, despite my "long piano fingers," I was never musically inclined. Though I hummed the melodies in my head and pictured each instrument flowing with the words, I knew all along that I lacked the know-how to make other people understand. So I set my poems aside for a day when I finally decide to take advantage of my "long piano fingers." Someday I'll take lessons ... someday.

In my search to find ways to waste ink I described imaginary battles and football games on paper. I ran in literary circles just to help me jog my memory.

Then a thought occurred to me, "Wouldn't it be nice to be an author?" As you can probably summise, with a fulfilling writing background such as I have described, this was not quite the perfect stage in ones career to sit down to write his first best selling novel. It is often said that a person’s first novel can never be expected to be a best-seller, but I would like to see the one who sits down at the typewriter with the intentions or dreams of doing anything less. It started off easy, even though afterward no one seemed to understand that the first chapter really wasn't part of the main story. It was just sort of a symbolic recapping of life up until the beginning. At least I knew the format I wanted the book to follow. After all, doesn't everyone attempt to write their first novel in the style as their favorite book? At least I could see the similarities between "A Mixture of Men and Martians" and Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles. "It was set off in the same type of short, distantly related chapters. A Mixture of Men and Martians isn't so clearly defined in years as Mr. Bradbury's work of art, but it does contain progressively timed stories about different, unrelated people and places as the Earth nears destruction with Mars left as the only sanctuary.

The length of the book grew as I fought to fill empty pages. But I soon found it exasperating to try to bring in new situations and characters into each new chapter while making the whole thing evolve and show some sort of time lapse from chapter one to chapter three hundred and ninety-five. Each chapter became fragments of unrelated stories. By the middle of the book I found I could not go on unless I were to ruin the format and start tying things together by using the same characters throughout the rest of the book. I couldn't give up my first attempted work of art without suffering severe mental quirks. So I poured out my cup of sentimentality and ruined the format. One thing I never knew until years after writing A Mixture of Men and Martians" was the Ray Bradbury wrote much of "The Martian Chronicles" as separate short stories, only later to be collected and tied together to form a book.

Every one of the stories from "Martian Chronicles" flowed much more smooth than any part of A Mixture of "Men and Martians" did. Even using the same characters throughout the rest of the way it dragged on to a point where I had no idea what my next word would be, let alone the next chapter. My characters acted at random and dice and lots were common solutions that either led them right or left. I didn't know where I should end it or how. But I just knew that I didn't want it to end too fast and have the world think that I coped out on my first best selling novel, so I did the gallant thing and on and on I forced it.

Then at the point I determined to finally end it, it ran fairly smooth again as I had led from the present state of chaos to the final conclusion. I almost hated to end it ...

The worst of "A Mixture" hadn't yet begun. You see, since I had written all the material out in long hand (and mostly still do) my two fingered "peck typing" is a holocaust after a work of any length. I typed night after night growing bored and irritable, reaching a point near insanity, I had to wrap it up for a while or run the risk of being wrapped up myself for good (I do admit I look lovely in white). I typed it on and off for over a year, keeping any new project as short as possible, making some revisions on "A Mixture" along they way, until I had it done.

Once it was done I put it down without rereading it. Later I would make a feeble attempt at selling it, but basically it stayed in my drawer most of its days. The only thing I learned from it is the kind of thing one learns from a first attempt at something such as this; Mostly, never to write another!

So it was fun for a while with short stories. But after all my "off the top of the head" plots were down I found it hard to dig up new story-lines. So the, at one time, barrage turned to a trickle. I started stories, finished stories; but rarely put the two together and completed one. I had fragments of stories scattered all about. And don't believe when they say these parts of stories and ideas will save for a future time when ideas don't come so readily. "You can sit down with a part of a story you had written long ago and forgot about, and magically the story, which in the past wouldn't work itself out, writes itself."

BULL. Write down ideas to be used at a later time and it might work, but the minute you start the story, either finish it or forget about it, unless you're in the likes of Mark Twain. I find that when I attempt a Mark Twain job I end up with the beginning of one story and the end of another. Mark Twain set stories down for years and came back to write them so that none were aware of the break. Some scholars say they can tell where he took his breaks, but I think these may be mere guesses. I have trouble setting a project down long enough to get a nights rest and not have it suffer for the gap. Many times it turns into a whole new story, leaving me to wonder where it would have ended up had I finished it on that first night.

I hope that someday my beginning fragments will equal my ending fragments. I have already planned on that glorious day I shall put them all in two bins, separating beginnings from endings, and draw one of each out at random and mail the resulting stories to my favorite editor. No SASE will be included.

At one point in history it dawned on me that what I needed was a way to air my fragments of thought, thus came the article writing. Maybe it would be possible to restrain my fragments to articles and finally get them out of my system, so I would be able to complete a few stories.

This article writing was something new, fun, allowing me to be my usual cynical self. It also led to my taking a first shot at serious science writing. Actually, I can't say for sure if I started "Born With a Bang" before or after my articulate writing, but they are closely related and one was bound to lead to the other. "Born With a Bang" was a pleasure to write. It was probably the most unique writing experience I have ever had. Even though most of it was common knowledge to anything even close to a scientist and could be found more clearly explained in any of a hundred other sources, I was quite proud of it, in my own insignificant way. It seemed to me, at least at the time, that I tied everything up a bit better than anything I had read up until it. I can honestly say that I wrote it before I had heard anyone else mention the possibility of the Universe becoming one big black hole in the end. I found afterward that it was just common speculative knowledge, and I did see the possibility mentioned quite a few times after. In that article I tended to boast of it as if it were new knowledge, almost a new discovery.

So "Born with a Bang" has a place in my drawer close to "A Mixture of Men and Martians." It is my drawer that is full of papers, while my wallet is only full of cobwebs.

I have written more articles than anything else (except maybe poems) mostly because they’re so easy to write. It’s not often you get a chance to shoot your mouth off about nothing (see "Thinking of Nothing"). In my articulate writing I can get serious for a moment or two, I can let loose with all my insanities waiting to bust free, I can ramble on, I can change topics in the middle, I go at my own pace, but most of all, I can grow tired of it. It seemed inevitable that I would grow bored with my articulate writing, which I hinted at almost at the start. That’s the magic of them though, I can set them down at any time, but somehow I have the feeling that I will never be able to put them down for good.

But where do I go next? Is it time to set my pen down? Close the drawer on my articles? Is this the last page in my tablet? I can see the headlines now, "Wishy-washy Writer Retires at age 21."

Yep, I’m the first to admit that I’m over the hill. I just wonder if I’ll be able to swim it, cause like the song says; "Over the hill and through the river, to grandmothers house we flow!" …No, that can’t be right…

Ah, we don’t get wet after-all. "Over the river and through the hill, to…" …er, what a dumb song!

Do people actually get paid for writing things like that?

                                                               Sincerely,

èim  Uhr

P.S.   The only question left is WHAT IS NEXT?

Well, after quite a few years I published a novel titled "Touched" so I guess I did continue to write...

Remember youth, though beautiful...

Isn't always well spoken.