It’s time to get my feet wet on this board. By big toe is almost in. I am thrilled to be onboard with publicliterature.org.

My book was just released yesterday and  I am walking on air. Much of my work on Author’s Den gives one an earful of my unique voice. This week, I got a local musician to collaborate with me on a video to promote my book, ALL ROADS LEAD TO HAZARD. That was the most fun I have had in years and an earful of good vibes.  The band is The Chef Dave Band, a mix of jazz and rock.

Life is high and dry in these hills. It is so parched here the grass feels like Astroturf. Whatever hit Virginia only gave us a spit of rain. Not much to do except look forward to the debate tonight. My sister graduated from Ole Miss. You feel Faulkner in the breeze there. We toured his home and the occasion overflowed with photo ops. Someting I ate in Oxford  gave me the worst case of heartburn ever.  Maybe the candidates will not suffer that malady. America needs some souped up Pepto-Bismol to settle us down.

So, I have stuck my toe in these waters. I will return to the river of words soon. Check out my blogs, videos and work at Author’s Den and at http://hazardgal.com Glad to share this time together.

I tell him where I’ve been;

he has been nowhere else.

And I rest my head and wait in

darkness as he talks of pineapple.

He recounts Hawaii and every

car he ever owned. Veterans

linger with memories random

as bingo. He asks if I have ever

been in a jet. He asks me if my

hands are still cold. I feed him

bites of ice cream and hear

someone swear down the hall.

He says bananas grow upwards.

I say my hands are warm now.

Each morning I see the difference. More

and more joists and rivets and a river idling by.

A river that whispers in this drought and looks

skyward. Men that hoist metal with cranes;

huddled along train tracks, often leaning

on old tires. I cross the old one twice a day.

Grooves worn deep. Now, I am half asleep,

and vines creep beneath the rusty bones.

I have come to a dead stop.

Writer’s block is real as a flat tire.

But the way my wheels hum upon

the old bridge is assuring. And

I have a toolbox bulging with gadgets.

Men in yellow hard hats are ripping

and reaching the other side in

near darkness. Maybe I must burn

one bridge to begin another. Maybe

my arms can span the diminished waters.

My last watercolor is a mess. That is, it looks terrible if you stand too close. All the colors conflict and the freckles look like leprosy. But when you stand back, you see the charm in the little girl holding her breath.

The world seen up close can be hideous too. The debate last night had that look. In rallies and photo ops, these candidates have an aura. Standing within a few feet of each other, the picture was hard on the eyes. The current that flowed between them was toxic. Sparks seemed to fly out of Sen. McCain’s eyes. It might have been easier if he had spontaneously combusted.

What a proud moment in time, for our nation to have an African-American citizen in a first presidential debate!  I am very proud of him, myself being a daughter of the South. The baggage a Dixie childhood brings with it includes some racial dirty laundry. What matters is that we saw that time pass and we can see the difference the Civil Rights Movement made in our lives.

Up close, the anger that disseminated between these two politicians was just plain ugly. To me, it was a thousand points of darkness. Sen. Obama held up well and smiled despite the poisonous arrows hurled his way. McCain grinned. There is something to be said about the way people smile.

Others can study the body language and the language of hope. It did not fall upon my ears last night. Sen. Obama was put on the offensive early on. I felt like I was watching a boa constrictor swallowing a baby chick. Believe me, I want to stand back so the picture looks better. From here it is as pretty as sludge.

History will paint these times in subtle hues or brassy shades. In the future, when we stand back from this moment hopefully we will see greatness and determination. Maybe we will see leadership. Posturing does not make a good portait alone. Sen. McCain may grab his favorite Sharpie and scribble out the mess in Washington, as he claims. All I can say, is thank God artists and writers can envison and invent things. Thank God I am one of them.

Maybe I won’t bomb like her. One network even used the word “stupid” for her delivery. For an instant, I felt compassion for her on that one. Maybe I have empathy because I will be the subject of conversation in our little paper next week. I want to feel the power of womanhood surge through my veins. Maybe all women cringe when another female cracks under pressure. In her case, it is often more of a fly-over answer. I may have to utilize that technique.

I hope I can go to sleep tonight. In past years, I wondered if our local paper would report either of our sons’ pitching records correctly. I crossed my fingers hoping they might be on the front page of the tiny sports section. I lost sleep enough. When our daughter was part of the state championship drama team in 1997, I bought a truckload of papers. The kids have had their glory days. Now I have a shot at fame.

My press kit is ready to go. I have written a half dozen blurbs about my book. If only I could get Sarah Palin and her Teflon smile out of my head. Then and only then, will I be able to think straight. ALL ROADS LEAD TO HAZARD, has cut a path for me. I take the first step in the morning. Maybe this qualifies me for vice president.

We all have those confounding moments. Times when you lock yourself out or lose a coffee mug in the house. Maybe you are like me and can’t type. I took typing in high school and bombed that, just like I blew a typing test for a job. I think my hands battle with each other. Maybe it is my brain that is the true battleground.

I am ditsy. I may not seem that way at first. My British ancestry must give me that polished image. My husband is mostly of Irish and Norwegian ancestry. His influence has freed me. The word “should” is seldom used here. We live on a play-by-play basis, I’d say. Ditsy is accepted. I know partly where it must have come from.

When I was about ten, I had a big thump on the head. My friends, male and female, and I lived in a place where new homes were being built. We spent all our free time making forts and swinging from vines across the creek. My house was just below a circle. Our band of trespassers had been constructing a lean-to, with lumber the contractors left after a job. Normally, we used whatever we needed. We used the bathroom outdoors too.

For some reason on that day, I jumped on my bike with a “See y’all later. I have to go potty!” I flew down Old Springhouse Lane like Lassie running to a near disaster. That is all I remember. Even to this day, it is a black hole in my memory as strange as being abducted by aliens.

Pure and simple, I wrecked. My sister had been playing with gravel just above our driveway. When I cut my front wheel to the left at that troublesome spot, I body slammed myself. Nobody saw me crash. I got up, dusted myself off and went into my house to use the bathroom.

My mother wondered why I was taking so long. When I think of this moment in time, I feel queasy. It’s a wonder I didn’t go in the bathtub. When my mother went in to check on me, I was babbling. That is, I just repeated the same sentence over and over, they tell me. Maybe she thought the body snatchers had found me. My family hunted down my band of friends and tried to solve the mystery. It was like television when the satellite goes down. They had to get my signals uncrossed.

So, a trip to the family doctor did the trick. I remember smelling salts. If more than that was needed to snap me back into reality, I don’t know of it. Today, there would be an M.R.I. and much more.  I am sure there was a pump knot on my head the size of Stone Mountain.

Kids bounce back fast as Bolo balls on a paddle. You know that wooden gadget shaped like a porkchop that has a rubber ball tethered to it by a long rubber band. In no time flat, the gang was back at it, building our Taj Mahal on an empty lot. We hunkered down in ditches like it was wartime. We threw red dirt clods at any invaders. Instead of blueprints we had pokeberry juice on our fingers.

The day we wandered out to the shack, to find every board gone was when the whistle blew. Construction workers were onto us. Things had to change. I had even snuck into a home almost completed and threw a paper wad onto a newly varnished hardwood floor. To this day I feel immense guilt about that stunt. Kids really know no boundaries unless they are prickly as barbed wire. We collected slugs, the metal kind. We were a menace in our subivision. In fairness, my parents were strick like most. Emerging subdivisions just seemed ripe with mischief, like the Wild West. The new frontier was such a temptation. In time the open spaces and uninhabited homes were done for. Much more than a just a loss of innocence, I think I lost something too.

My head was knocked to the ground like I was a blow-up punching bag. In this day and time, when I am forgetful, I wonder if I didn’t get rewired when I had my bell rung on that day. Truth be told, I have been ditsy from day one but the day of the bike wreck is a wrinkle in time for me. Maybe you have been there. If you go into the bathroom and don’t come out, there you have it!  Brain farts are regular as rain.