Tag: links

Tiny Tuesday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARIKA! In honor of this day, I think you should do what I’m doing today. WRITE.


I used to always read the blog of Jenny Lawson, popularly known as The Bloggess. She really is one of my favorite people on the Internet because she’s smart and real and broken and mended and funny. Somehow I missed her 2017 You Are Here: An Owner’s Manual for Dangerous Minds, though I was up-to-date enough to know she and her husband were opening a wonderful bookstore in San Antonio, Nowhere Bookshop. You know, just as the pandemic hit… And yet, they are offering curbside service and taking mail orders and they have readers’ groups and book reviews–so a healthy online presence. Some of Jenny’s quirkiness has been incorporated into the bookstore, which makes it even better. Trust me, one day I WILL GO THERE.

You can check out her blog, linked above–with the must-read origin of the phrase “knock-knock motherfucker” right here!–totally worth it–or follow the shop on their Instagram account.

I now have You Are Here and it’s filled with wisdom and wit, lots to think about, and even pages to color. Like this.

I left that one section uncolored for your imagination.

Always remember, small things have greatness. (Hi, Elle–will see you soon!)

Somebody that I used to know

Yesterday I was so exhausted that I went to bed at 9 pm which would have been terrific if I hadn’t woken up at 1 AM raring to go when I should have kept sleeping. Instead I read, and finally slept again, then didn’t wake up until noon. I don’t like that at all.

Sometime in my early sleep shift or second sleep shift, I dreamed we were living in the house of our next door neighbor from The Compound days. Even in my dream, there was still a pandemic. It was my usual cast of thousands dream, but among them was somebody that I used to know. I’m pretty sure Mr. Sea Sparkles prompted that appearance. Thanks for that (you know who you are, bestower of gift).


In case you haven’t heard this song since it played 692 times a day back in 2011, I leave it for you now. Hey, maybe it, too, works as a ghost song.

Mood: Monday

The Sinister Edition.


I had a different post planned for today but I can use it later. I’ve been writing most of the day, and then was reminded of a text exchange with Marika from a while back.

We were talking about the Beach Boys, as I’ve been known to do a few times in my life (the photo above would be different if I hadn’t used that image from the Internet because Harvey drowned most of my Beach Boys vinyl collection, which was vast–Tom could attest because of the number of times he had to move it through the years).

I should add we were talking about the REAL Beach Boys, not that sad assortment that Mike Love still puts together on stage for whatever reasons he has to do that. SALUTE to Brian Wilson, the late Dennis and Carl Wilson, and the loyal Al Jardine Beach Boys.

Anyway, Marika mentioned that what the Beach Boys needed was a teenage death song to capture her heart. NEVER imply that any heart can’t be captured by something the Beach Boys have done, but I understand. She tends toward the macabre, Marika does. Comes with being a mystery writer. To be helpful, I just said off the top of my head, “Pretend ‘Surfer Girl’ is a ghost. It’ll change everything when you listen to it that way.”

I’m not sure if it worked for Marika with “Surfer Girl” (which I then had to find a way to reference in my work-in-progress because…Beach Boys) but today, also randomly, I texted, “I wonder how ‘Tiny Dancer’ sounds as a ghost song?”

Whereupon we both listened to it from our separate Gulf Coast quarantined cities and agreed, damn! “Tiny Dancer” works great if she’s a ghost.

Then Marika texted that “Sara” sounds like it’s about a girl who was murdered by her lover (more specifically, by one of my characters WHO IS NOT A SERIAL KILLER. I’m not the mystery writer here). I knew she was probably referencing the Stevie Nicks song, but I couldn’t resist asking, “Starship ‘Sara’ or Hall and Oates ‘Sara,'” whereupon I had to listen to both of them, and hand to heaven, they are both ghost songs about a girl possibly murdered by her lover.

I guess this means Monday’s mood is melancholy or murder, or maybe the moral is, don’t name your daughter Sara (hi to my niece Sarah!). Seriously, if there’s a song you’ve heard a million times and want to make more interesting, turn it into a ghost song. Or listen to the Becky and Marika Ghost Song Playlist below, with a bonus track suggested by Marika of HELL YES THAT’S A CREEPY SONG in the context of the movie The Man Who Knew Too Much: Doris Day, Jimmy Stewart, Hitchcock.

You’re welcome.

Lean on me


Justin Tipton is a Dallas-area musician I’ve followed for a while on Instagram. One day I’ll get to see him and his band Justin Tipton and the Troublemakers in person. =)

Meanwhile, he and musician friends/bandmates did this cover of the late Bill Withers. Sometimes I don’t have a lot of luck sharing Instagram links, but give it a listen. This is one of my old favorites.

I’ve been very fortunate during quarantine to “meet” musicians from all over and enjoy their virtual concerts from home.

Click for video


The Troublemakers’ album and a recent single are available for sale online. =)

Button Sunday


Y’all ever have lyric-free music in your head and have no idea where it came from or where you heard it? And you can’t get rid of it? You can’t search for it on the Internet because–lyric free! And you don’t know the artist or composer.

Saturday a talented guitarist and singer I follow on Instagram played a song that has been in my brain for decades but I never knew the lyrics so I couldn’t find it.

This is true of a few songs, including one my writing partners and I used to call our “elevator song” or “hold music.” I told my Instagram friend this. In back and forth, he gave me some guesses, and I went down a rabbit hole on YouTube trying to find it.

I haven’t found it yet. But in that effort, I found the following videos. They play snippets of songs we get in our brains and identify them for us so if we want the songs, or want to hear the entire compositions, we’ll have a starting point to find them on the Internet.

I had fun listening to them and thinking, OH! That’s what that is? Everything from classical to pop music, surf music to movie themes, big band and bossa nova, TV music to opera, and music you may hear on commercials. There may be some repeats because they come from different sources. There was almost nothing I hadn’t heard, but plenty I didn’t know the source or names of. Consider this a gift from one of my characters whose brain NEVER STOPS doing this to him–and therefore, he never stops putting it in my head.

Each video is between 10 and 15 minutes long, I think. Enjoy!

ETA 7/2/20: Found it!

“Thank you for being so brave”

The migraine has mostly faded. Processing some things right now and not sure how or when to discuss them. Everyone at the Hall is well; no worries.

Giving 23 minutes to this video by Nicole Walters, mom and entrepreneur. Twenty-three minutes is about what you’d give to a sitcom if you endured a few of the commercials, too.

This isn’t a sitcom. Nicole’s video from a couple of weeks back is raw, heartfelt, and honest. Hers is one of the voices we all need to hear. Thank you for giving your time to listen.

Click to see video

Photo Friday, No. 703

Current Photo Friday theme: Horizon


It’s raining in Houston, and I’m not inclined to go out horizon seeking in any case. Plus my photo archives are on dead computers; we’ll just move on from that info.

I went through my large collection of coloring books trying to find something that reflected the theme of “horizon.” Nothing really. I turned to my pal Google and tried different search words with “horizon” and “coloring books.” And then I hit on this page of the Wander on Words site.

OH, HOW I LOVE SERENDIPTY. First of all, the founder is Colleen Wilcox, and I’m two chapters away from introducing a new character in my work-in-progress named Colleen. Second, ART AND WORDS. Remember when I once created a series of paintings called One Word Art? It doesn’t matter if you don’t.

Google probably landed me here because of a quote from Colleen in response to COVID-19: There are wonderful things on the horizon. The good is coming. This fear and uncertainty is not forever.

The page pictured above, which I downloaded from the site and colored, uses words from one of my favorite poets, e.e. cummings, from his poem “i am a little church.”

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
–i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth’s own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope, and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish) at peace with nature
-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

I would love to teach this poem.

I can’t wait to explore the etsy shop more and pick up gifts for friends.

Stay Home

I keep trying to explain this to people. Maybe someone else can do it better than I am. This is why we are quarantined except for grocery store, pharmacy, and doctor appointments. This is why we aren’t seeing friends or having friends over to the Hall. Please read.

A Twitter thread from Bess Kalb:

My dad is an ICU doctor treating COVID-19 patients. In the past WEEK he has set more “I’ve never seen a heart rate/RBC count/etc. like this” records than in his decades-long career. What this virus does to the body is like “sticking your finger in an electric socket.”

Stay home.

He had a patient who needed 8 blood transfusions in a morning even though he wasn’t bleeding. The coronavirus was just eating his red blood cells faster than his bone marrow could make them. It’s fucking mystifying and brutal.

EIGHT. Eight blood transfusions.

If you are lucky enough to make it off a ventilator (the equivalent exertion required for that is running a marathon without training), you will likely get put on dialysis and a feeding tube next. It’s a nightmare. It’s hell. It’s what you’re risking on your beach day.

Young, healthy people are dying from a COVID-19 effect called a “cytokine storm.” Basically, you make it off a ventilator (maybe!), you get your appetite back a little, you think you’re turning a corner, and then your immune system rips through your lung tissue and you drown.

The other common way young people are falling off the face of the earth from this are the random strokes it causes. Talking one minute, stroking out the next, and then the nurses have to go through the cell phone to find “Dad” because “Mom” usually insists on coming.

There have been a few “Papa Bear”s or “Daddy-O”s in the cell phones who have tried to come in to hold the bodies.

They can’t, of course. You die alone from COVID. And you will be buried alone. Stay home.

Send this thread to any idiot fucker who posts an Instagram at the beach or a crowded park. Tell them my dad says see you later.

Also have an advanced directive because a lot of fiancés and parents are being put in UNCOMFORTABLE situations deciding. Truly, before you head to the crowded beach or nail salon or bowling alley, decide if you’re a chest compressions guy or feeding tube vegetable queen.

Healthcare workers: Share your stories (without identifiable details obviously) from the front lines. People are GALAVANTING out and about. Explain to them what they’re facing. Or worse, what they’re doing to a loved one.

Aside from practicing social distancing, which is MORE than enough, here’s how you can help frontline workers in the fight against this pandemic:

As everything is contracting, Direct Relief is expanding coronavirus response through intensified analysis, increased coordination, and expanded provision of medical essentials.

Direct Relief

And here’s how you can donate directly to frontline workers in the overwhelmed New York City hospital system, the epicenter of the outbreak in this country:

Donate to NYC Health + Hospitals Staff Caring for COVID-19 Patients
During the coronavirus crisis, we are accepting donations to help our doctors, nurses, and other health care workers providing care to all New Yorkers. NYC Health and Hospitals

My dad wants you to know he made really good polenta tonight.

I woke up to a lot of Trump people saying this isn’t true. I wish you were right! Here’s Sanjay Gupta going over the case of an otherwise healthy baseball player in his 30s who was feeling fine then rapidly declined and died in his bed of COVID:

Sanjay Gupta

We won’t know the body count for a long time because so many young people are dying at home and not being entered into an official tally. You feel fine, you get a little cough, MAYBE you go to the doctor, you get sent home (“you’re young!”), you recover, you take a turn, goodbye.

Even if it doesn’t happen to you and you’re just a carrier, since you’re spreading it, it could happen to a buddy, or to a stranger who walks by you, or someone who brushes up against something you touched. This is a once in a lifetime emergency and your boredom can be lethal.

What people treating COVID patients know is that pictures of the packed beach means some people in that crowd are going to get pulled choking off a ventilator in about two weeks and either live or die and they could have avoided that by just taking a walk.