April's Real Blog

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

And it's only Tuesday, foax

Mike wants to bore you with share more reminiscences:
April,

Formerly little sis. I think I have already tired of reminiscing about teasing Lizzie in 1979. I decided to reminisce instead about Spring time. I know that technically, it’s not going to be Spring until March, but when it comes to reminiscing about things in 1979, what’s a little thing like a common frame of topic to hold me back?

I remember it just like it was yesterday. I was sitting in between a space ship and a box of crayons, with my youthful, but seriously misshapen hands against my little cherubic cheeks, looking languidly out into space (which in this situation means with my eyes wide open like I was surprised by something), “I want summer to come!...I’m bored, bored, bored, bored, BORED!” I leaned up to the window with its oddly angled window frame, which would have encouraged water to come in the house, if it could make it past the window. I looked plaintively (which in this situation means with my eyes closed) out at the falling rain of Spring time and said, “There’s nothing to do in here…I wanna go OUTSIIIIIIDE!!!(which in this situation means outside.)

Mom came over to me and explained in a calm voice (which in this situation means not really like mom at all), “You’ve got a zillion (which in this situation means mom’s math abilities are somewhat lacking) toys, Michael!—Cars, trains, boats, building sets…What more do you want?” I sadly looked in my mother’s face as she spoke and then I turned to the camera and said…Wait a minute? Camera? Why would I be reminiscing about having a camera in my house? That’s really odd, eh? Hold on, mom is telling me something……

OK. Mom said that as Pattersons we shouldn’t insult people who think they have cameras watching them in their homes, as they are the only ones who truly understand us. Now, where was I? Right. I turned to the camera and said, “Dirt.” And behind me, mom looked astonished to realize that of all the zillion toys had, she could have saved a lot of money and simply given me a nice bag of high quality dirt to play with in the house. No, wait. Mom is interrupting me. She says, “She was astonished because she did not realize what an effect her superb cleaning had on my ability to play inside.”

Well, there you have it, formerly little sis, another sterling reminiscence of my time in 1979. I think tomorrow I will reminisce about how it was Summer time and how I wished I could play inside.

Love,
Michael Patterso
Ah, now we know Y Mike got so upset when Merrie got Robin 2 eat dirt. That's MIKE'S dirt, yo!

OMG, Y, Y, Y, do we hafta B stuck in this flashback rut? Grrrrrr.

Apes

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posted by April Patterson @ 6:31 AM  

16 Comments:

  • At 8:06 AM, Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said…

    Let's face it. Your brother doesn't much like doing what other people want him to. It doesn't matter if it's getting along with your older sister, getting off his rump and spending time in the fresh air or clearing out the dead wood at 'Portrait', he thinks he's too important a guy to be told what to do and thus will disobey just to remind people of that 'fact'.

     

  • At 12:56 PM, Blogger howard said…

    April,

    I find it very interesting that even in his early days, he was obsessed with dirt. Given this history, I supposed it should have been no surprise that his first novel would be about a woman trying to survive on a sod farm, a business which depends on grass holding together his favourite thing of dirt. Someone with obsessive worries about something like dirt, usually develop compulsive rituals that maintain excessive self-control over the dirt in order to reduce the obsession. With most people, the obsession with dirt has to do with a fear of uncleanliness or disease, and they might end up washing their hands a lot to deal with it, for example. In your brother’s case, it appears that he may be managing his obsession with dirt, by writing his novel. It’s not uncommon to use writing to help someone wrestle with their obsessions. I once knew a 60-year-old woman who spent 28 years of her life writing and drawing a comic strip, just so she could deal with her history as a stay-at-home mom. So, your brother’s story about a sod farm makes sense, now that I know more about his history.

    Love,
    Howard Bunt

     

  • At 1:13 PM, Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said…

    Perhaps his next novel will be about the exaggerated dread of parental abandonment, then. He's had that fear as long as he's had the obsession with dirt.

     

  • At 1:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Howard,

    While it’s sad to see that you are out-and-about instead of rotting in prison, where you should be for attacking my sister, it’s good to see that you are applying your mind to something. However, I should point out that the fact that Sheilagh Shaughnessy ends up on a sod farm has nothing to do with me wanting to play in the dirt back in 1979.

    The story of Sheilagh Shaugnessy is just a story that occupied my mind - late at night, when sleep was impossible. I wrote an outline. Then, I wrote a chapter. It was as if I'd entered the conscious mind of someone else. A woman, whose life story has captivated me totally, as if it were my own. And that woman led to me to Canada as the bride of a Canadian solder to Saskatchewan and a desolate sod farm. So, you see, if you were to lay any blame for the sod farming on anyone, it should be Sheilagh, who married the sod farmer. As any writer can tell, the characters take on a life of their own, and you have to follow where they lead.

    Love,
    Michael Patterson

     

  • At 1:39 PM, Blogger howard said…

    Michael,

    You say that as a writer you have to follow where your characters lead. Based on that premise then, if two writers decided to write stories about a middle-aged woman raising kids and one writer decided to write her as a thin, attractive woman with a petite feminine nose, and the other writer decided to writer her as a fat, obnoxious woman with a nose the size of a turnip; then it wouldn’t be the fault of the writer, but the character herself, who decided that’s how her nose should be. That is a ridiculous idea. You can role-play all you want, but the writer who writes the woman attractive and the writer who writes the woman with the big nose, are working within the confines of their own imaginations and obsessions dealing with a woman and her appearance. To say the character leads you there is to ignore your own part in the process.

    Why couldn’t your character just as easily have worked on a soy bean farm? Or a grain farm? No, Michael. You may be trying not to take credit for how your book was written (which is understandable), but you should acknowledge that it is your own obsession with dirt that put the setting of the story on a sod farm and not a soy bean farm or any other kind of farm.

    Love,
    Howard Bunt

     

  • At 1:41 PM, Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said…

    It's nice to see that he has sort of a soulmate, isn't it. The head of the Johnston Institute for Better Living believes the same thing. Perhaps he could write promotional material for them as a sign of respect for a kindred spirit.

     

  • At 1:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Howard,

    I see the red from your hair has somehow infected your brain to think you know something of the creative process, when your life has been up-to-this point concentrated on attacking young women in broad daylight. That is hardly what I would call a background for critical analysis. You sound like one of these people who take someone’s work and then if you find out any little thing about the author’s life that is in the work, you draw some outlandish conclusion about why that aspect of the author’s life is in the book. If that is what you call critical analysis, then the world of book critique has fallen greatly.

    I even know one lady author who, after discovering her husband of 30 years was having an affair with one of her employees, was accused by her literary critics of lashing out at her husband every time she wrote even the slightest or mildest criticism of a man in any of her work. The whole idea is hogwash. When I was little, I liked to play in dirt. So what! It doesn’t have anything to do with anything else I may write, and any suggestion that it is the case, is simply another indication of the poor state of today literary criticism in general, and your mind in particular.

    Love,
    Michael Patterson

     

  • At 1:43 PM, Blogger howard said…

    Michael,

    Most of the great authors of the past have included some aspect of their personal lives into their work. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was known for its autobiographical elements. In most cases, an author cannot help to put some of themselves in the story. It’s not that I would consider you in the same league as F. Scott Fitzgerald (or even the same country). For you to make the claim that you are not putting something of yourself in your novel about sod-farming is patently ridiculous. You do not have a background as a soldier or as a woman from Devon, England. In fact, the only part of your novel from which you have any experience is that sod-farming relies on playing in the dirt, just as you liked to do.

    You can’t help yourself, but to go to it. After all, there you were reminiscing about teasing your sister, and out of nowhere, you just run to a story about how were bored because you couldn’t go outside and play in the dirt. If you weren’t obsessed with dirt, you would have told another story about teasing your sister and how much she deserved it because she was cuter than you were.

    Love,
    Howard Bunt

     

  • At 1:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Howard,

    Don’t you dare talking about my sister and how she deserved to be teased, after what you did to her. It’s one thing for a Patterson to tease a Patterson when she deserves it, but a scum-ridden, slime-bellied, piece of offal, such as yourself, does not even deserve the right to even offer my sister a bon mot if she asks for it, much less an actual teasing. This conversation is over. Why don’t you get a life?

    Love,
    Michael Patterson

     

  • At 1:45 PM, Blogger howard said…

    Michael,

    Bon mot? Huh?

    Love,
    Howard Bunt

     

  • At 2:05 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Michael,

    I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to play in dirt. I think I have spent my entire life in dirt and dust. I'm a dust magnet. But I don't think of it as dust. I think of it as the dirt and dust of far-off lands blowing over here and settling on old Pig-Pen! I could be carrying the soil that was trod upon by Solomon or Nebuchadnezzar or Genghis Khan!

    You should stand proud in your dirt, Michael. Don’t be ashamed to admit you wrote about a sod-farm because you like dirt. There is greatness there.

    Love,
    Pig-Pen

     

  • At 2:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Pig-Pen,

    When you’re right, you’re right, old friend. There is no shame in liking to play in dirt or even writing about it. I like dirt and sod farms, and obviously that spirit of terra firmatic joy has touched a nerve in the Canadian reading public, otherwise my book Stone Season would not have become a best-seller.

    I wonder if I should put more dirt into my next novel Breaking the Windjammer?

    Love,
    Michael Patterson

     

  • At 5:23 PM, Blogger April Patterson said…

    mike, hey, so y do u disagree vehemently when howard suggests u have, like, a dirt fixation that shows up in yr writing, but when pig-pen suggests the same thing, u r all, "oh, u r so rite"?

    apes

     

  • At 5:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    April,

    Formerly little sis. How can you even ask such a question? Howard Bunt is a criminal who was prosecuted and convicted for attacking your sister.

    Pig-Pen is an old and respected family friend. In fact, there were many times in my youth when I could have been easily mistaken for Pig-Pen. Some people may have considered it to be plagiarism; but I know it was because imitation is the highest form of flattery, a fact which I consider to be the highest of compliments.

    Love,
    Michael Patterson

     

  • At 7:04 PM, Blogger April Patterson said…

    huh? howard didn't attack liz, he asked her out and she turned him down, and he ended up marrying beatrice alfarero. where'd u get all this "attack" stuff?

    apes

     

  • At 2:42 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    April,

    Formerly little sis. After I told you yesterday about how I wanted to go outside to play in the dirt, I thought I would remember something from 1979 about Lizzie doing something to give her equal time.

    As you may or may not know, April, toilet training varies from child to child. My son has gone back and forth. I remember when he was a little over two years old , he had a definite sense of what the toilet was and how to use it. However, this last year, he was regularly soiling his diaper. And yet still he sometimes surprises me by wearing green-polka-dotted boxers.

    During mom’s day, it was much easier. “Grandma Marian” would call her up and tell her to do it. There was one time I remember when mom was on the phone receiver with the cord obviously disconnected from the base of the phone, having a great, conversation with “Grandma Marian”, while sewing at the same time. She would say, “Of course I’m going to train Lizzie, Mom—I just don’t think she’s ready for it yet!”

    Then she would sew some more and say, “Yes, I do have a potty…She just won’t sit on it.—Sure it’s a regular one. No, it’s not too big…”

    Then mom would look at little Lizzie walking around. Lizzie learned to walk at a very young age, and the way she would keep her balance was by putting her potty on top of her head. This would cause mom to make some kind of comment to “Grandma” like, “I’d say it was a perfect fit.” or “Lizzie doesn’t let her potty go to her head.” Or “Lizzie is very headstrong about her potty” or “When it comes to a potty, Lizzie likes to immerse herself in the subject.”

    Now, you are probably thinking, what is mom doing spending money on a training potty, when she wouldn’t do that for you? The answer is that mom didn’t actually spend money on a training potty. Little Lizzie’s potty she put on her head and walked around with, was an actual metallic, grey, pot with a handle. Yes, April, mom loved Lizzie that much and why? Because she was cuter than I was, so she deserved it.

    Love,
    Michael Patterson

     

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