Author: T. L. Sherwood

T. L. Sherwood lives beside Eighteen Mile Creek in western New York. Her work has appeared in Rosebud, Thema, Literary Orphans, and Vestal Review among other places.

Squirrels are chillin’ while we toil and other fun near the creek

I’ve decided to find it hilarious that I must have thought out 5 different blog posts this month – with interesting titles – but don’t remember one as I start this post, mid-summer afternoon on the last day of July.

Wood has been an interesting adventure this year. Normally, the last of the wood is being put up in September, just when we need to rearrange the house and stack a partial wall of wood near the stove. Instead, the woodshed is as full of wood as we usually have for a season and no end in sight to the pile. I am grateful for the dilemma.

I’m also incredibly grateful for the amazing generosity of fantastic friends. C and Nina Fosati dropped of a stove and this is the part that goes on top.

Isn’t it fancy? I’m a sanding fool, dancing between restoration and good enough. We’ll be painting it in a manner pleasing to the eye and the environment of the patio upon which it will stand. I’m excited and it’s a boring chore with a vast reward, so I really do find it a cheery endeavor.

Part of my quest to live in a better world involves more color. I painted the awful blue chair – loot a thief left behind – to something less ugly.

This is my first Thistle design and in person, it does not look this boring. (I was working with flaws in the wood to tell a tale of how I see plants not coping in the conditions they once thrived in.)

Work on the back of the house stalled as paint had to be hunted down and then someone sold one of the four we ordered so hopefully it will be enough.

Omg! The lack of intelligence like that in customer service has recently been wild. I’m especially singling out the “new” girl at Citizens Bank in the Springville Tops. Ffs, I was paying a little extra on two credit cards. She asked how I wanted my change. I was like what? She only applied the amount due to the account, not the amount I wrote on the slip I was playing with. I asked why she’d changed the amount and she snapped back that she had not changed it. She started over, finally got it right. As I was leaving, I said, “You did change the amount. At least own what you did.” I mean seriously, it was a mistake, but to be so snitty about it? Maybe she needs to explore a less public vocation. Tax preparer, maybe? Perhaps a mortician?

The computer problems I’m having are deflating my gusto toward the written word – reading, writing, editing. As with the wood, I will remind myself that I don’t need to fix everything all at once, just take one breathe at a time. I snagged this guy to help remind me.

Thank you for stopping by and for the read. I hope your home and world are stable. The weather I’ve heard about/seen clips of from where friends and family live overwhelms me. I am thinking about you and hoping to hear you’re safe. Sending love and comfort to those reading who need it. Take care of you!

Cheers!

Later

I heard an analogy about how life is a juggle and you’re going to drop balls no matter what, so the trick is to keep the glass ones in the air.

Financial dealings are a glass ball of sorts, so in a banking snafu caused by Key Bank when some moron in a suit decided to fix one problem, he created annoying ones that others have to live with and therefore I got to spend time in a bank today. The problem is unsolvable, so I was searching for any payments linked to a card and in the process I came across a surprise email from a dear friend. Thank you Teresa Tucker – and the owner of Julie’s who took this cover photo! It is from May and I have a shiny rock to also remember this lovely dinner with great friends.

Well, the hour to compose a blog grows late, so this will have to be enough. I don’t need to sweep up glass shards on top of everything else, so off to the dishes I go. I’m full of gratitude today and wish the same for you. Thanks for stopping by and for the read. Cheers!

What did I expect?

On a Tuesday that feels like a Monday it is also two other things. One is having been married for 22 years. I suppose we could have exchanged a card (me) and a rose (him) but it was a hot holiday weekend and we didn’t put up the roof of the writing camp I use in summer. It’s just a 10 X 10 screened in “tent” where I have some chance of being outside in the fresh air without the bugs savaging my blood vessels, but it has become a thing. We fight when we put it up. Scream, bitch, mutter under our breaths. Throw things – not at each other – there are always branches you’d rather move than work around. It always seemed a test of if we’d survive another year. Not doing it has me feeling forlorn.

Everything has extra meaning or no meaning right now. It’s a fall, gravity tugging while the air is as heavy as molasses and you swear again, you’ve done this before, heard the same things and the anger from before is still there and now there is some in every damned place. Maybe not you, but me.

I’m mad that women and trans aren’t respected enough to be considered whole. They aren’t “adult enough” to make decisions about their own bodies – not ones they’ve bought on credit – but ones they’ve lived in since birth. But 18 year-old-boys can rape and pillage and shoot the unaborted children with hollow points when they are in class learning about presidents and founding fathers but ignoring the part that those white men owned slaves and that they beat them. If they don’t learn about it, they also don’t learn slavery is wrong.

When some white jihadist with a shady bankroll starts spouting off about “owning the libs,” by doing shitty things I know it’s untrue. They don’t want to own the libs. If they were honest, they’d tell you they want to own slaves again. They want to beat and manhandle and be awful to other living creatures with no repercussions. They want to go to all white churches and be soothed with twisted biblical verses to serve their purposes. They do not weep and think Jesus was born in the wrong Testament. It’s not a mental health issue, it’s a caveman attitude and we all know cavemen have no souls.

Everyone wants to rule the world, but there are too many people on the planet to even have 15 seconds of fame so these infantile minds fall into white “supremacy” and shoot to eliminate those they have convinced themselves are beneath them. And so far, America has let them.

I am so angry about so many things and I didn’t get to vent some of that out by putting up the tent roof. Sorry, but you chose to listen.

Thank you for stopping by. Stay safe while you go off to school/work/a graduation party/the grocery store/church. I hear no guns are allowed at NRA events…

I’m taking time to admire flowers wherever I find them and I hope you do, too.

Life Goes On Until It Doesn’t

The house is tidy, organized. It’s been a massive undertaking, this year’s “spring-cleaning.”

I no longer remember the specific impetus that led to the first bit of sorting. I know I was quite sick of the mess my office had become. We’d move things in here to get them out of the way when we had visitors, and not everything made its way back to where it had come from and so I was living in close proximity to a lot of clutter. I didn’t like it, but we were storing somethings and even when those things left, I didn’t immediately do a tear down/clean out.

I know an Apex discussion a few months ago made me consider the fact that I’ll probably never publish a book traditionally, and even if I did, well, what then? The “what then” was that I wanted to live in a cleaner and more organized house. I mean, if this is it – the best it will ever be and I never write or publish again – then I’m kind of okay with my life ending up here (except for the wasting of my whole life on literature.)

One of the silly little motivational quips I have taped to my office computer says, “What you are not changing, you are choosing,” so I’ve been choosing to improve my conditions.

Life doesn’t offer a lot of choice in some matters though. We had to say goodbye to Kobi and it sucked to lose my sidekick, but he had cancer in his lungs and even if I were able to afford chemo for him, I don’t think I could put him through that. I know – supposedly – there are new options for cancer treatments but…

I haven’t picked him up yet – his ashes. That seems too final yet.

Our remaining cat made it known that a pet sibling was important, so today – weirdly enough Cat Adoption Day – I went to the Ten Lives Club. (They are a no-kill shelter, so if you’re feeling generous, they have a wish list here.) “Freddy” is acclimating now – though we’re definitely changing that name. This is what he looks like:

It’s not the same as a dog, but I need time to mourn, too.

Creative writing hasn’t happened in a long while, though I have written letters. I’m sorry if I owe you one and you haven’t received it yet. You are very likely on the list.

Until next time (or your letter arrives) I want to thank you for stopping by and for reading.

Cheers!

A chickadee home outside the bedroom window

Mundania Strikes Again

How are you? I hope this post finds you well and your problems solvable. To be honest, I can’t recall if Mundania ever struck before, but there I was, sitting on a toadstool when I noticed my feet were getting wet. I swam to the waterfall and tried to reach the diverter but I lost my grasp and fell into a never-ending chasm called real life. Don’t you hate when that happens to you?

If you’re interested in the boring version: Earlier I was sitting on a wooden stool beside a file cabinet, tabbing the folders with large letters written in magic marker on crisp white paper when I realized the washing machine should have been done by then. I walked into the bathroom and noticed the water like a crime scene. I saw the pool of liquid and marveled at how hard I must have hit something to have made the copper leak. Eventually, my attention was pulled to the larger pool and the true source of the problem. I shut off the washer, but I couldn’t reach to unplug it. I shut the water off. I cleared everything I saw as a possible hindrance. I pulled out a measuring cup and began filling a bucket. As I was filling the bucket a second time, I thought about getting some towels to sop up the water I was standing in. As if there was some cosmic joke running around on the loose, I felt a tingle in my ankle. I don’t think I was shocked, just my sense of self trying to highlight the whole “you are standing in water in front of a machine that might be suffering an electric problem,” shouting to be noticed. I looked to the electric panel, but it’s a 50/50 toss up on which switch to pull. I cleared a path to that closet for Husband to figure out when he arrives home.

(As I jot this, I’m still waiting.)

Sorry for no interesting pictures. I didn’t think to photograph the bouquets recently. I bought three and washed windows. I forgot a lot about how to host, but also remembered arcane things. In pulling away from what it turns out were contrivances, I do feel quieter and very in tune to the futility of all the things that I think are major in life – but in pursuing those, I ended up where I wanted to be. I think. Maybe. Does that make any sense?

And attuned, I’ve been. I have a “master list” of things I want to “get done” and have put off some tasks. One was taking care of the sleeping bags. It turned out that I was glad I didn’t force the issue because they were used for a makeshift bed for someone. Likewise, there has been a hesitancy to clean/clear the shelves above the washing machine and now this has occurred.

That sounds like a rationalization for procrastination, doesn’t it? Perhaps they are magic words that cast a spell and when someone says they will do something tomorrow, there will be a tomorrow – otherwise the guy doesn’t ride out on his chariot or there’s a minor tremor and Sisyphus catches a break. Who knows how the world works when myth or quantum physics enter the conversation? And look, Mr. Quantum Physics is wearing that damn green felt hat with the long brown feather again even though several variations of this entity know exactly how much I hate that thing…

Oh! Two deadlines just walked in draped in grey lace. I have to return to my toadstool now. Take care of you and know that you matter to me somehow.

Thank you for stopping by and for the read!

Cheers!

Ready for Mardi Gras; Even More Ready for Lent

How are you and I’m happy to see you here!

Well this month went fast. Until 6:45pm, it didn’t register that today was the last day of February. Speaking of which, if for any reason you are not reading Fictive Dream, you should. I am honored that Laura Black chose to include an experimental story of mine in Flash Fiction February alongside other fabulous pieces by Nina Fosati, Len Kuntz, Meg Tuite, Jude Higgins, Rosie Garland— the whole month is stellar. Please enjoy them all and the accompanying artwork by Claudia McGill. I thought her piece paired perfectly with mine.

I finished the bird story and resurrected an old one. Most of it was written 10 years ago, but there was no ending. I thought about it, reread it, even swapped it with another author for insight (Fun fact – that author was Tommy Dean whose workshop inspired “All the Love You Cannot See Told in Three Parts.”) When On The Premises announced contest #39, I went back to it again, cut the first two paragraphs, rewrote the beginning, and the ending finally arrived. We’ll see how it does, but I’m happy with the outcome.

Last week I virtually attended Literary Cleveland‘s Flash Fiction Festival. It was a lot of fun, well organized, and it generated new work. Such gratitude to Executive Director Matt Weinkam, instructors Kathy Fish, Vanessa Chan, Lindsay Hunter, Desiree Cooper, editors Tara Isabel Zambrano, Amy Stuber, Scott Garson, Aaron Burch and all the fabulous people who were also attendees! I plan to spend Lent with those drafts and revisiting some other work. I bought bins to organize and reduce. I’m thinking about pulling together a chapbook or two.Today, I sent three submissions. I won’t say I’m feeling upbeat because that might jinx it, but I’m setting goals.

Thank for stopping by!

Feeling like Janus on a Monday

The sun is shining brightly on a 19 degree Fahrenheit afternoon. Thick snow covers the ground. This “warmer” weather compresses it while it grows dirty with debris. Woodpeckers make a terrible mess. They’ve been around, same with the cardinals. I’ve already seen buds on some trees.

It’s much warmer inside, of course, where I am writing. I recovered from the trip in most respects, but I did enjoy a lot of lovely food in Massachusetts. I only have myself to blame for those extra exercise workouts I’m doing, but I’m nearly back to where I’d been in December so yeah! A little less self-loathing going on always helps, doesn’t it?

As a matter of preference or perceived talent lying elsewhere, I don’t write many short stories. There was a call for contest. I had a few sentences about a bird that I had abandoned, possibly because it was refusing to be a flash and I didn’t think it had novel potential. I pulled up the story start after getting home and it felt weirdly like a trance. I was “in” the story but I kept getting in my own way. I wrote so much more than what was required. I refuse to look back at those extra thousands of words because I don’t want to find a novel. I’m not that in to the bird. But it’s done, Nina Fosati graciously reviewed it and gave me her top line comments – and this is unheard of – I let the story sit for 5 days before returning to correct the flagrant mistakes. Last night I made Kindle read it to me twice. It might be ready to fly soon.

This month has been incredible with art, artists, and friends among them. The talented Gina Detwiler was back in town and we were able to return to one of our writing haunts to catch up. It was good to sit upstairs in Spot Coffee again. There was an unexpected letter. I watched Apex’s Snap Judgement #3 and gained some insight on what those editors were looking for in their slush. The lovely Nina Fosati let me visit for friendship, love, and hope. I and SO many other people in the writing community took a Kathy Fish “Lessons from the Sandbox”class.

On Friday, I was able to take a “Finding Your Writing Groove” class with Jerry Gordon. I’m pondering a lot of things in my life right now, not necessarily from the class, but it pinpointed several things I needed to hear at the right time and in the right order to “hear” them…if that makes sense. The day after that, we went to see live theater. It was a series of 8 one-act plays. In back of us was a person I took a play writing class with and across the aisle were two Buffalo artists I know from Facebook but met at Donna Hoke’s Christmas Potluck. Funny how everyone is connected…

So, like I inferred, I’m looking forward, looking back, and looking at the carnage around me. (I didn’t mean the “two-faced, deceitful” definition of Janus.) It’s a contemplative mood so, I’m off to enjoy that. Thank you for stopping by and for the read!

On the eve of New Year’s Eve

By God’s (or some equally helpful entity in the universe’s) grace, (or one of my best friends in the world sending protective energy,) I traveled over the holiday and I’m back in one piece. It was the first place anywhere I’ve gone to (and stayed overnight) in many years. Not that I’m a big traveler. I thought I could be once, but instead I travel through the world by reading books.

While at Niece and Nephew-in-law’s beautiful and spacious new home, I finished “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies” by Deesha Philyaw. Fantastic collection. I really loved it. I read “Killing Krause” by Lissa Marie Redmond and I wasn’t enthralled with it. I have no memory of where that book came from either. I picked up Gail Tsukiyama’s “The Language of Threads” and enjoyed its quiet beauty but put it down, not being something I could read and follow a conversation with at the same time. From my book bag, I plucked “The Weird Sisters” by Eleanor Brown and all I could think was, “Where have you been all my life?” I’m afraid to finish it. What if the end disappoints? What a pretty problem to have!

While away, I didn’t have time to worry or think about the normal things I fret over. I won’t say they left me, but I missed having them. If that makes any sense.

Before leaving I pulled up some old writing in a couple of old journals and in those pages I was able to laugh at the cyclical nature of some things, some people in my life and how we can age but not change. I’m TRYING to accept that about other’s too, but alas…It was quite difficult to think that way the last night in Massachusetts, but then again, aren’t all family gatherings fraught with some level of drama?

Some – what an adjective! Particular but unspecified. I may be writing about you. I may be writing about the anonymous family blow out at the service station along the way. About something Husband said. About this story idea that may have occurred to me while sitting around a familiar table with familiar people…

My reflections and your experience will vary and it is strange that anything is possible. I didn’t think things that happened this year would occur, but they did. Not all good, not all bad, but some were downright unexpected and lovely.

Goodness, it was some year, wasn’t it? I bid you adieu until the new one.

Cheers!

Grateful this paticular November is over

Is there is a line between what is a rule at your house and what is tradition? One tradition/rule we have is sitting down at Thanksgiving. Tablecloth, stemware, turkey, hassellbacked sweet potato with butter and brown sugar cooked in tinfoil, green bean casserole from a box, mashed potatoes, pecan pie, white wine. I hadn’t planned to stop at the liquor store the day before Thanksgiving. I hadn’t planned on going to any store at all that day, but ended up needing to get cash for the groomers. The bank – in the grocery store – IS the closest ATM.

I wanted a red for that night’s dinner; we’ve had a bottle of cheap champagne forever and thought we’d open that for Thanksgiving dinner, but walking down the local wine section, I saw this label:

Table white. On sale. Sold. Only later did I see this and thought, “Okay. Let’s giddy up and go.”

My November led into the brambles of fancy terribleness which made me hate having feelings for swaths of time because they were hurt so much. The ghastly lack of ethics in the local school district flabbergasts me. It doesn’t seem to matter to anyone either, that these politicians are so slimy. And their lies. You cannot convince me they are human. (I do have more on this subject, but the hour is closing in on so many opportunities for yeses, so I‘m curtailing a rant for now in order to shine up some stories to submit before the 30 November deadline.)

Speaking of stories…I am honored to have Like A Mango-Basil Smoothie up at Sledgehammer Lit thanks to J. Archer Avary and his incredible team. It’s sans audio, but as I alluded to, this month has been hell. I chatted briefly with Hilary this morning while she was doing a thorough house inspection. She had a similar dark spot in her month. I didn’t mention this to her, but I say the lunar eclipse during the Beaver Moon – a concurrent event not witnessed in some 512 years or so had to have had something to do with the state of the way things are. So say I, writer of this blog…the one who would like to think the chaos of this month with all the ups, downs, and slap-me-sillies happened for a reason. I mean seriously, one might just as well shame midnight and blame the moon.

This is the first “real” snow of the season. I guess we could blame climate change, too.

I’m so grateful that this little one shared some time with me.

Oh, that face! No, sorry, I still don’t know what happened. No, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn Trashzina took a hit out on a kitten, that lizard woman has shown no evidence of owning a heart. The veterinarian hasn’t called with results from the lung biopsy. Yes, it’s been a while but if a lab is shorthanded, as a pet owner, I’d prefer they deal with tests that could extend the life of a still-alive pet such as this one.

(No, we did not get a new cat. This is a picture of our cat from two years ago)

Or this one posing for a before and after a visit with Dana at Paw Spa.

I’d started the month fully expecting to work out some scenes and get to know new characters and places during NaNoWriMo. I was also going to write a flash a day. Instead, I have a few thousand words and about 20 flashes – most in need of a severe edit. But, I wrote. I took a Tommy Dean workshop from Pioneer Valley two days after the kitten died which helped so much to pull me away from grief. There was more to come. A friend who moved south in her retirement passed away, as did my aunt. One son got deployed, one fell severely ill. And I was doing as well as I could with that, but there was one more bit of news that broke me. I don’t want to acknowledge any more than this, but after that, the Beaver Moon underwent a lunar eclipse and though I’m struggling, I’m still here. I’m glad you are, too.

Thank you for stopping by and for the read. Salut!

Dear October, What A Lovely Month You Turned Out To Be

There’s a coffeehouse in Hamburg called Comfort Zone and for every dollar you spend there, you get a point. You can use your points for discounts or save them up. After eating there for several years, I reached 1000 points – enough for a special outing and what an incredible experience it was! Whisked off to the Roycroft for a tour and then absolutely delightful conversation over dinner in the library at the Roycroft Inn. I snagged a ride in the convertible back to Comfort Zone for even more magic. I had pink chips, I played roulette, and I was up at the end of the night. It was a perfect, perfect night. Many thanks to Cindy, Zenia, Zach, Liz – just everyone who made it special.

I looked at my calendar and wowed myself with how many other great people I interacted with this month. I had a long phone conversation with an old friend to catch up recently. I was able to spend time with the awesome writers Nina Fosati, Gina Detwiler, and Jeff Schoeber. I met Nicole Hebdon and her husband at an author’s night she orchestrated at the Joylan Theater. The drone of the Board of Education and the Superintendent Search jargon was nearly cancelled out by the first mani/pedi I’ve had since…quite a while ago. I had my hair cut by eight inches and Husband did not notice.

I drag him out to see the colors at dusk sometimes –

much easier to do now that the upper greenhouse chaos has “settled.”

We went to a wedding. Congrats to my beautiful cousin and Ted.

Online, I’m happy to have “A Lonely Bath” up at Sledgehammer. Thank you J. Archer Avary! Also, I’m thrilled to announce I was longlisted for The Forge Flash Competition…in the nonfiction category. I’m on the same list as Hannah Grieco -and if you know how “holy shit” that is to me, well, it just is.

Another “just is” is November, which will soon arrive, and I’ll be drizzled down a hole called Day One of National Novel Writing Month. I’m also eyeing Nancy Stohlman’s Flash Nano and wondering, “Can I do both?”

Obviously, I’m insane, but at the moment, a touch of happy, too.

Thank you for you. Thank you for reading. I hope you find magic in this scary time, too.

Cheers and Happy Halloween!