What's the story here?

Photo by Patrizio Martorana

Our brains are wired to make sense of the events we observe. When it cannot put together the puzzle pieces from our observations, our brains will simply fill in the blanks. That's the point behind those tests of how well we can read sentences that are missing vowels or have such a hard time spotting extra letters. Based on previous experience, our brain sees what it wants to see.
I think another way we're all wired is that we all share a need to turn our experiences into a narrative. If you've ever heard the phrase, "It is what it is" and disagreed, I think you're tapping into this impulse, or this imperative, or whatever it is that provides the perspective and the point of view to turn situations into story.
"Bad life, good anecdote," Carrie Fisher used to say, and I embraced that phrase as my mantra.
But it's not just writers who do this.
When I worked for Los Angeles Magazine, I car-pooled with two women who could not have been more different from each other and from me. One was an elegant ex-model whose husband was a handsome, successful executive. The other was a careworn mom whose life had been full of sorrows--an ex-husband who supported the family (or not) as a gambler, a first-born child who died from a reaction to the polio vaccine.
We were locked together in a small space for at least 90 minutes a day and sometimes longer and as women do when they're together, we talked.
Often the talk was trivial--about work, about movies, about people we knew. Sometimes the conversation was heavier, about an abortion one had had, about seemingly insurmountable in-law problems that were wreaking havoc in a marriage, about hopes and dreams and aspirations.
And one day we saw the piles of rubber bands at an intersection.
M saw them first and remarked upon them and J and I looked and thought, Huh. That's odd.
And that would probably have been it except that not long after, we saw another pile of the rubber bands--the skinny little ones--at another intersection.
Before long, we were seeing the piles of rubber bands all over the place, as if droppings from some big rubber dog that would pass by unnoticed, leaving its scat behind.
It almost drove us crazy trying to figure out the significance of those piles of little rubber bands.
and then one morning we came in to work very early, for reasons that escape me, and the mystery of the rubber bands was solved when we saw a paperboy on a corner putting them around his newspapers before loading up his bike.
The best advice my father ever gave me was, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."
We were disappointed when we found out what was really going on.
Because we wanted there to be a "story" there.

Recipe for a fall afternoon--Pizza

Photo by Szazlajos

It is actually cool here in the Southland, which is kind of a relief. I like summer as much as the next person but when it gets to be the middle of November, I'm ready to put away my shorts.

Since it's cool, it's time for pizza and I am not talking about ordering up from Shakey's. I'm talking about making it yourself. It takes a little longer but trust me on this--it's worth it. When I make this for parties people follow me into the kitchen to get fresh pieces before they exit. 

Once you eat this pizza, you will never, ever be able to go back to store-bought pizza, which is why I post the recipe every year.  I got the recipe from my mother, who got it from her friend Eleanor Trigg (along with an odd lemon/currant dessert recipe that I don't remember her ever making and which has sat unloved in the back of my recipe notebook since I inherited it in 1986).

Eleanor Trigg’s Pizza as interpreted by Mickey Tomlinson as handed down to me…

2 pkgs of bulk pork sausage  (I use Jimmy Dean’s hot.  You can also use turkey sausage)

1 yellow onion, diced

½ cup (or more) dried Parmesan cheese (in the green canister, not fresh)

Garlic powder to taste (you won't need as much if you use "hot" sausage

Italian seasoning to taste

2 large cans tomato paste

Lick of olive oil

Story for a Wednesday: The Temperature at which Love Freezes

Here in Los Angeles we're experiencing our sixth month of summer, but I remember winter... Here's a new story for a chilly day. Because somewhere it's chilly.

The Temperature at Which Love Freezes

By Katherine Tomlinson

Credit: Websurfer6

The front door shut with a soft but emphatic click as Jonathan slipped out of the house. Even though he knew Kaye wouldn’t have heard it—she slept like a hibernating bear—he still found himself looking over his shoulder to make sure she hadn’t wakened, that she wasn’t following him with her furious eyes.

But Kaye had merely grunted and turned over, burrowing deeper into the 600-thread count sheets and goose-down comforter.

There was only one person who would send Jonathan a text in the middle of the night; only one person whose text he’d read in the middle of the night.

Jonathan had grabbed the phone, fumbled for his glasses on the bedside table and read the message without turning on the light.

Come outside. I have a surprise for you. <3 span="span">

She’d attached his favorite picture of her, the one he’d taken after surprising her in the shower.

With barely a glance at his sleeping wife, Jonathan had slid out from beneath the covers, squeezed his bare feet into the fleece-lined slippers Kaye had ordered online without checking his size, and padded silently across the carpeted floor. 

He’d tied his plaid bath robe tightly before venturing out into the cold, well aware that all he had on underneath the flannel was a pair of thin cotton boxer shorts.

Outside, Jonathan breathed deeply. Purged of the vague day-time petroleum scent that always lingered in the wake of rush-hour commuters using his street as a short-cut to the freeway, the night smelled like pine needles

It's Here!

It's been a long strange trip to this Election Day.
It's all over but the voting.
I think we all deserve a breather. 
I found this joke on Man Walks Into a Joke, which bills itself as the "ultimate joke collection."

A man goes up to a politician at a party and says, "I’ve heard a lot about you.'' The politician replies, "But you can’t prove any of it."

Where do you get your ideas? The Noir Version

I am often asked, "Where do you get your ideas?" In some cases, that's code for, "Why don't you ever write "nice" stories?" (Those people should know by now that I don't do "nice" and they should  be glad. Writing dark fiction allows me to channel all the anger I feel toward stupid and cruel people and prevents me from being arrested for homicide, justifiable as it may be.) But I digress.
Like everyone else, I get the usual spam--for Canadian pharmacies, for penis extensions, for questionable legal transactions in Nigeria. These email missives go straight into my junk folder and are deleted en masse every morning.
But today I got an email that tickled that little spot on the back of my neck that tingles when the universe hands me an idea that might be a story if it percolates long enough.
It was from Marriedbutlonely.
Eeeeuuuuw.
The ads are aimed at guys, and promise that the women on offer are all "neglected housewives" looking for nothing more than a little fun.
Seriously, what could possibly go wrong?
There's a story here.
It's an old story for sure, but now with a technological twist.

Election Day Fiction: Participatory Democracy

The new issue of ThugLit is out and I'm delighted to say my short story "Participatory Democracy" is one of the stories therein. The issue is ONLY 99 cents, so fire up your reading device or kindle app and go get it. Special thanks to editor Todd Robinson for his excellent suggestions for making the story better.

Our fellow citizens need us... and the Red Cross is there

I grew up in hurricane country. When I was a kid, Hurricane Camille roared through Richmond. The James River rose out of its banks. The Army (from nearby Ft. Lee) flew in water but we got ours from a spring in a park that was walking distance. Snakes slithered up from the river. Our cat, Purry Mason, picked up a poisonous snake and dropped it in our kitchen. It was, "they" said, a "hundred year storm."  Three years later, Hurricane Agnes did even more damage. (At the time, it was the costliest hurricane in history.)
My brother joined a volunteer crew sandbagging downtown buildings against the hurricane-driven flood surge. The water peaked many feet above where they thought it would.
I have friends who were living in New Orleans when Katrina hit. They were lucky--the roof blew off a storage facility they used and they came back to mold in their house but both of them survived without losing a day of work--one is a web designer, the other teaches for Tulane's online classes.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime storm.
And now we have Hurricane Sandy. Someone on Facebook posted a comment that the storm should hve been called something dark and dire because "Sandy" sounds so chipper and cheerleader-y.
I like the way New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is looking at the disaster--tabling the divisive discussion of what is causing these super weather events and getting down to brass tacks--what can we do to protect and prevent such future disasters.
But in the meantime, it's a mess.
And we all need to pitch in and help.
Donating to the Red Cross makes it easy.  Here's where to go. Donate money. Donate blood. Every little bit helps.