It seems I can’t work at my laptop for any significant length of time without eyestrain in the form of blurred vision. Now, I don’t think anything pathological is happening to my eyes. I suspect it’s simply a matter of needing trifocals for my work. My laptop sits in arms length away from my eyes, which constitutes the mid-range vision that trifocals provide. And since my current prescription doesn’t compensate for that, I get blurry-eyed pretty easily. Next week, I’ll see my optometrist and press for the appropriate solution.

Struggling forward, I’m trying something new to keep up with blogging. I’m using voice-recognition software to compose my posts. For the most part, the software works well, but the real adjustment is in thinking out loud. I’ve been composing at a keyboard as a writer for thirty years now, dating back to when I was a technical writer right out of college. I had access to word processor before secretaries did. Heck, I had access to word processor before personal computers existed in the workplace. So to suddenly compose aloud is a far bigger cognitive shift than I expected.

Consequently, it’s almost impossible to write fiction aloud, so I’m trying it for blogging where the stream-of-conscience thought process is more conversational and far less intense.

We’ll see how this works out based on how often I blog. More entries means I’m making the adjustment fairly well; less entries means, well, less success. I’m going to give it a try because ultimately it may help with everything from blogging to e-mail to writing letters to my family. Here’s hoping!

And I’ll let you know when the new eyeglasses are on order.

I haven’t visited central Illinois since I was a young adult, and it’s like rediscovering a part of the country I never developed a decent appreciation for in the first place. I enjoyed reconnecting with my dad and visiting with relatives. The weather was perfect, although the region had just come off a long bout of heavy rain. Farmers were still waiting for their fields to dry out and everyday the past without planting was a day of increased worry. By week’s end, we did see tractors out working so the situation had improved greatly.

We did a lot of Lincoln outings, visiting his house in Springfield and, to my surprise, learned that his father and stepmother had ultimately settled not far from where my mother grew up. I think we’ve now officially visited more than half of the official National Parks places associated with President Lincoln.

Returning from Illinois, I had only the slightest of breaks before I was off to attend Book Expo America. As American publishing’s premier trade show, it’s really something to behold. You might want to visit my other blog, Pursed Lips, to see what I came away with there.

Returning from BEA, I spent two weeks writing a new book proposal, a task that consumed me until I completed it. And wouldn’t you know it, but no sooner did I finish it then my son moved into his first official apartment. (Can you say “help me move, mom”?) It’s a big step for him, having lived for several years in independent living programs as a disabled young man. The lease is in his name along with his electric and soon to be established Internet accounts.

So that’s what’s kept me away, but now all’s said and done. I’m back and ready to blog.

Usually, I chalk it up to this hard winter’s cold and move on with my day. But today I felt its chill. Andrew Wyeth has died.

The art world will forever debate his merits as a artist, whether he qualifies as contemporary or parochial, but I remember him for one thing: The affect his noted Christina’s World had on my late mother. Perhaps my mother was drawn originally to Wyeth’s work because, like the rest of America, she was drawn to its realism in an age of abstraction and confusion. But when she saw Christina’s World, she felt someone had captured the essence of her experiences as a thirteen-year-old girl. No other painting ever resonated with her like Christina’s World and I will always remember her telling me, her ten-year-old daughter, about the work as one of the most revealing stories she ever divulged to me.

When she looked at it, she saw herself in that field, crippled by polio and shunned by the rest of the world. When she looked at the field, she saw not the rough, hilly lands of Maine, but the broad open expanse of the prairie of Illinois. She saw obstacle and ostracism. When she gazed at the dour, distant house, she saw the deep poverty of The Great Depression. She saw a place where rural Midwestern jobs were so scare, her father would not find work until the World War II forced the railroads back into business.

My mother saw the sorrow of her young life in that painting, but Wyeth gave her something in return. He gave her a sense of dignity, a sense of acknowledgment and validation. Yes, he seemed to say, your experience was real. Claim it and move on.

Typical hardened Yankee stoicism.

I suspect Wyeth had to be stoic about Christina’s World. The The Museum of Modern Art paid a measly $1,800 for it, and today it hangs not in a large exhibit room but in a small, obscure hallway of the museum along with a few other pieces MoMA had no idea what to do with.

I know. I came across it last summer when my daughter and I spent an afternoon there. She had gushed with excitement, finding herself surrounded by the very works she’d studied in college art history and media classes. I had basked in her enthusiasm, glad I lucked out in giving her such a meaningful experience. But when we turned that one corner and brief in that small, cramped hallway and spied Christina’s World, I almost started crying.

I did not expect to find myself before the very revelatory work that had once give me such insight into my mother’s heart. I did not expect to find myself passing on the tale of my mother and Christina’s World to my daughter then and there, right before the very symbol of my mother’s crucible.

Coincidentally, it’s 9 degrees Fahrenheit in Cushing, Maine where Wyeth painted Christina’s World and it’s also 9 degrees in Shelby County, Illinois where my mother experienced polio and poverty. Somehow, we’ve managed to reach a balmy 16 in here north central Connecticut. But I’m even warmer, thanks to an old memory made fresh.

It started on my hands, just a dot here and there, ala topical dermatitis. At first, I thought I had managed to get a bit too much sun. (Yes, I’m photosensitive too.) But I couldn’t peg when I’d been in the sun enough to trigger a rash. And then it began appearing in places where I hadn’t sunned myself. (No, not where the sun don’t shine. My torso, which hasn’t seen the sun yet this summer.)

Its spreading pattern was different than a photodermatitis rash. The spots on my face were a touch too weepy and elevated. The spots on my right arm grew into distinct patches.

Eczema. Yuck.

I was born with the condition and spent my first year in bandages. I’ve had two huge systemic outbreaks in my life where large patches covered my body and I needed a course of prednisone to overcome it. While this outbreak isn’t yet that extreme, it might become so if I don’t get treatment.

So I wait. I shower enough to keep my skin free of sweat but not so much that my skin dries. I rub cortisone cream on spots when they flare. I try to stay out of the heat and sun. And I faithfully continue to wear cotton clothing, something I’ve habituated thanks to a lifetime of skin problems.

Still, tomorrow can’t come soon enough!

It shows how ingrained the creative process is in me. When I was younger, I was very immersed in classical music studies but left conservatory after my freshman year in college because it too limited my world. (I was, I suppose, the ideal liberal arts student — interested in everything.) But for years afterwards, I would sometimes dream compositions — full symphonies or symphonic poems — and I would always awake startled and disbelieving.

I’ve come to accept this element of my subconscious mind, but it still continues to fascinate me. I am in awe of it.

But, you might well be asking, what’s with me that I’m not writing more? Well, three things: I’m focused on promoting Inequities, which takes time away from writing. I’m taking time from drafting new work to recharge the batteries. And, probably the only frustrating reason, both family and friends have been interfering with my time during the last two weeks. (Their demands are necessary and not all at out of bounds, just bunched up more than usual.)

I can stave off the exaggerated dreams — by editing. So I’ll return to editing my next novel, an erotic fantasy likely to see print as a two parter. It’ll help. But sooner or later, I’ll have to take up my third novel and continue its tale. And for no other reason than to quell my mind and spirit.

Weirdness. It’s why I love being a writer!

I won’t complain because a week ago Saturday, I spent my afternoon with the wonderful women of my local chapter of the Romance Writers Association. I can’t tell you how refreshing a time I had. Years ago, when I was just starting to break into erotic short fiction, I went to a couple of writers conferences, and I can’t tell you how out of place I felt. Erotica was just too underground an entity for either literary fiction or quasi-genre circles. I can’t tell you how good it felt to tell other writers I wrote erotic fiction in completely comfort. Thank you CORW members!

But I should also thank all you readers out there. Whether you’ve been with me from the start or have found me through the cross-over, genre bending worlds of erotic romance, I owe a lot of my dogged persistence to you.

Now that my persistence is getting back to normal, I’ll be blogging more. Keep an eye out, won’t you?

Spun off from Pursed Lips, my long-running weblog about sex and culture, it certainly does all the things you’d expect of an author site. It highlights my work past and present. It either introduces you to me or reconnects us. It points you to various forms of online content I’ve created.

For those of you who are long familiar with my work and Pursed Lips, much of the content will be familiar to you. (Although I should point out that I’ve restored several pieces of Pursed Lips miscellanea and most of my Yes Portal articles in the archived writing section.) Still, I hope you’ll check out the new digs.

For those of you new to my site, welcome. Take a look around. Stay awhile. Get to know me.

Unlike its companion blogs Pursed Lips and my newly-launched Thin Air Codex, Incidentally Noted will be a casual stop for me. It will reflect snippets of my day, carefree observations, and anything light-hearted. Where the other sites reflect the thinker in me, I hope this blog will reflect my more playful side.

Let’s see just how impish I’ll get, OK?