March 31st, Chapter 10 may end

Spring is here, people. It may be hailing, or raining, or windy, or muddy, or freezing, but the equinox has come and gone. Trees are budding, birds are singing, and things are punching their way up out of the ground. I've given up moping around and I'm writing again. I'm also looking for a new snappy title for this memoir I'm reading to you every Tuesday night, so if you have a great, good, or mediocre idea -- I'm open to it! Something sexy. But not dirty. Remember Tobacco Road? Good, no one remembers that, it was 1,000 years ago. But Erskine Caldwell wrote things that made people pretty sure that some steamy happenings were taking place among the young people populating his backwoods areas. Places like Newburg, Missouri. People that were a lot like the folks back home. Help me think of a title that conjures up young teens drinking orange vodka out of coffee mugs and dancing to rock and roll in a basement. Anything?

If a tree falls in the forest ...

How many weeks have I been reading now? I'm near the end of Chapter Nine. I have one faithful listener that I know of for sure, and there's evidence of others but I haven't read or heard your feedback, so I don't know if you keep coming back or shut me off after a few minutes. Hard to say. I thought writing was lonely sometimes! Ha! Nothing compared to reading aloud alone in my room to my phone and wondering whether who is tuning in.
When I finish the memoir, I will read my mystery novel "The Hounding."
On June 3, the station owner Lillian Cauldwell and I will produce a radio writing workshop. I will lead a writing for radio seminar, a 101 type of thing. One on one feedback, 90 minute sessions, a limited number of participants. We want to produce radio theatre, like the old days, but with today's writers. This will be fun, and it will be affordable too. Watch for it!

Women's History Month

If you missed Dmae Roberts's Stage and Studio on KBOO FM last Tuesday, here's a link to the show. I'm one of five women appearing on this fine/fun broadcast:
http://kboo.fm/stageandstudio

If this link doesn't get you there, come to my FaceBook page (Sandra Hussein de Helen) and link it from there.

See you tomorrow night on www.PIVTR.com

Marching on! More sex stories in the following weeks ...

Talk about a poor little thing, but look at me, I was happy. I had both parents, I had my doll Susie, and I had relative freedom. I ran around the farm, mostly unsupervised, because either my Mom trusted me to be "good" and not fall in the pond or into the cistern or pick up a copperhead snake, or else she didn't care, and I chose to believe the former. I was about 3 years old in this picture, no siblings in sight, my dad usually gone somewhere working, just me and my mom alone for weeks at a time. No electricity, no running water, no near neighbors, no near family. Kerosene stove, kerosene lamps, hot summer days and nights. Mom trying to scratch out a vegetable garden and praying for rain. A few chickens to lay eggs, no real farm or farm animals. One exciting day was when Tom the cat found a nest of baby mice in the barn. I got to see them before they were dispatched to heaven. By Mom. Or maybe they weren't. She didn't like to kill things. I'll have to ask the next time we talk. I liked to sit at the edge of the pond and watch Tom try to catch frogs. He wasn't very good at it because he didn't like to get wet. This took up a lot of both Tom's and my time.
I spent time with the 3 musketeers again yesterday, but they let me tell the stories this time, so I don't have any new ones to share with you. They were very interested to hear about the practicing for sex that I did with Sharon ... I told them they should be listening to my radio broadcasts. YOU have, right? If not, now's a good time to check out the archives at www.PIVTR.com, because I know you don't want to miss the good sex stories that are in the archives.
And be sure to tune in tomorrow night!
For Women's History Month, I'll be on KBOO.FM's Stage and Studio tomorrow at 11AM Pacific Time. If you miss it, you can pick it up online after tomorrow. Dmae Roberts is an excellent host. Tomorrow she's having 5 different women reading their work. Check us out. You won't be sorry.

Chapter Seven, moving right along ...

Stop! Don't move along, there's plenty to see here! Check it out. Tonight we are already in chapter seven ... we are going to end the summer of 1956, and begin 8th grade with the dreaded Mr. Sadler. We'll come back to the beginning and pass it. If you don't know, we started the book with an attempted rape of the 12-year-old Poor Little Thing, then her own decision to give up her virginity to 15 year old Ronnie. Now she's trying to live as though nothing has happened, but life isn't that simple. Rumors are flying and she has to face up to reality -- tonight! Come join me at 7pm Pacific Time at www.PIVTR.com ... log in about 5 minutes early so you are all set, because Lillian the station owner will put me on the air as soon as I call in, and I may start a couple minutes before 7. She does this to allow me to finish at a good stopping place.
It's going to be a fine evening for curling up beside your computer and listening to me read to you for 30 minutes. Let me take you back to the 50's to the life of a precocious adolescent who is foundering without boundaries in her life, but still finds joy and optimism at every turn.

It's Tuesday, Let's have a story!

Have you been reading other bloggers? I have. There are some terrific bloggers out there, lots of fun to read.[Stephen Fry, Fin Kennedy are two] I realize I've been writing as if no one is reading, no one is listening, and surely that isn't the case. No indeed, I have followers! So, just because you're lurking rather than commenting, don't think I don't know you're there ... how's that for double speak? In the midwestern US, we tend to speak with lots of double negatives, until we often don't know what we've just said. I'm pretty sure I just said I know you're there. I'm imagining you lurking around the corner of Blog Street, getting ready to come up to my window just about dusk, find yourself a comfy spot under the lilac bush and listen to me tell my innermost secrets into the telephone. Who am I talking to? Why it's another lurker! Actually, tonight I do have a very specific someone I'm talking to as I do my broadcast of the rest of Chapter Six and probably part of Chapter Seven ... she's a faithful listener and always has been, ever since she was born. Ever since my Mom held her up to the window at the hospital in Waynesville, Missouri in late November when I was not quite six years old, she's had to listen to my stories, and now she does it entirely of her own volition.
Saturday night I had some friends over for wine and chocolates. All three of them are terrific story tellers, so for once I was the listener. Should I tell you about the time Athos went on a blind date? Athos was dressed to the nines in a fabulous blue gabardine suit, gold watch chain and all, out on a double date with a friend and friend's date, and the blind date we'll call Diva. Well, Athos was still up and coming, this was a while back in the big city and Athos was still climbing the career ladder, so most of Athos' money went on the wardrobe. So when Diva ordered a split of champagne as her drink, Athos felt a flat wallet and choked out an order for a ginger ale. Surely Diva wouldn't order a second drink! When she did, poor Athos had to go to the bartender and run a tab (horrors!) and then went back to the table and very politely wished all the "friends" goodnight (and goodbye!). No more blind dates for my friend Athos. Fortunately, Athos met Porthos soon after, and they've been together ever since.
Theresa Rhebeck wrote a play called "Bad Dates." Have you seen or read it? It's fun to see, with about 400 pair of Mahnolo Blaniks or Jimmy Choos to be tried on during the course of the evening. What fun!
Tonight's stories will be about my Mom's fabulous evening wear, my adventures in sewing and bike-riding, a literal bug in my ear, John F. Kennedy and a real bad sunburn.

Chapter Five and part of Six

I received great news yesterday: my creative nonfiction piece "Scent of Forgiveness" will be published in the next issue (May 2009) of Perception, a literary magazine. I'm thrilled, as this piece will also make its appearance in the new, longer version of my solo play "Copperheads and Common Women" when it gets a reading -- unscheduled as yet. AND, it is one of my favorite things I've ever written. I did not use my time on the radio last night to shamelessly self-promote this bit of news, so I'm doing it here.
The price for downloading mp3 versions of my broadcast sessions has gone up to $2.99, so if you're listening, your best deal is always to tune in for the live broadcast. I'm on every Tuesday evening 7 to 7:30pm Pacific Time. Last night Lillian put me on five minutes early because last week I ran five minutes late ... so, please tune in early so you don't miss anything.