This is a week of travail as Borders gets ready to close their doors, though I am not as sad about Walden Books; my heart aches as book stores continue to close across the land like a darkness falling on a journey that you’ve always loved, a place you wanted to stay and to hide, and a place to meet those like you who just love this stuff called paper.  I do not know when God started sending paper into the promised lands, but some of us are as addicted to it as we are to the one day when a fresh snow falls and nothing has touched the land and one looks out the window and believes they are in a corner of heaven.  It is the celebration of cherry blossoms, and flowers photographed of all kinds, other mother’s cooking in places we have not been, and the smooth touch of something new withing our hand.

Let there be paper; God said, and when he said it was good the search went out then for mankind to discover the joy of all centuries since papyrus became too precious, and the prophets he had appointed as garden coordinators on that first day of paper pleasure looked at God and said;  Behold, let us now stitch this altogether, sew it between that dried out skin of the fatted calf, and it was given from that day forward:  Books as precious as a kings piece of gold and passed down through the generations.  Man fell in love with this item a woman called: “Book,” and joy arose all over the known world.

We bookies found each other then, for we had to touch them, kiss them, smell them like radiant roses, and mothers held them at the breast so the milk flowed like honey into awaiting babies mouths, for contentment had found a place on earth.  The years past, and restless man and woman needed a place to go after a night of carnal bliss;  and again;  God said, “This too is good,” and told the Kings of every land to place a pleasantry of all pleasantness, and it was born that day when the royals decided that the book store would sit beside the bakers stand, and there it was books, and bread, and wine.  That day was known as bliss, and all bookies passed the word one to the other.

Let us meet there and partake of the bread and wine, read the books, charm the children with the stories, laugh out loud at the humor, and we can even cry when we see the written sorrows, and there was no grander place than the neighborhood book merchant’s place, and all the bookies, the children, and the brainiacs wanted to go there.  It would be so late in the day that when they would leave that a gift would be needed for the sojourners who were to come that evening, so the merchants kept adding the needs of man, for travel, for sleep, for a massage, and for the perfect bath, and now the book merchant had brought forth the new idea of high classed gifts for the last minute wayfarer, and God continued to say;  “It is good, so very very good.”

Man though forgot how it felt, the beautiful  paper, and he said; “I need something small and impersonal, for my books are heavy and I must travel light, for peace no longer ruled the lands, and God said;  So let it be thus.  I will give them small and plastic, magic, games, and reading and they can sip their own bread and wine all alone, and forgot the Sunday coffee and the taste of the sweets left on the counter floor, for even coffee that costs cents cannot bring the ever complaining man all that he needs to be satisfied, so the beautiful books began to hide within the winner of  the E book reader, computer, phone, computer, game mogul and knowledge pads which were light and called for an end to the grandest world of publishing the world had ever know, and the bookies were left behind with their paper — hard backs and soft backs and given even in love of simple pleasure;  It all was going away to E Land where the bookies hate to go.  No one thought that such places of joy would go the way of the little village stores, certainly not monster book stores with shelves to reach the sky.. How could this happen? 

God knew that the joy might end some day just like the internet cafes and even the giant stores that carry goods so pathetic the camel driver would not stop at such a mart, but as the signs come down on the bookstores where we went to browse, so many this week, and we bookies must share the blame.  Perhaps if the stores come back with naughty movies for fifty cents and the price of a cup of coffee;  Then may be then we book people may have a new place to go to wile away a rainy and wintry day.  Until then;  It was fun;  Dear God it was fun, and I will never forget our days within your doors, and the workers who seemed smarter than most.

Farewell my old friends, book store loves, and paper trail that called us there, but for once we may want you back within the streets where we shop, and maybe you will have to have the E things in every shape and size, but leave a few tables for those who love to linger, and if we linger too late;  Then have a small fee to enter, for we would pay for the five dollar coffee, for a candle to burn, and for an old phone both or two where we could sit and take calls without disturbing all the souls around.  We browsers loved to look, and to touch and feel the perfect book which will yellow over time, but when all is said and done those of us who loved you and God of all lands may stand beneath your sign one last time to say:  It was good while it lasted, and if reformed to sell books with rows of frocks made by locals and chocolates from over the world, and the plastic fantastic with rows of goods from this and other lands;  Then we will come again.

God knows a book store and a bookie are legally wed and never can part;  For we are good, and you were good, and we are so sad that you could not stay.  Farewell again; Farewell, and that you will be missed our giant over stuffed chairs, our place to dream.  We will hope that you may return if only to bring the bread and wine, the coffee, and the tiny cake, the most recent best sellers, and what you can afford to share even if it is but a street cart and a folding chair.  Just remember that we’ll be waiting, for the best of friends are like that when the book man returns to the dull world of plastic, fantastic which can never breath into our souls what the bookstores gave as free to all.  Lord, you gave to much.

Bookies mourn this closing week while other workers walk out too closing down the lights.  I will mourn your passing age.

When will America leave the Middle East?  I am wondering what the spirits of the sons and daughters of service children are asking themselves on September the 11th, both those who have lost their children and those who still risk loss?  What are the whispers of the souls calling for at  the nation’s newest national park in Pennsylvania where the decided to fight for their lives and die to save themselves and the next plane that was going to crash at another American National site?  Obviously I do not know, but I am going to conjecture that all might be saying now to President Obama and to the mega billionaires that no more is to be gained by keeping this war going into a decade of troubled and wounded people, for Americans have power beyond the everyday citizen who is willing to go, “The Distance, whatever that means to the powers that be.  Do we honestly think that they believed ten years ago as towers crumbled in New York City and our old way of living in some kind of harmony died too that we would still expect the ultimate sacrifice pass the eleven year mark?  Brilliant minds and talent and love were lost like rain over solid rocks, and no end seems to be in site.

I ask you;  What is the goal,   Their conflicts and their way of life will continue long after we are gone, for they know how to traverse the barren mountains and to hide before our own eyes in a land where dust storms have not destroyed them as earth trembles under their feet.  I wish the dead could speak for one day, because I think they would report there is no land and oil worth loosing our sense of humanity where we just say; Enough.  The dead cannot rest until all person’s of faith, and the non-religious also have in common that we see no need to keep fanning the fires of injustice, “The Civil War in our own coutry in the 1800s left us broken but we were  able to recover and in this modern age with all that we have we cannot see the futility of removing ourselves from a place that has no tolerance for American ideals.  We are not Muslim, and we do not know the Mideast, but something will not let us leave and just to say that we may avenge someday the great disaster of ten years ago if we stay long enough just is not possible.  They do not want our interference and even their oil supply will end someday, so why can we just not get out, stop interfering  with dominoes and weakened governments where democracy has never been the way of things.  Nothing we can do will leave a clean slate.

Church and State are one in the Middle East where most practice the absolute same faith but in different measure, and they can fight over who is right there, but to show a happy democratic style people is the point where we all look like the Simpson family where our way of thinking is clouded and we cannot seem to learn that we have nothing else to win which leaves some of us perplexed.  Let us pray that we can get out of there sooner than tomorrow, and let our dead and theirs from all of these years of the war finally rest in peace..

I plead with those more powerful than us to just cut our losses, take care of the heroes who have come home, and to stay out of places where we are simply not wanted.   A sadness lies over the land, and we cannot give enough to all who have shivered, as we hear taps and see the open graves at Arlington.  It is my solemn prayer that all of our soldiers be brought home, and that we celebrate the heroes who bravely died, because America has made such brave sons and daughters. For the higher ups though, the sacrifice needs to end, and I make this appeal to all who go away afraid and in doubt, because ten, then eleven years gives us all room to doubt that an end is ever achievable, and we continue to sew the seeds of hate in lands where the flowers usually will not bloom.We have no higher purpose now than to end what we cannot fix, and there is none braver than the President, The Congressman, and The Average American to stand up and to speak out for the young and to sing not of peril and shame in loss, but of victory and understanding that we did the best we could, and cry out to bring our future home to an America which will say that you did your job, and you did it well, so;  Soldiers and Citizens shout with joy and call this war over.

Bless the angels that swarm like doves at the dawn of a new age we may call, “Peace.”  Pinkhoneysuckle                                                                                               
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“Pinkhoneysuckle,” my work of two solid years day and night;  Holiday and Ordinary Time –  Many years of thought.  My copy of the book is in the mail, and I do not know if it will come in the late afternoon tomorrow or the next day, but the door  will ring and the postperson will come, and the first message will be from ages past;  Please drop it through the bars, for just like the houses in Europe, most housing in San Francisco must have an iron gated area, for otherwise your home may become a sleeping spot for a vagrant or for some immature child that thinks they can bring back the 1960s by coming out here, carrying a guitar and a backpack of sorts, hang out in the park all day saying really brilliant  things like; “Hey Dude,” and endeavoring to get drags off the other park loafers joints which are about the only legal smoke in the city.

Next they all line up at the homeless shelter, for it is presummed to be cool to be homeless for a while especially since you can stay drunk all day, defecate in the few self flushing toilet around, and there is always someone who will take you in.  NOT US!  We know that most of you are either well to do little freaks who are driving your parents crazy back East with worry, potentially get yourself mixed up with the really wrong crowd out here and finding yourself really hooked on something devastating like heroin or for the super no brainers;  Meth, and all because you wanted;  “To be;  Like real Dude; And not work for, “The Man.”  The man is uaually a small business worker or some hard working person who did their best for you, so that you could get your sorry ass out here to play, “Hippie,” for a while.  Then the girls;  You can tell the Easters and country gals right away, for they have been smoking since about age eleven, and they still look pretty because of youth, hoist their skirts over their heads, sun in the bras, drink enough cheap booze to wash their sins away come morning, only they will have probably just turned their first trick. For this, they may be allowed to stay stoned, take a bath, and God don’t you love a city where we feed you.  Check out the lines, and it may be a whole bag of food they cooked up from my house.

I am glad to give it to the  poor,  and I know that some kids have a very hard time.  I’ve been there, in the hard time, and if you get out it is a combination of luck and brain power.  I fortunately never slept in the park presuming it was cool, they I have slept peeping through the cracks in my old home;  That wasn’t cool, and no one was going to give us anything which resembled food, though you might trade garden produce with your neighbors.  I just do not know where all this anquish is coming from that kids take over their parenting, drive their parents toward so much heartache they cannot bear, and all for the sake of deciding that ,”Cool,” is a four letter word invented by them.  But if there is any place to really acted stupid;  Come out here, and you can probably find another dozen stupids to hang out with.  The truly needy kids have this penchant for endeavoring to do something the old fashioned way called finding a job.  If you had the smarts to get through an airport;  Go out into the Central Valley, and help bring in the harvest.  See what poor in California really looks like!

Oh, now that I have that off my chest, back to my wrought iron gate which is a sign of our times,  there will be a package, and I will open it with the fervor of a child on Christmas, and the fear I felt with the first boyfriend, and I will unwrap it and hold it to my heart which I will save from tachycardia with beta blockers or something before hand, for in that package is my first novel.  I am going to henceforth from that day forward write that I am a writer, and I shall carry around my book as proof that once upon a falling star I could not fetch;  I caught a fever and I wrote a book!  When I say, “Print,” on the proper form in my lineup of last things before publication;  It will be done, and I am a fan of Southern literature, but the mid-South has not gotten the attention it deserves.  You get attention if you make noise, and noise is  not a great part of our past.

About the biggest racket you were going to hear from back home was at a Holiness Church, and I have relatives who participated there.  The part about the snakes was true with Holiness in the past than over the past 60 years when it became apparent that the book of Mark might just have been speaking to the people of those times, and we might not necessarily should be drinking watered down stryknine in it nor should we be going in to the hee bee gee bees with a bunch of poisonous snakes around our arms and head.  The proof came in the fact that good people died and suffered after getting bitten, and rotting limbs do not have a particularly nice smell.  Most Holiness do a good job of shouting, singing, praising, and calling folks to the water of baptism or the call to church membership without the inconvenience of a snake case on their kitchen counter.

Now where my Civil War Confederate Great Grandfather was from, up around Dalonga,, Georgia, if you want to have your snake dancing with drums and bangles and tambourines;  I still think it is legal there.  Also, I would not be too quick to say that coming out to my home area across Crow Mountain, there are apt to be some believers there, but as for the people I lived among, we trusted the Lord well enough without testing our faith with the power of the demon serpent and poison water.  Some of that water coming out of those mountains tasted like sulfur because of all of the minerals.  I used to think that was good for you until every member of my grandmother’s house except for one thus far has had cancer treatment and gone on to greater reward.  Daddy had cancer, but his heart got him first, and none of us have ever been the same since Mama and Daddy have passed on, because the older people knew how to get the family together, and we miss going home with aching hearts.

But I am going to know that I am not opening that book alone, and I will open it up;  and there they will be Mama and Daddy, and with, “Pinkhoneysuckle,”  I am going to tell you more about the mid south and its people than you have ever read before that isn’t, as my Mama would call some writing, “A pack of lies.”  I want to make some things clear.  One;  Within a week or less, you should be able to order it from Amazon.  Two, it is not written to denigrate my people or my culture in any manner but it is written with all of the love which I could possibly pull from within and so dedicated to the people from whose spirits I shall never forget.  They are strong spirits, and death cannot hide their presence, for I felt their encouragment all of the way.

It is not written to mock Bible Belt religion but to say that the Bible Belt, like the rest of the universe needs to do some work on this unity thing.  The church has lost influence back home just like everywhere else, and the best place where people sat together, pretended they liked each other, and where you were told that on the seventh day even God expected you to rest.  Churches have Decoration Day and Homecomings in many arreas around the South so much more similar to the Hispanic gatherings on The Day of The Dead, but it is all there:  Gathering with old friends and loved ones, dinner brought or family homecomings, gathering at the graves and making them beautiful and being able to laugh and to cry with singing and praise inside the churches, and the ever present altar call for those who want to come forward and receive God into their lives.

Community colleges are cropping up, and some areas are experiencing growth, but highways have become byways again, and our counties tend to get passed over.  This book is not meant to be an expression of everything now, but a lot of truth carries over, and the devil has come to the mid-south, and you make it with horrible chemicals and start people out on it cheaply, and some do not care that it is killing our people.  If anything I want to praise the churches in that between the churches, schools, and a small general store;  You had the beginnings of a town.  I want to tell you what the, “Big Box,” stores did to our little towns, and how maybe you should get off on some side roads and go visiting somewhere other than just chain stores and chain restaurants.  I want you to find farmer’s markets,  and just go and help the people all through Middle Tennesee, Northern and mountainous, Alabama, and these people you’ve been calling rednecks all of these years;  I am going to leave you thinking about that.

I will feel Mama and Daddy helping me tear open the envelope, and I will hold my book.  But you thought I was going to say that it is finished; Did you not, and so did I before I learned about widows, orphans, the need to revew the paragraphs and punctuation, not to mention to make certain there is not paragraph cramming just to make it fit the page.  I am not going to bother telling you what all of this means, but I sort of have to check the whole darned thing out to not look like a newbie and to look more like a pro, so we are back to the; publish your own book or not argument.  I am going  to keep telling you of my experience and the things which I am learning.  It is expensive, and it is comprehensive, and I am working with a great company.  My friends;  Hear these words, “Publish Your Own Book,” and what that adds up to meaning is that we simpletons endeavor to compete with the large publishing houses,, and when you are lucky like me; you are even going to get reviewed by a nationally known reviewer plus have your own video trailer on Amazon and U-tube, not to mention your own website.

You get about as much help as you can buy, and I bought a lot of help, but I still have run in to road blocks all over the place, and I am going to open my shiny new book with the news that to look professional I am going to have to check for font changes, and errors every body missed.  My prayer is that some good publishing company out there is going to look and think that maybe this woman has a book or two worth putting together, for I have been writing all of my life, but again;  “Self Publishing,” means that you are expected to do many things on your own.  You get one editing, and could pay a large sum to have a second editor or a librarian as a professional suggested might be an ideal, but I do not want a one of you to go in to this blindly.  “Alright,”  you might say, “If this 62 year old old bat can get a book on the market in two years, I am youger and smarter, and I know what we want to read now.” Friends I have been writing since before I went to school, and I am certain I was writing little stories by third grade, then when I went to college I took every literature course under the sun, and once I hit serious college after having three kids, I could out write most of those college kids.  “Old Bat;  Maybe;” but I had a book in my head, and all I had to do was transfer it little by little to my blog.

Hear me, please, because I am trying to help you.  If you want to self-publish a book;  Buy as much help as you can, and please;  I might could blog another, but it is a stupid way to write a book, and putting a book together is so much more than just writing one if you are having something that does not look like you whipped it up in the back room of a college dorm with library facilities as your only asset.  Most of all;  Look up your company on line, not what people have said about them, but how they are rated among professional associations.  I am going to hand it to my group that a few times when I was ready to be the next person up in the space shuttle before its last voyage asking to be left alone for the rest of my life–My publish people have come through and helped me out, but understand they are not going to really publish this book for you.  Your time, input, and money are going to be in there, and you are going to be lucky to break even.  Dream, believe in yourself;  and save your money;  Go  with someone reputable, and FGS;  Pay enough for cover design, and are you going to know what to say when they ask you what kind of margins and font that you want?  It goes this way;  When you are as uninformed about publishing as I am, You as this question,  “What do you all consider to be the most professional looking and publicly accepted form of all of these things.  They are honest;  You hope;  And then you say, “That is what I want.” 

I just picture myself running up those steps at a publishing house in New York City, and I have a manuscript in brown paper all tied up with string, and Mrs. Wonderful invites me into Mr. Wizard’s office, and they give me money and say;  “Welcome To Everlasting Publishing House,” and then one stops on the way, sneaks a bottle of bubbly  in Central Park, douse yourself with some, and drink some for the masters of old;  Ah Published At Last! That was yesterday’s hope, but we are at a revolution of many people publishing a lot of things for money, and to self publish means that you are going to work very hard.  I would love to think this Grandmother could show her children and grandchildren the coveted Fergus gold star and be the Amazon break away Granny from the pack, but I am not counting my chickens before they hatch. Tomorrow I will get my book, burst in to tears when I see the cover, and then I will do what I always do when my mother and father appear before me in the world we once knew;  I will burst in to tears, and bless them that they did as well as they could with the resources they had, and that when they were old;  They wished they could do it over, and for them I am going to see that this is the most professional book a wretch like me could ever get out there.

I bless you all who have taken the journey, and I have  told you what is involved if you choose to go this route for writing.  One day in your lifetime instead of dark rooms;  You will have a book room where you can work and publish whatever you want.  Until that day;  God Bless, and if you sleep in Delores Park down the hill use some plastic between you and the ground, for San Francisco cools the air and makes moisture, and you are going to get very cold when your underpants are soaked through plus your face is apt to get burnt, because the sun comes up in our district first.  I would send you to the beach;  but I do not want you to get washed out to see when high tide rolls in off the mighty Pacific.

Alright;  I hear you God;  I get it;  This may no longer be about me or anyone with a stupid cause;  But I have had the summer from hell, so I mean this Lord;  Are you listening?  I need a break, and instead of a break;  I am going to get a knee replacement, so what is up next??? Pneumonia, a scald to my thigh; and now I need a knee replacement?  I have one thing that has kept me going when all has seemed down out and disappointing outside of leaning on you our God of Mercy and of Might, and that has been this web site.

On it I wrote my book;  It really is coming soon, for I have the news that I have a video trailer to work on for Google, Facebook, and such places;  but Xanga is where for two years I wrote the book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” so it has been a saving Grace in a time when loss seemed heavy on my body and soul.  I have learned that I will be holding that book in my hand around September 9th, and I will look at it, and my heart is going to burst, and all of you out there helped me get it done.  I especially thank Revelation Earth, Songoftheheart, old friends, new friends, but all of you who went that extra milel  You let me lean on you, so now let your hearts lean on me.  A day or so after the 9th I can call up and recommend: PRINT, and at that moment I am going to put my mother and my father back in my heart as if they were here, and we shall celebrate it all together.

One good friend one midnight answered a question for me as if he was there in front of me, and since I know he is a gifted mind that longs to change the world, tests out as smart as they get, and he is not going to tell you who he is, nor am I, because he is an angel of sorts;  Just came to my lonely unvisited site one night, and he said he would help me, and my life with Xanga has changed ever since.  I am getting the word out that there was a Revolution of Spirit in the Southern United States which America kept as a secret causing the great migration North that gave rust belt cities the biggest slums immaginable and took the personal skills of the families who came from;  “I Can Do All Through God Who Loves Me,” and self dependence into a people who decided that having come in to the towns where you couldn’t grow anything;  Then live off welfare, drink cheap wine, and destroy a few more generations, for America does not care about you!!

So what do we have then;  Black ghettos and white ghettos, and people in the homeplaces behind who let the old houses go to seed, and who stopped going to the churches which remained when all else failed.  I am talking to you tonight folks about something that is important in my book, and these are some of the things.  What is it that benefits the upper 1/8th of our society to keep so many people impoverished, by separating out neighborhoods and loosing both church and school as sources of pride?  Whose big idea was it to make these things we called, “The Projects,” which still exists and your one expectation is that you should fail–Winning might be growing up long enough not to get shot in the cross fire of a gang war.  It all began not with immigrants but with housing projects which were not built to last for ten years much less 60;  So, if;  “Hey buddy can you spare a dime,” just sounds like a theme from an old song;  Then it would be number one on the charts right now, because there are people using their last dimes.

I fear that in wealth people have sold their souls to the devil, and is it worth it.  You take your camera crews and show the starving in Africa, but go from town to town this winter, and I can tell you that if middle class people had no soul;  Then food pantries would go empty.  I am seeing among the worst crime ridden, no employment, higher prices, people scared to death about their pensions, and brain dead American television than I have in the 62 years of my life, and I can say that I have been the poorest of the poor.  Come home from the war young men, and you are apt to be disappointed.

There is a silver lining in some of this, because some of you might get the message that small agrarian life is still possible.  We can all live on less, and to get well;  We stay well.  I want to get to that place again.

Pinkhoneysuckle has been my voice, and what will become of the book?  I do not know, but I do no that the time is coming when there will be justice, and when the ultra rich no longer are in control of everything, and people like me are writing about it, and we are telling the world that here in America;  People get used too, only we have very open eyes, and we know what is going on.  Someday there is a change coming when the poor will find a voice, and when our hungry shall be fed, and to say that you are a Christian, or a Jew, or whatever your religious preference is not seen as an opiate for the masses but Mercy from a power higher than any of us, than you the money hoarders, and than you, Mr./Ms. politician who can be bought and sold, for we are going to our internets,  and we as a people are going to expect more than you ever imagined, and it is not just a bunch of old people this time.

The young who have no work, and the healthcare that is becoming more of a patient mill to save money instead of doing patient care, because you have to make rich people more rich;  A new age is dawning, and we are writing, reading, and sharing each other’s work;  So thank you Xanga friends from around the world at our imperfections as well.  We are only as mighty as we give to our weakest people, and instead just  now we have a Billionaire’s club and Forbe’s richest people list in either case where people should be ashamed to have their names on it.

The difference in America is the new morning, the new day, as those who have done without wake up from their slumber and who use non-violence and good sense to change the world.  Thank you all for helping me get to this day fellow Xangans, for we can change the world together.

Blessings My Friends,
Barbara Everett Heintz “Pinkhoneysuckle” Author

Were I young and had no command of the English language, I would start this off by saying something like;   “I am like totally bummed,” and then I would have a friend up talk, because so many people no longer know how to speak English without making it sound like a twelve year old California Vallley girl who might reply:  “Like, do you mean it,” as if they are reasking you what you just said.

Instead, I am going to put it out there to all of the nut cases who had rather suffer in pain, because people will say of them;  “Oh she is something;” and she just got through a whole head transplant getting through the entire surgery with maybe two tylenol the entire time!  We see in the papers;  “Painless Surgeries,” and then are told not only will we have a partial face lift and look not much difference than we did the day before, or we are going to have overgrowth of bone shave off of our feet, “And it is not going to hurt a bit! 

I would like to have it as a rule that men who deliver babies for  women and treat them like airheads as these women moan through childbirth;  “There, there dear;  You are just one for the ages say the men trained in OB-GYN, so once in their life these men should have to give birth to a large orange per anal sphincter while child bearing women state;  “Think if it were as large as a baby’s head,” and women do not have tribal women to attend them and swaddle their child while they get a little rest from the whole ordeal..  I would like to do plastic surgery on everyone who says it does not hurt male or female. An example of truth might be make a  few lacerations and then clean up the blood, sew the whole mess up with a thin sewing needle in my best embroidery, and then make certain they report no discomfort with the swelling. I am a nurse, and it certainly hurt me to have the little tency nip and tuck surgery.  Pardon me but I am on a tirade, because I am going to have to make a decision tomorrow most probably about what hurts worse:  My back, my left hip joint, or my left knee on  which I can no longer weight bear, and then I am going to wind up choosing one, and they are going to give me the news;  “Well we endeavored to fix that knee laproscopically, because there is so little pain;  but we are so sorry that it never worked, so you know the choice;  A new knee.  Meanwhile the arthritis in my back and in my hip will just continue to hurt, but I will get a brand spanking new knee that I would match up against your retreads any day.  As to plastic surgery;  It can give you a lift, but if they tell you there is nothing to it;  They are not telling the whole truth, but when one chooses such, it does not seem fair to complain too much.

This is the awful truth.  As most of us age with each decade;  we are given a different source of pain issues to deal with, and especially younger American physicians do not want to medicate you for the pain, because then they have the FDA breathing down their necks.  One is rarely allowed pain medicine to be comfortable until they sign themselves over to a Hospice, because they are finally just saying, “Lord take me!” And they had rather give themselves over finally to find a level of comfort acceptable to them and to their relatives who insists they keep breathing.  People are suffering needlessly, and if you say you are allergic to aspirin or N-SAIDS all that stuff that are anti-inflammatories but which still tear your digestive system to pieces but calms the inflammation of arthritis;  Then flags are waving;  “Drug seeking behavior,” and you will be told to exercise, use diversion training, ice your body down with the bags of peas and carrots, and stop complaining.  It is just pain!  Suck it up and deal with it!

I am going to be an advocate for people in pain, for I have not been able to get out for three days, because I hurt so much in one joint or the other.  “You are depressed;” and the reply is;  “Hell yes you damned fool I am depressed;  I hurt, and even my pain medicine is just making it tolerable to walk in the house.”  Oh, they point out again for the 100th time in the past twenty years that it would help if I would lose the weight, for I need to lose weight, and I have gained and lost 50 pounds about equally that 100 times over the years, but when you cannot walk much less hike or run;  Burn those calories off while walking back to the refrigerator, for it eases a little of the sadness to have something which feels good on the tongue if nothing else.

I am going to give my physician credit that he tries to help with pain when and where he can, for he has a few years on him too, but he has to be cautious as all physicians must, for they can be held responsible for making you or me comfortable.  You might get addicted!  It is not easy to stop taking pain meds, and few people are made aware that you can actually go off those medications in small doses and walk away drug free.  Some people even need to be put to sleep as such they will not have to go through a terrible detox of vomitting and flu like symptoms to leave their medications behind;  but this is plausible.  I, for one, am sick of people with high pain thresholds or people who have experienced little working with those in chronic pain giving out their medical school blather about painless surgeries, bearing pain through diversion and meditation, and not realizing that all people experience pain in a different manner.  I am disgusted that getting a new knee is not going to fix my back and both of my hips, and that over the next twenty years of my life I am apt to go through multiple joint replacements and dealing with vacuous people who know nothing of  how to help alleviate suffering.

I would like to suggest that all medical students have to spend three months in a Hospice where they learn about pain control and watch people have a more quality level of whatever life they have left, because the Hospice physicians have extensive training in pain management.  My admiration for angels who choose this form of medicine is immeasurable.  I pull my hair out when I hear; “Oh, they take people there to hasten their death;”  It is enough to make one scream.    I was a Hospice nurse for three years, and I did not kill one person with pain medication, and most patients could talk straight through until the last hours.    They died from their disease process, and I thank God that I made their end days better.  It is time for medical schools and for physicians to come to terms with an aging society who are demanding a higher level of life, no matter what it takes to give it to people, and for all of you with high pain tolerance;  Good for you.  Keep taking your two tylenol, and they need your stem cells for medical reasearch for those not as lucky as you.  They might could also give you something like a certificate for bravery if you are the least bit smug over other’s good fortune to experience pain  We know that you have better wiring, and we wish we had what you have, but such wiring also can cause you to be diagnosed much later than you would care to be if you have a prevailing disease process whose hallmark is pain!

At this point, just to walk normally for the first time in many years, I would accept cheap stick man ball bearings to just be able to get out without feeling as if I belong in a hospital bed.  I do warn you all just to make certain that you do not get any copper replaceable parts, for some fool is apt to come in the middle of the night, retrieve them and sell them as spare parts.  “Oh No Sir, Mr. Policeman;  we did not buy that copper knee off the street,”  One of our employees whose name is Lucifer brought it in today, because his Granny willed it to him.

Well I just know you cannot wait to hear the next chapter of this, and I will let you in on which part they replace somewhere down the way.  It is only pain if I perceive it to be pain after all, because unless you have experienced it yourself;  There is nothing to it is there?

Pinkhoneysuckle Unveiled!

By the way, I am still waiting on my interior mock up for the book.  I will print the ISBN in big words for numbers when, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” makes it to the market.  Amazon is a happening place, and when the Self Publisher gets their part done;  Just think of me, that I waited to get this surgery done until I finished that book, so in your upcoming contracts as you publish your works of art, love, and of mind, then think of this woman who put off having the ability to walk to get this book in print.  Self publishing has something in common with, “Surgery without pain;” so join the realms of us who believe that in the end it will have been worth the pain.

Love, Pinkhoneysuckle, BEH

Pinkhoneysuckle

Hello Everyone,
 
I polished off the entry below in the wee hours of this morning, and I keep finding myself on Xanga and Google, and I think that it is me, but with another of my name out there;  How can I be certain of who I am.  Its a hard time to be lost in the Galaxy of Lost and Old Self Publishers, so read below;  Help me out a little if you can.  I need a left knee replacement and I must make certain that it goes in the right body.  I want to schedule it to be done;  but Hey, Wait in the self publishing world;  You can work as hard and as fast as you want to move your project on;  But once it gets back to the publishing house; You have zero control over how things work, and imagine that some people send these back and forth until hell freezes over!  Even with this the group I am working with is honest, usually most polite and kind except for when they endeavor to explain that I am not me, and Amazon is searching for me too, because of the understated scenario below.  Any contributors to my laundry room project in San Francisco.

Just remember, if you put all of your money down up front, then there is little incentive for anyone to give one heck where life has taken you;  So dream of writing a book;  Sign on with care.  Have you found me yet?  It appears I am the Pinkhoneysuckle woman which Xanga and Plugz have done such a great job of putting out there.  Hello;  is anyone listening, for you could be the next person who is not you that is about to learn no one can pre-order your book!

Love, Barbara;  Are you looking for me; Read below!!!!!

Holy Cow!  There is a slightly older, must be ridiculously beautiful, and highly accomplished British author by the name of Barbara Everett whose works on such novels as, “Anthony and Cleopatra,” are acclaimed to be wonderful and collectable, and I this disaster of a woman, thought that when I Googled myself, saw my name on Xanga, Create Space, and Amazon. com thought that it was I for whom you were requesting the book which I keep telling you is going to be out any time, and honestly when I signed my agreement with my publisher;  I knew that I was going to give it my every 100% of sweat and blood to do just that;  What I have always done with any job;  Work myself half to death and endeavor to please those from whom my hands needed work or care.  You see;  I have always been a writer by avocation, but by vocation I am an overly trained nurse with a college degree, and a total of 6 and 1/2 years of undergraduate then some graduate training in patient assessment and management before I threw in the towel and said;  God help me;  I cannot do this all with three then four which made five children, and yet I worked on.I am one of those driven idiots;  I just do not know when to quit, and up to this point I have said that I will not reveal my publisher until the process is finished;  However, the latest word from 866-398-5280 in case you want to ask about when my book will be released might get you close to there.  They are doing their job;  They are not behind;  But when it appeared that I was getting so much feedback through Xanga and blessed be the name of Plugz and fellow Xangans who have supported me through the past two years of blogs which led to the book which I finished in May;  I can reassure you that I have during each step along the way gone without sleep;  God, I know I do not need to eat anyway, but I have tried to move this book along.,Next, the worst thing happens to me;  I found out that there is a Miss Barbara Everett, an absolute English scholar who do great academic publications and that you can still get her books;  Dr. Everett, that is if you Google certain sites and I believe also through Amazon.  Friends, I did not mean to mislead you.  I am one Barbara Ellen Everett Heintz, and I should have had added the Ellen, because then Dr. Everett’s and my work would not show up on the same page.  Now get the reality;  I am Barbara Everett Heintz as an author’s name;  I am not Dr. Everett, though for all I went to school;  I should have been, but I was married and having babies, going to school, nursing at the VA for an extra $35.oo per week which in the 1970s helped to feed my family, for then my husband had not reached his full potential as a symphonic musician.  But Barbara Everett Heintz, I, Pinkhoneysuckle, wrote the book “Pinkhoneysuckle,” and it is going to take someone bigger than me to get this book out any sooner.Worse, though the publisher, which I can only mention by phone number just in case you are one of those many people who have hit my Xanga site over the past weeks;  You cannot pre-order my book from Amazon, because though said publisher will soon be wed to Amazon;  The details of the marriage are not worked out as Amazon’s publishing arm,, and whereas Amazon will usually take pre-orders from publishing houses where they are getting books from on a regular basis.  Now in this country, and across the USA, I am inclined to think that I could sit down with my poor managment skills:  Worker Bees vs Soldier Bees, and figure out that it would be a noticeably good way to preview those who are endeavoring to break out their book through your main self-publishing arm have every right to expect that being affiliated with among the most notably successful companies in this country;  I would have to advise that even though you haven’t had the wedding, but you can share phone lines;  Then my friends;  There needs to be a way of sharing what the heck is going on in that publishing house.I, Barbara Everett Heintz, pledge to you that by the power of all that is within me to do so;  I shall get this book to Amazon ASAP, but I believe that I understand that it will even be in existence three weeks prior to that before it is put out for sale.  I endeavored to explain today to more than one person that you folks are getting in touch with me through Xanga, that you are reading my blog pages, and there is high interest;  But personally,  I am not certain they believe me;  Thus the above phone number, and I am not naming names here, because self-publishing has blown me away with the word, “Self,” for it really means you are going to do one heck of a lot of work yourself.  I am ready to change my old wash room into a self-publishing house, except I just can’t hurt good people’s feelings, and when one gets the formal review which I cannot, because having approved by exterior mock up with my interior mock up pending;  I still risk having a reviewer tell me that my book might have potential.  My psycho analyst friend has told me that I have already torn it to shreds enough that the reviewer need not go further than I already have;  And I mean friend, someone I love,and whose opinion I value as a friend.  I am not in to that therapy milieu anymore, though by the end of this experience I might be considering I am waiting tomorrow to see if Amazon is getting request for who I say that I am.Purchance you are finding some humor in this, but I would expect that:  866=398-5280 is going to be most unhappy if you honestly do want my book, and God as witness;  I like these people and wish them no ill will;  But I in essence am getting the message that you all are really not visiting my web-site in the kind manner in which you have.  I would tell you how to call Amazon, but I fear they would send out the big guys from Seattle;  Big Mike Big Joe to give me one ass kicking, and Holy Mama;  I know I am not supposed to say the ASS word.  Fear is real though, because I have suddenly become some one else.One Last Time;  I am Barbara Everett Heintz; Author of: “Pinkhoneysuckle,” and I cannot give you my other two top secret numbers of identification.  Why would you want them?  You could not by a bad turnip or left over MD 20 – 20 for what they would do for you, but you see;  Numbers depersonalize us, so if  11111111 is your number; then you are polite to the number on the other side;  On the other hand you can make them aware they are self-publishing, and that you are not really who they say you are, because who knows about these Xanga Blogger kooks in the first place;  Idiots who stay up at night to write excrement like this???Now to Dr. Miss Everett;  May the road rise up to greet you;  You have earned your awards, and I hope that your books on others books remain memorable through the ages.  I do not think you would understand my book, because you just do not have the background;  Though I am sorry to tell you that the sorry hooligan Edward Everett of Massachusetts is probably in my line too, that exaggerated mouthful who spoke longer than Abrahan Lincoln at Gettysburg;  It is just that my Grandfather Everett preached perched on top of a log when he and his brother in law wanted to get drunk and give a most entertaining camp meeting to get enough money to get said cheap alcohol;  But Dr. Everett; he is probably one of your cousins too, and I am so sorry we are probably even more closely related than you might like to endure.So if you really want my book;  Self-publisher gave me a timeline, and apparently no matter what I do or how hard I worked;  Timeline is next to law, and if you are anxious to get the book, “Pinkhoneysuckle;” then to get the process moving;  I have given you all that I know.  I think I am who I say that I am;  But these days I could be 876456010.  Goodbye sweet publishing houses; and Hello to the new dawn of e-publishing, and the hope of that novel you have been waiting to write;  Do not hold back;  Call the number above, for I think they are honest, and I have been well coached by some Harvard sorts that you better watch out for the gangster publishers!!So, from Pinkhoneysuckle, Barbara Everett Heintz;  You ask Amazon why we writers cannot get pre-paid orders.  No one can guarantee anyone is going to like a book and if they do they are daft or bloody fools – Just throwing out some understandable English Language, for tonight I am pissed!

Publishing A Book –  How To Go Bananas While Waiting For End Book Process — Swearing and Swearting

Welcome again to the world of publishing your own book to the tune of, “Where Have All The Publishers Gone?”  Oh I forget, most of you are too young to get that joke,  About old loves, war, peace, dead flowers, and young girls and young men;  It was a very pretty song and was a long time ago but when I was a lass.  I have decided tonight to use positive imagery of what it must have been like to have knocked on a publisher’s big double doors in New York City fifty years or so ago, and believe it or not I could not be the young girl with the manuscript then, for I was too young.  I would have probably had permed hair, short skirt, maybe a black watch skirt print at that, and I would have had cheeks scrubbed as pink as cold morning frost could make them, a white blouse with appropriately starched collar, dark red knee socks, Mary Jane shoes, and I would have had on a locket which I bought at the five and dime with an unmentionable boy’s name scribbled in it and some old school picture of myself left over from high school.

I would have graduated from Smith, Peabody, Yale, or at least, Colgate, and would have that all knowing look of the girl who wrote for four years to greet this day.  I might even have worn a vest and short tie to accent the socks and to show that I was not the ordinary run of the mill girl with no family heritage, for they never knocked on such doors.  Poor schleps; They used the U. S. or The Canadian postal services and explained the inconvenience of autumn jams keeping them in kitchens knowing full well they just did not have the fare.  There I would stand though, my manuscript tied in the best brown paper solid enough to keep the blood from dripping meat juices if wrapped, and wrapped tightly to show that the rectangular paper was well packaged; and a neat package could mean a parcel worth the secretaries removing the string.

There was dampness on my parcel where my hand print was left in sweat from the anxiety of the moment, and I would have used precious drops of, “Evening in Paris,” to sent myself and the manuscript which I delivered, so the hand in its own little way was beguiling.  The secretary, having seen a thousand of me come and go before would offer tea which I would decline, for how does one dring when they cannot even breath, and she would say that the invitation was perfunctory, but she would advise that Mr. Clapvantrope was in a less than stellar mood on this day, because he had given an evening of TV viewing over to his wife’s invitation to Dr. and Mrs. Bowthahart’s reception at the country club, so expect little, and accept less when he read from the package at his guarded pace.

The moments passed, and a serious older gentleman, about forty, who could have been a dead ringer for Clark Gable had he worn a proper suit of tweed walked by me with only a glance, straightened his  tie and was heard to say something like, “Piss off,” as he passed through the doors and out into the morning air.  Mrs. Lancet whose husband must have been Lancelot prior to a name change gave a respectful ten minutes, took my parcel, the string loosened and handed it to her cigar smoking king of his palace, Craten Books, long respected as a harsh but successful publishing company just off Park Avenue, and I thought I heard him groan as she made appropriate intoduction of me as a new college graduate,  “Wrote us months ago;”  “The one who published her college journal, Mr. Clapvantrope,” and the one whose printed little notes caught your attention,” All in introduction, so he motioned that she might leave the room, and he gave me a hand that felt like a warm noodle which was only saved by the scent of the cigar smoke which touched my perfumed and powdered left hand, and then he said in a faux English Bramen sort of way;  “Sit down dear;”  and I do hope you have a driver waiting.”

I now wished that I had followed the man with the poorly chosen suit as I dug my nails into the soft tapestry of the chair where so many hands had touched before.  He tapped his cigar and began removing the entire string placing it aside close by as he then opened my brown paper filled parcel which held all the beauty and imagination a young girl could possible have conjured up in her short lifetime.  He read, and here and there he would look up, and it appeared that my socks were a point of great interest to him, and then he would read out loud, as city noises gave me a fixed point on the window to stare upon.
 
My attention came as a gasp as he decided to read out loud how the girl and begun to unbutton her blouse beneath the late spring wisteria and how the young man could not help but bring his lips to the warmth and softness of the pointed white bra like the one Marilyn Monroe was know to wear, and Mr. Clapantrope breathed a little heavily and repositioned himself in the chair.  I could feel the young lips of the boy now gone home to the girl he left behind, and fortunately had little experience beyond the blouse being unbuttoned, but I say a change in my reviewer’s face, and the face that only saw the red socks began to focus on me.  I trembled, absolutely trembled as he began to make a neat stack of the pages, placed them in the brown wrapper and laid my string across the top as such it would not fall.

I did not hear his words;  I saw them, and he said, “I am surprised, so surprised, for I expected so much less, and I got so much more.”  I caught words;  “Keep,” — “Study,” — “Need more time.” And I do not remember the goodbye, just that I floated past Mrs. Lancet’s desk, and I watched as she came to the call of Mr. Clapantrope, even noticed that she slightly stumbled as if the call was so unexpected, and I ran out into the air of the day as drained as a mother who had left her child behind, and I longed to be back beneath the wisteria hoping that the next hour would bring the peace and love that only the most majestic of years can leave on a heart.

Weaks turned in to a couple of months, and I returned to my home just outside of Washington, D.C., and the Potomac heat began to smother us all.  Dad’s late nights were worrying mother, and she knew that soon I would be looking for work in the city too, and my baby brother, Andrew, and my little sister Margaret would be back in school just in time for the 1960s to come in, and I kept smelling the cigar, seeing the handprint which I left on the paper, and one morning a second parcel of mail came, and in it was finally a word from, Craten Publishers, and as mother handed it to me, I could feel the air of an early New York morning kissing my cheeks, my first enthusiasm, and the next wretched and overwhelming fear which I felt that day I delivered my manuscript, and I gently opened the envelope not to disturb the glue hardly disturbed.

Dear Miss Ellen Everett, Mr. Norton Clagentrope has requested that I forward you the announcement that we are about to publish your book which you have asked us to title; “Whispering Love Songs Under Wisteria Vines,” and we are asking you to accept the enclosed check of five thousand dollars as our good will gesture to accept the enchanting tale of life in a women’s dormitory and the truths. turmoil, loves, and studies which shape tp ideal girl who publishes with Craten Publishers.  Upon accepting this check you will be aware that you are now accepting that we accept the cost of publication with the expectation that we will receive a forty percent investment from whatsoever royalties you may attain from publication of this book, and signed perfectly next to small Cigar stain, Mr. Norton Clagentrope.

And thus we would share many happy decades, Craten Publishing and I.  I would leave mother and father’s home for an apartment in The East Village and make it home  to Virginia throughout my parents lives.  My novels would stem from all of the women’s life stories which had begun at our very proper college dorm and as they would write me through the years.  I would marry once my life’s love, one of the Clagentrope’s distant relatives who would die an unfortunate early death while gathering dinner at the green grocers and fish market when the train coming back to the village derailed one hot summers day when a truck of household cleaners made a rapid stop on the tracks and my poor dear left me behind with the two small children to support, our John and Mary, and we would always have enough, and just enough more  to take a trans-Atlantic voyage, to throw flowers upon the water as we sailed from New York harbor remembering the children’s lost Dad, and the love that come to me intrigued by a girl who could be touched and yet said, “Goodbye,”  too beneath the blooms of wisteria many books and many women’s lives ago.

I write no more for Craten, for we got the news some time ago that the world of technology had replaced the world of total mystery, hope, and dreams where publishing houses once stood and books came out slowly from experience.  I never expected that Craten could not ride out the storm, but I have heard that they can publish whatever you like now, but who will sell their wares and who will not is no longer even effected by your choice of apparel for the day.  Publish your own book;  What nonsense, but all is nonsense say the writers of long ago;  And the proof will be in whether another lifetime from now my books and of before will merely be window dressing for one’s who will suffer a blindness of the mind, because they never learned to read.

I must look at my old letter from Craten sometime, and then too, perhaps I will find notes from an old love that left me under the vines of flowers which only come in late spring when we think the best is yet to come.

Written For The Publishers Of Yesterday
And The Madness Of Creatures Called Writers
Pinkhoneyscukle, The Blogger

Tthere’s a bunch of hard working rocker guys in Cincinnati, Ohio;  One of them I have known personally since his head crowned almost 40 years ago;  And in this time of economic downturn they are trying to forge together five thousand dollars to be a part of a Kickstarter endeavor to come and record in New York City .  I find it to be really hard to ask for anyone to look at this rock band, Buckra, escept they have worked up sweats doing day jobs, being good citzens, helping make people East of the Rockies have a lot of fun at the expense of their families at times, but they have believed since they were young boys that they could make a mark on the music world, and every time they get to the front door;  I see them pull back, not wanting to rain on other’s parades.  Could my husband and I fund the whole thing;  Maybe we could, but I think the point here is that they are looking for a gentler, kinder world where groups make dreams happen, and the small buys win;  Sometimes.

Thus, I am going to ask some of my Pinkhoneysuckle followers to look and to listen at The Buckra website, or look them up at Buckra.com their website, and see if you can help them out a little.  They are endeavoring to put together five thousand  dollars!  And you can pledge a dollar if you want too, but this group I have watched grow up since they were little boys, and if I can help them make a miracle happen;  I am going to.

All of you folks who have gone to school, waited tables, cleaned mud off the seats of summer places where others go to relax;  This is them, and they could use some support.  Yes, I see starving children every day in Africa, the streets of London burning, and  the stockmarket going to hell, but maybe what we need are some fill good stories.

Almost 40 years ago I gave birth to a son, Jacob, and this has been his work, his mission, and his dream, and if I can get any Pinkhoneysuckle followers to help pick up their five thousand dollar tab which is all they need to be in play, then I am going to.  Look up their site if you are rocker types;  I am not — But I have seen them with a hand out giving to too many other folks, so I will, This time, ask you to take a look at them beginning with the great kid that is mine:  Jacob Heintz, a wife, two kids of his own, plugging on with the new salaries of this new age, and ask you to look him up and Buckra, and be a part of making something happy happen — Just for a little fun.

It would mean so much to them, and who knows;  After you hear them;  You like some others on The East Coast, many others;  might just want them to visit your home town.  Give to this project, and you will meet the band.  This Mama can reassure you of that.  Buckra@Buckra.com – Jacob F. Heintz, original founder and one mighty guitarist;  Just see if you have it in your hearts to show them somebody does care after all.  We old ladies are like that from the Appalchian USA.  We gave birth to them, and we are going to go to our graves looking at how to help them out, For they were the joy we finally found.

A million thanks.  Barbara Everet Heintz, Pinkhoneysuckle