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PEGGY
FIELDING'S NEWSLETTER
 Vol.
5 Number 6 December 2005 THE USUAL INSTRUCTIONS Ah, yes. Here I am and it's still December. I can hardly credit my unusual punctuality. Anyway, stop reading this now and go to my website, www.peggyfielding.com and subscribe to my newsletter. The copy in the archives is so much prettier because of the artistic arrangement of little drawings and photographs, that Dan makes. If I hadn't given you these instructions I would hear immediately from Carolyn Leonard castigating me for neglecting my readers. MY LOVELY MAN DAN Probably some of you noticed that I blamed Dan ( "probably Dan's fault that I've been remiss.") Really, I wasn't being mean to Dan. I was just taking him into the Moss Family in a way.
When I was three, Miss Hazel took me and my brother Jack, who was two years old, to our Aunt Jewel's little shotgun house for a few hours of respite. Maybe Miss Hazel was attending WMU and wished to go alone? While she was still thanking her sister, I stepped up to the bar across Jewel and Dale's metal bedstead. "Get down from there, honey," Mama said. "You'll get hurt." "Yes," Aunt Jewel chimed in. "That is not a good place for a little girl to play." "Is it okay for little boys?" I stepped down and took my little brother's hand. "No," Miss Hazel and her sister presented a united front on my smart alec question. "I don't want to see either one of you on your aunt's bedstead." Mama continued. Ah oh, tactical error in view of the workings of her daughter's convoluted little mind. Everything would be okay so long as she didn't see it? That bed was scalable. I could just tell. Well, we loved Aunt Jewel so Jack and I had a fine afternoon with her. As time passed I knew the iron bedstead was still awaiting my exploration. When Aunt Jewel went into the kitchen to stir up a cake for Uncle Dale, I knew the time had come. I stepped up. Wow. Fun. I continued to climb. I can't tell you what I did wrong, I simply banged my forehead, hard, against the round metal pipe at the top and fell backward off the apparatus. I could feel a goose egg rising on the left side of my forehead. I, of course, was crying. Aunt Jewel rushed in from the kitchen at the same time my tormented little mother arrived through the front door to speed to my side. "What happened?" My Aunt. "What's wrong?" Miss Hazel "The bed hurt me." The wounded child. "We told you to stay off that." My Aunt. "It's your own fault," By this time Mama was feeling the huge lump and hugging me. "We told you to leave the bed alone." I stood up and shrieked these immortal words at the top of my lungs, while pointing to my pretty young aunt. "Her house, her bed, her fault!" The two sisters dissolved into shared laughter. They always thought I was cute and those words, "Her house, her bed, her fault," passed into the Moss/Matlock family lexicon of loving reprimands. Probably strange to outsiders when anyone in our family pointed to another and said, "His fault." It really came to mean , I suppose, "I see you as a part of my family."
RED HEN DIARY Jackie is writing such a cute series on becoming a promotional artist. The series is called, "The Red Hen Diaries." Amusing and instructive. I don't know how to tell you to find them on your computer. If you're as smart as Jackie is on the electronic machine you can no doubt find the series on your own. I assure you, these tiny pieces are worth searching out. They'll make you smile. CHIK~LIT FOR FOXY HENS As for my big news last month, our four novella book is doing really well and we've talked at a number of places. The smallest number of books we've sold, was the eight we sold to the Sand Springs Friends of the Library last week. Jackie and I were the only HENS who showed up but with Jackie's twin redheaded grandchildren as decoration at our VIP table, we did a creditable job for Doris Wheelus and her band of about fifteen booklover ladies. Gloria Shirley and Mary Sue Lopez and Anna Meyers came as visitor's from the Tulsa NightWriters to be sure we had an audience.
You lovely readers can order the book from AWOCBooks.com or from Amazon or from your local bookstore. Tell the bookstore person they can order from Ingram (a book wholesaler.) APOLOGIES ALL AROUND One of my childhood friends from Oilton, Bobby Williamson, sent out apologies this week for recommending the Chik~Lit book. He told his e-mail list that he "hadn't known it was a sex book." And, of course, it isn't. It is about death, divorce, and marriage, so it follows that some of those characters were having sex, I suppose. Jackie and I laughed a lot when I read Bobby's e-apology to a bunch of his (and my) old friends from Oilton aloud to her. You realize that in those days girls just couldn't have sex and maintain their standing in the respectable high school crowd, UNLESS they were going steady. I knew quite well the girls who were having regular sex with their boyfriends, but I won't name them. Miss Hazel would not allow me to go steady so I remained a virgin until my marriage at nineteen. Darn. Think of all those years I wasted. Anyway, we were so amused by the apology. It was as if those folks on Bobby's e-list weren't doing the naughty, themselves! MY FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH OTHER THAN THE SEXY CHIK~LIT FOR FOXY HENS
Carol divides her time between the commercial crowd, who expect to sell their writing and make money and the literary folks who write for their souls. She surely did me a favor, crassly commercial though I may be. AND NOW FOR MY LOVELIFE Some guy at the back of the room is moaning, "Let's leave now, Mabel. Peggy Fielding is having delusions again." But truly, kids, I do have a real lover to report on. One from a long time ago. More than thirty years.This was a man who flew from California to Dallas on business and he called to see if he could drive up to Tulsa to see me This man had begged me to marry him, even though he is eighteen years younger than I. He stayed the night. We ordered in Chinese. He drank two large bottles of wine. He cried (yeah, real tears) when he reminded me that I had lied to him, had promised to marry him after a certain happening, and then, when it happened I had flown back to Oklahoma without a word. Truth to tell, I considered the idea that perhaps those were tears of relief. He didn't look bad. He had plenty of money for smart clothing. Still had his figure. His hair was dyed, he admitted, and all in all he was a nice looking man, while I, on the other hand, have gotten fat, let my hair go grey, white, and black striped, and my skin is wrinkled. Well, shoot! We talked late, reliving many of our conversations from the past, when we'd assured each other that we were soulmates. Maybe we were, maybe we are still soulmates. During the drunken discussion (I'm a nondrinker) we decided when we died we would still meet on the other plane. I learned something that shocked the hell out of me but I have to think about it before I can disclose it to you little darlings. We slept quietly. I have only one bed. No hanky panky. He may have been anesthetized by all the wine, but it was a very interesting night. I still feel great affection for him. He is 61 now. He confessed to E.D. (as they call it on TV) but I explained to him that all sex for me these days was strictly through the written word or in my imagination, so E.D. worked well for me. ABOUT SOULMATES About soulmates; I've discussed this question before at another time. I asked people to send their ideas of soulmates and I still have that list. i'm going to tell you what some of my smart friends said about soulmatery for a story I was writing.
These are three of my favorite answers. More next month. CHANGE OF HEART I'm not sure whether Craig Ferguson really is my soulmate or not. I've begun to have my doubts about him. One grows away from lovers sometimes, it seems. A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR See you in 2006, darlings. Love Peggy | ||
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I've
noticed that Dan Case and Jackie King are often blamed for various happenings
when I KNOW I did something wrong. 
One
of my TNW friend, Carol Johnson. turned me on this month to an elegant writer,
Richard Russo, who wrote, NOBODY'S FOOL. The title doesn't do this
magnificently written novel justice. I loved the story and spent two and a half
days reading it. Get this book if you can find a copy ...maybe at your library?
I thank Carol for introducing me to Russo.|
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