Samhain Publishing Ltd. Weblog

DON'T READ THIS BOOK

I mean it. Don’t read TOUCH OF FIRE. It’s contentious, blasphemous and oozing with violence and unsafe sex. I spend most of my time running from people with pitchforks and flaming torches. If I had known publication would increase my aerobic capacity, I would’ve written this book sooner.

Celibacy Is Not For The Weak

My husband and I have a bi-city relationship and we see each other maybe 5-6 days a month. Sheesh! Dating couples see each other more.

We live 300 miles apart, seeing each other whenever possible. Some months—like this month—we might not see each other at all. I know. It sucks.

Celibacy is not for the weak.

So I was thrilled when I got a call from Greg saying he was able to get off work and will run up to see me for a couple of days. We hadn’t seen each other in three weeks and I quickly asked my boss for a day off too.

We’ve been doing this 300 mile dance for about eight years now, and there are hardships with this arrangement. Like when the water heater busted, or when the dog was sick, or when I lost my drivers license because I couldn’t pass the vision test. That’s when you need your partner, your life mate, somebody who can pick up the pieces and help you put that dish back together.

Oh, and the sex. We miss that too. This 300 mile separation brings new meaning to the term coitus interruptus.

Of all the questions I get when people find out about our strange un-cohabitation, few ever asks the delicate question of forced celibacy.

Greg tells his friends: It’s like being a bachelor, but I don’t get to date.

So when our friends hear that one of us is seeing the other, they rush to get out of our way as we’re headed out the door. Otherwise someone is liable to get hurt.

Strangely enough, this bi-city living arrangement is not as unusual as I thought. Since living apart, we’ve met a dozen other couples who are forced into the same predicament. And then there are also the brave men and women who serve in the military. Their spouses may not see them for months at a time.

While we’ve acclimated to being alone a great deal of the time, there are a few things I really miss doing.

I miss cooking for him. Me! The woman who is as domesticated as a wildebeest. I also miss sleeping with him. And despite email, cell phones and snail mail letters, we both miss being able to share those little moments in our lives that only our significant other would understand.

We’ll live together again soon. We are nearing the end of this stint and we’ll go back to being a normal couple, fussing, needling, and holding each other every night.

In the meantime, if you see me with a suitcase and a dog in the car—get out of my way! I’m going to see my husband.

Addendum: Solitude hasn’t been all bad. This is how I became a novelist.

For more writing markets, news and wacky stories pop over to http://mariazannini.blogspot.com/ and to my website at: http://www.mariazannini.com/.

And to see what all this alone time has netted, pick up Touch Of Fire and let me know what you think. I want to hear from you.

Maria Zannini

Fire in the Hole

Holy mother of Moses! I’ve got a book coming out today.

Touch Of Fire is all dressed up and ready for perusal. Don’t make it feel like an ugly date on prom night. Go. Read the excerpt. Buy the book. You’ll like it. Really. I wouldn’t lie to you.

I thought I’d give you a little background on how this story happened. I blame it all on one of my crit partners. She had heard about Samhain’s first line contest last year and coerced me to enter.

Dogus Maximus

Meet Tank. 135 lbs of muscle and dog kisses. Whenever we go out in public, people point at us—or rather, they point at ‘Tinky’. He’s probably the biggest Rottweiler we’ve ever seen and a little intimidating when you get up close, but he’s got a heart the size of Texas.

Tinky was a rescue, as most of our dogs have been. As usual, I had to be coerced into taking him in. Not that I was opposed to rescuing a dog. I just didn’t want another one—especially such a BIG one.

The Christmas Tree

It seems only appropriate for the season that my first blog post on Samhain should be a Christmas story. Brace yourselves. This story includes mass anarchy, bloodshed and tears.

Greg and I were newly married and poor as proverbial church mice. Those were lean times, and we were as skinny as our wallets, living from hand to mouth for the first few months of married life.

So when Christmas rolled around, there was very little hope for anything more than a meager holiday meal. Still, I had been saving for weeks and had socked away enough to buy a little tree.

It was a horrible indulgence for two people struggling to make ends meet, but it was Christmas, and I was anxious to start our own family traditions. This would be our first Christmas on our own. Our families were 1200 miles away and we were all alone in Texas.

Greg, a jolly fellow —even if he was underweight, agreed that we should spend our last twenty dollars on Christmas.

We made a pilgrimage to the land of fir and holly, otherwise known as the local grocery store. The store was packed with frenzied shoppers and the lines stretched into the aisles. They were so busy they pulled the only guy they had manning the Christmas tree lot to help inside the store.

In the chaos, we finally found the store manager and he told us to go ahead and pick out our tree and he’d send a clerk to ring us up.

I picked out a thick and sturdy ten dollar tree. To this day I still remember how fresh it smelled. We steered it in the general direction of our little MGB, maiming Greg in the process. I zigged. He zagged. But only the tree came out of it unscathed. As Greg sucked on his bleeding finger, we waited for the clerk to show up.

And waited, and waited.

Twice, each of us went back to find the manager and he kept promising to send someone out there. Twenty minutes later we were still waiting. I went back one more time and the manager met me halfway.

“Has anyone come out yet?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He looked back toward the store, the lines as long as ever and then at us, two skinny kids, wide-eyed and anxious to be on our way.

“You picked out a nice tree,” he said, pointing at a tree that buried most of our little car.

I showed him the color-coded price tag on the tree, then handed him our only twenty dollar bill. “Can you break the twenty for me?”

“Afraid not,” he said. “I guess you’ll have to take it home.”

I stared at him dumbfounded, not understanding what he meant. By this time, Greg had joined us and asked if we could pay him instead.

“Nope,” the older man said. He shook Greg’s hand and wished us, Merry Christmas.

I must have had tears in my eyes because everything went blurry all at once. I looked up at the store manager and thanked him. “This is our first Christmas on our own,” I said.

He smiled. “And I’ll bet it’s one you’ll always remember too.”

More than thirty years later I realize now…he was right.

May all your holiday memories be just as warm and kind.
Merry Christmas, everyone!

Maria Zannini

*****

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You’re always welcome.