With the sweltering,unbearable heat we’ve had in Spokane lately, it’s definitely time for a berry-flavored popsicle as well as a dog popsicle for Koda, my Shih Tzu.
This past week while I was walking Koda around the condos, I almost fell when I slipped on a small, hard, green apple. I caught myself but ended up with a fractured ankle. I’m a strong woman so I’ll survive. My biggest worry was hiring someone from Rover to walk Koda twice a day. It’s costing me over $600 for 2 weeks. Ouch!
For those of you who, like me, have an insatiable curiosity, first off, let me tell you my BIG NEWS: I received an Honorable Mention for my non-fiction essay in the Writer’s Digest 93rd Annual Competition: “Spy fiction is back in vogue. But did you know there are two basic types?” This is huge for any writer, as there were 3,571 submissions in this year’s contest, spanning 44 countries. (Let me know if you’d like to read the essay and I’ll send it to you.)
I also had an insatiable curiosity as a kid. Uncle Albert, my mom’s brother, was a funeral director in Illinois. When our family traveled back by train from Idaho to Illinois in 1965, (age 11), the first question I planned to ask my uncle is how people were embalmed. Mom said, “Don’t you dare ask him that question!” In 1981 (16 years later), I found the answer while attending City College in San Francisco. I took an anthropology class and wrote an ethnography on a funeral director and interviewed one and asked him to describe the process of embalming. After that research, I decided I’d rather be cremated. Curiosity satisfied.
I was also curious at age 9-14, when I delivered newspapers, and remember reading the headlines in The Lewiston Morning Tribune and wondered what the heck they meant. Words like CIA, the Supreme Court, the State Department, the assassination of President Kennedy, and later the Vietnam War. Seeking truth, travel and adventure, I joined the CIA, hoping to find out more. I got way more than I bargained for. Curiosity satisfied.
For many years, I was curious about an East German cousin who defected to the West, but then returned to East Germany which was under communist rule, so in 2023, at the Spies, Lies & Nukes Conference, I asked Jack Barsky, a former KGB spy who grew up in East Germany, why someone would want to return to a communist country when they had experienced freedom in the West. He said freedom can sometimes be scary and living in East Germany was like living in a prison and a former prisoner will often commit a crime again in order to go back to prison, a life they are familiar with. Curiosity satisfied.
A girlfriend recently sent me a photo of me and a boyfriend I dated for four years back in the early 70s. I had never seen this photo before. I obviously loved him. Where did we go wrong? We lost touch and I was curious as to what happened to him. A mutual friend (a CIA case officer) told me almost 40 years ago that my boyfriend had turned gay, so I hesitated to contact him, wondering how he’d react after all these years. I should’ve known better because case officers are wont to lie. In July, I took a risk, wanting to renew our friendship, so I wrote him, saying it didn’t matter that he had turned gay. He replied, “I’m not gay, never was, and never will be.” OMG! Curiosity satisfied.
By now, if you’re curious as to whether I was able to find a major publisher for my book, The Spy from Beijing, the answer is NOT YET. Reminds me how important it is to do something you truly love. Curiosity still unsatisfied.
Lastly, I’ll send a free copy of my memoir (Spies, Lies & Psychosis: Surviving betrayal, mania, depression and the schizoaffective disorder) to the first and fifth curious person who responds to this newsletter. Send me your address. Anyone who already won a free book is excluded.
Until next time…