Category: Memoir

Featured

 The American Dream/Nightmare: My Experience Buying a Home

My mother understood that owning your own home is the key to true freedom. Shortly after I graduated from High School, she bought a small home and lived there for the rest of her life. To say that it was “humble” would be kind, but many of her children and grandchildren would spend time there until they could afford something else or until she kindly but firmly asked them to move on. It was a tiny three-bedroom home with a small yard in the heart of the city, but it was hers. She flirted with selling it over the years but she never did. As long as she made the payments no one could take it away. I think she also understood that it was the best thing she could pass on to her children. When she passed last year, the house was paid for and it provided a little bit of money for her seven children, more than any of us would have guessed.

At age 51, I am on the verge of buying a home with my wife and it has been a challenge to say the least. We live in Colchester, Vermont, a town in the most urban county of the small state. Burlington and the surrounding area, of which Colchester is part, have the highest home prices. My wife and I don’t make as much money as some, but we did have some savings to put toward a down payment, even with that money, the monthly payment of even a small home or a condo would be 25% more than we were paying for rent. We’ve lived in one half of a duplex for five years and the money we pay every month is about 25% less than the landlords could be getting. But we’re good tenants and we put up with certain “allowances” so the symbiotic relationship has been mutually beneficial. 

That is until we had a tiff with our neighbor. Our neighbor is the property owner’s grandson and the property managers’ son and nephew respectively. Our neighbor (the grandson) objected to some lights we had up in the common area and took them down without discussing the matter with us first. To the managers’ credit, they didn’t get involved and took a relatively neutral stance on the issue, but rather than renew our yearly lease, they rewrote it to make it month-to-month. A perfectly legal move, but it said to us, “If you cause any problems, you’re out in 60 days.”

My wife and I debated our next move. “Now is not a good time to buy,” she said. I agreed, but I said, “It’s never a good time to buy.” When interest rates are down, people are looking and available properties get snapped up as soon as their listed. When interest rates are high, sellers hold back until they can get more for their homes thus making the supply limited. Keep in mind that in our area, (and in lots of places in the U.S.) supply is much less than demand. Even in the pandemic, properties were going sight unseen as people looked to relocate and work remotely. 

So we started looking, just to see what was out there, but we didn’t sign the new lease that our landlords presented us. Without a lease, we were still month to month but we didn’t want to agree to their new terms, whatever they might be. We considered commuting up to an hour to work, so we looked to the north and south of our current locale. We considered relocating and looked in the north and south of New York. Side note: properties in New York State seem more affordable. A $250,000 home would go for 350-400 in Chittenden County, Vermont, and after talking to people in the know- it comes down to supply and demand. There is less supply and as much or more demand here in Vermont, so prices are higher here.   

Back to the story; 

We were in trouble! Our previous rental ended when the landlord evicted us (a legal, but dickish move) to let their son and his family move in, so we were gun-shy about being forcibly relocated. With no legal standing, our landlord could sell the property or evict us if we had another issue with their relative/our neighbor, or if the price was right. We wanted the security of homeownership but was it worth the price?

Owning and renting both come with their perks and plugs. Renting is great when stuff breaks. Fridge dies? Fuck you, fix it. Pipes burst? Fuck you, fix it. Lawn needs mowing? Fuck you, mow it! But when you own, all those costs are yours. If you need or want to upgrade, or downgrade, or move out of state, all you have to do is wait for your lease to expire and you’re free like a tree! But when you own, you have to sell your house at the same time you find a new one to buy. 

Back to our story- we found a place! A house that was as beautiful on the website as it was in person, which is a whole other story Some places don’t show you all the little problem areas, why? I don’t know. It seems like that wastes everyone’s time like a dating profile that doesn’t show your hunchback. It’s gonna come up; why not get it out in the open? But I digress.

The house we passed on because it was at the high end of our affordability and also at the outer edge of our physical range was still on the market. But we would both have to commute 45 minutes to an hour and that was going to reduce our quality of life. Plus, the house had no property to speak of, and very limited parking, and was on the edge of a cliff. But, it was the street my wife grew up on (nostalgia points) and in a very desirable city that mixed city benefits with livability (lifestyle points). 

At the eureka moment, we were on an excursion to Plattsburgh, New York across the lake, and staying at a bed and breakfast to get a feel for the area. “Why were prices so much lower?” we wondered. The area was nice but after we saw everything we needed to see, including some nice properties, I asked my wife, “Is this worth it? Is it worth moving our lives, looking for new jobs, leaving our friends and family to save money? Would we be happier here than in that house we loved? Even if we paid an extra 100k?”

The answer was “probably not.” There were too many barriers to entry (to borrow a Microeconomics term) moving to New York. Things that could go wrong that would derail our lives. So, we went back and revisited that home we loved and amazingly it was still available. We had it professionally inspected top to bottom and the only thing wrong with it was its lack of land and parking. My wife wondered if those should be deal breakers for us, but I said, “Those problems are the reasons this place is still available!” We made an offer, lower than they wanted but the sellers had to be realistic. In the Ven diagram of people looking for homes in that town, who wanted to live on a cliff, didn’t want a yard, and only had two cars—we were the only ones left in the center. 

Take it or wait for the next pandemic.

They took it! We move in a few weeks. My mother would have been happy. Not really but that’s another story.

Stay tuned for more rants about my thoughts on the home-buying and renting experience. Including-

-Mortgages- Why Does Everyone Have to Wet Their Beaks?!

-My Plan to Make the American Dream Available to Everyone 🙂

-Why do ALL Landlords suck?

-If you’re buying, you need your own agent!

A day like no other

I have no memory of the most profound moment of my life.

It was September 20, 1997. I had worked a full day selling cologne at the department store called Filene’s. After work, I met up with my best friend and roommate for a movie. Titanic was the number one movie at the box office, but we were there for L.A. Confidential, a more bro-friendly experience. The movie was sold out, so we went to Wal-Mart to look for Star Wars action figures instead.

Gimme a break. We were twenty-five. 

Our hunt was unsuccessful, so we drove across the street to McDonald’s for a late bite. We never made it.

A driver of an SUV ran a red light and t-boned our tiny Hyundai. He was supposedly searching for the song My Heart Will Go On (from Titanic) on the radio and didn’t see the stop signal, which is a much better excuse for a jury than “I was on the phone.”

Jump ahead almost twenty-five years. Spoiler alert—I lived. The three-ton vehicle, traveling at 40 miles an hour almost killed me. The road to recovery was a complicated and rocky one, and I have no memory of anything from that day, while my other memories are otherwise intact. Today, I’m watching Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time, a documentary of my favorite author. Vonnegut was a prisoner of war in World War II and survived the complete destruction of the city of Dresden, bombed by Allied forces. In the documentary, one of Vonnegut’s daughters said that he didn’t show his feelings about being the only survivor of such a horrific attack but he had to have been deeply affected by it. Of course, he felt it. Slaughterhouse-Five was his most popular book and only came about when he delved into his thoughts and feelings of that monumental event. Reflections that he worked for years to get just right on the paper.

While our experiences are different, I have worked hard to avoid tackling my own “Dresden Book” as Vonnegut had described Slaughterhouse-Five before he wrote it. There is therapy in exploring trauma, and writing is an indirect connection to others who are suffering. 

I lost a lot that day. Friends. Family. Teeth. An eye.

But I gained something, too. Perspective.

So it goes.

Featured

Confessions of a Failed Writer 5/6/22

CONFESSIONS….

Going Wide

I’ve been exclusive with Amazon since I published my first novel a few years ago. There are benefits to choosing Amazon as your only distributor, namely the ability to be part of their Kindle Unlimited (KU) program. KU allows subscribers to read any KU book for no additional charge! Writers are paid per page read. It’s a great deal for readers who are afraid to pay for an entire book that they might not like. It’s also an opportunity for publishers/authors to offer books to those timid customers. It works out to about one cent per three pages read, so the goal here is appealing to the mass market.

Amazon has a bunch of programs only available to an author who is enrolled in KU. One could interpret this from the opposite angle and say they have restrictions on those who don’t bend the knee. KU is a great program for many authors, but for me, I spent a lot of time and money to figure out that I wasn’t one of those authors.

Now, I’m “going wide” which is to say making my books available to a variety of platforms including one traditional brick and mortar retailer. One (potential) benefit to going wide is price control. Amazon has price minimums based on page length and file size, so I had to charge 4.99 each for my fantasy series, which might be a high buy-in for a skittish new reader. However, other retailers let you select your own price, damn the file size! In this case, I made my first book in the series FREE and the second is 1.99. Then, I told Amazon that someone was selling it cheaper and they matched the prices! It’s only with leverage and competition that we can have our demands met.

Will this new avenue be successful in getting my books in front of readers’ eyeballs and some money in my pocket? I don’t know, but it’s exciting! Wish me luck!  

Illegitimum non carborundum

OR

The struggle to stay positive.

I just published my seventh product, an erotic-comedy novella called sVck. It has dirty words and images and that makes it hard to promote because Amazon and Facebook have a policy against advertising “erotic” works. So getting the word out requires some grass-roots promotions and out-of-the-box thinking.

I found a few newsletters that promote “smut” to thirsty readers, so I’ll wait and see if the one I chose noticeably moves the needle. If so, I’ll reach out to other similar promotions. In the meantime, I tried to enlist friends and family to pre-order my new book with the intention of sparking Amazon’s algorithms into featuring my book on similar searches. Amazon is smart. First, it shows what other people have already bought. It’s their way of putting the most popular stuff by the front door. Sales begets sales.

Herein lies the bump in the road and the potential downer. Most of my Facebook friends don’t seem to care about my writing career. That said, there are any number of reasons why posting on one’s personal Facebook page might not reach every one (or even a significant percentage) of one’s social media friends. If you’re me, the endless cycle of pet pictures and political commentary have whittled your “followers” down to a devoted half-dozen. So, when I need to reach the masses, Facebook decides who is most likely to “like” what I am saying and doesn’t show it to anyone else. That’s what I hope has happened.

The alternative is that no one really cares that I’m a writer. I’m not one of those writers who knows his target audience and writes what they want to read. I write the things that will entertain me through the drafts, the re-writes, the edits, paying and supervising cover artists, and the eventual self-promotion, and I pray to god that someone wants to read what I’ve written.

It’s not the best business plan.

Maybe my friends and family don’t have the money to spend on my books. I get that. Times are tough and everything is more expensive, so shelling out 3 or 7 bucks for a book they aren’t going to read is a big ask. 

“We didn’t know you had a book out.” As I said, I don’t have a lot of followers, so it’s very likely that they didn’t even see my post begging them to buy my book. I took to DMing a dozen close friends I thought might react to a personal invitation. Some of them responded with screenshots of their orders or declarations that they had placed an order (or two). But what about the ones who didn’t respond?

I know some people are jealous. Not jealous like they spend all day shaking their fists and vowing revenge like some overacting soap opera character. More likely, they don’t see my efforts to be a writer as worthwhile and that writing isn’t a “real job.” I have a friend who says she wants to be a writer and envies me for the time I have to put into writing. I know because that’s what she says every time I tell her that I have a new publication. Not, “congratulations” or “I can’t wait to read it.” Just, “Must be nice…” I’ll spend another post ranting about “finding the time” to write. 

I can hear the band is playing me off, so I’ll wrap it up. I am lucky to do what I do and I know that writing isn’t a “real job.” Of course, it isn’t easy and requires no less devotion and expertise, but there is a sense of freedom being able to spend all day at home creating fantasy worlds. But it’s also scary as hell if you’re depending on those fantasy worlds to pay your mortgage.

In conclusion, appreciate the ones who support you, and cut some slack for those who haven’t yet; there are many reasons that your friends aren’t excited when you put out a new book (or record, or piece of art, or poem, or photograph, or have a baby) because maybe they’re jealous.

Or maybe they have other stuff on their mind. 

Reading is Hard. Pity the Reader.

I’m not talking about literacy, I’m talking about finding the time to read. Sure, you might be one of those people who always has a few books going at any given time, while putting even more books in your ‘to be read’ pile, and you probably don’t even own a television. No, I’m talking about the other people who have infinite forms of entertainment competing for their attention. Putting aside the hours spent sleeping, cooking, eating, cleaning et. al. we have more ways to spend the remaining minutes of our mortal existence than ever before. I don’t know about you, but I could just watch Disney + until the sun burns out.

As a writer, you need to get eyeballs on your words and keep them there. Kurt Vonnegut said, “Give the reader as much information as soon as possible. To hell with suspense!” While I don’t completely agree with him here, I know that a confused reader is one who closes the book and does not open it again. That’s the opposite of what you want.

We also have more ways to read than ever before, but the fact that anyone reads at all is amazing. But, the increase in the number formats means there are more books competing for your attention. As a self-published writer, the hardest thing you will do is to find readers. The late Mitch Hedburg had a joke about being a stand-up comedian and being asked to write a script, something related to comedy that isn’t comedy. I paraphrase, “It’s like being a great chef and being asked, ‘Well, do you farm?'” You wrote a book, which is an incredible accomplishment, but now you have to become an expert in marketing on an ever-shifting retail landscape. The three most difficult things you will do as a writer in reverse order are as follows and I quote- 

3) Write a book  2) Write your blurb. 1) Get people to read your book

I’m sometimes excited to check my daily page reads on Amazon. Often, no one read a single page or bought any hard copies. But some days when I see someone had read 500 pages of my books (or 500 people read one page each) I am excited. Something about the book kept them turning the digital pages and that’s a great thing. It means my newest marketing plan is reaching some eyeballs. Or it’s a fluke. I hope it’s not a fluke.

Back when I used to have a job, I told a coworker about this great movie. I offered to let her borrow my dvd. Every day, I would ask if she watched it. She hadn’t. Weeks went by. She said, “Are you sure I’m going to like it?” I wanted to say, “It’s a fucking movie. It’s two hours of your life! Watch it. Don’t watch it. Just give it back. I want to watch it again.” She returned it to me unwatched.

In case you’re wondering, the movie was Garden State. Her loss.

Making the decision to read a book, and then reading that book is a monumental accomplishment. I asked a friend to proofread a “finished” book and help me with plot points. While he was a book-a-day reader, he said he couldn’t get into my book. The first chapter was confusing (and thus, boring). I assured him that it picks up after that, but he never read any more of the book. He was right. The first chapter was not an attention-getter, so I changed it, but I couldn’t even force a good friend to waste any time.

That said, I plan to spend some time talking about the frustration that comes from friends and family not reading my books. I acknowledge to the universe that reading is difficult and tip my cap to anyone who spends hours alone with my words. It’s all I ever wanted.    

There’s a lot of stuff out there demanding our attention. Pity the reader and be thankful for them.

Confessions…9/22

A continuation of my previous Confession- my reviewer gave the final book in my series, Avatars of the Maelstrom 4/5 stars! I’ve been checking every day like a I was waiting for a grade from my professor.

“Great story, keeping you guessing every page I read. Unexpected ending…I’m sure you all will enjoy reading.”

Here’s hoping all my reviews are that positive.

I haven’t written anything in a few days; I’m working on new formats for my previous publications. Large Print and Hardcovers require redoing the original covers, a task for my freelance artists. I changed computers last year and lost the writing of Twenty-One Octobers, so I had to salvage my original Word by downloading the book on Amazon and splitting it up into chapters and recreating the book using Vellum. But after a couple of day’s work, I have my digital manuscript back.

I’m also waiting on the cover for the Trilogy edition of Tragic Heroes as well as the prototype cover for sVck, the first from friend and long-time artistic go-to-guy, Michael Kelleher, the second is coming from art house 100 Covers.

Okay, back to work. Blessings on all your houses.  

Confessions of a Failed Writer-6

9/21/2021

I had a minor success yesterday. I try not to check too often, but any writer is going to look at his or her reviews. The trilogy I released a month ago is fairly long, so even if someone bought them, they might not have finished. Anyway, I noticed my first two books in the series had one five-star review each. I was cautiously optimistic.

My previous release, Twenty-One Octobers has almost ten reviews. The people who have reviewed are friends or friends of friends, and while I think they genuinely enjoyed the books, the true critic is someone who doesn’t care about your feelings. The internet can be an unforgiving hellscape and god have mercy on your should if someone paid money for something and did not enjoy it. 

“I got this book with zero expectations but good reviews. I began reading and I couldn’t put the darn book down until I finished reading cover to cover. Yes that how good it was. Looking forward to book 2.”

That feels good. For someone to have spent their money and enjoyed something I worked for years to complete, well that’s the dream. And to write a review…-sniff-

“With ups and downs like in every story is a rollercoaster of actions and twist of emotions not foreseen by far. Again is book you cannot put down. Different from the first in a good way.”

-If you’re a friend and you wrote the above review, let me know only if it was honest. Otherwise, keep the secret to yourself.

And thank you. Whoever you are.

Confessions of a Failed Writer-rebirth edition

To paraphrase Ursula Le Guin: 

“When did you know you wanted to be a writer?” 

I’d respond, “I’ve always been a writer.”

I wish I had started writing with the intention of publishing earlier in life. In the computer lab in High School (class of 1990) I would write stories of my Dungeons and Dragons characters. My friend gave me my first criticism, she said, “You need more than fight scenes.” She was right.

I always had ideas but rarely got them down on paper. I wrote a poem on my love’s lament that was published in a school journal. I submitted an idea for a role-playing game adventure. But it wasn’t until I was in a near-fatal car crash twenty-four years ago that I decided to quit my job and become a comic-book writer. But I was wrong. I should have been writing while I had that full-time job. It’s all about time management and making choices on what’s important.

Make progress every day. Pick a goal (in this case-writing) and work on it every day. Ten minutes before work. After dinner before putting in a movie, write for half an hour. After putting the kids to bed. It adds up because on the day when you have more time, you already have a foundation. Even if you don’t use what you wrote, you got it out of the way and it will lead to better things. Write in the morning. Write at night. Write when you can’t sleep. Write when all you want to do is sleep.

I have a friend (actually a couple, but I’ll merge them into one for this) who is jealous of the time I have to write. This person would love to be a writer, but just doesn’t have the time. I disagree.  Sometimes, thinking I have unlimited time can be a detriment to the process of completing a project. When I have a job, I do a lot of “writing” while I work, looking forward to the time when I can jot down my ideas. The point is, we choose how we spend our time. There’s a quote, “I always wanted to be a boxer, until I fought someone who WANTED to be a boxer.” The point is,  if you want to do something, do it. 

Don’t wait until you “have the time.” Get a grain of sand and place it where you want it. Tomorrow, add another. Someday you’ll have your castle.

Confessions of a Failed Writer part 3

September 17, 11:02 A.M.

I’m putting off listening to the auditions for my audiobook. I have a dozen or so and it’s a short scene the professionals have read. Why am I procrastinating? Self-doubt. Wondering if I’ll make the wrong decision on who will read my deeply personal work. I could do it myself, but I don’t have a great voice. I know all the inflections and how I want it read, but I’d prefer to leave that to the professionals with the experience and equipment to create a high quality finished product.

The second question is do I come up with the money to pay a voice actor or do I do a profit split? I’ve read the author’s laments who regret doing the split. But the upfront costs of paying a good producer can be a grand or more. Do I bet on myself for future earnings? Or do I take the safe route and save the upfront costs? I’ve only sold 9 copies of my book, so how many audio copies will I sell?

I will put that off until tonight. I’ll have my partner Anya listen with me for a second opinion. For today, I have daily goal of 2000 words. That’s an easy goal, maybe the word “achievable” is better than easy. Especially since I’m dividing the daily goal among three novels: Legacy of the Maelstrom, Mind the Shadows and sVck. I figure the three books should total about 225,000 words, so if I achieve my daily goal, I’ll be done the first draft of three books in four months. The trick is to write. Some writers do what is called “sprinting” where they close the doors and type until the allotted time is up. Usually an hour. Others write to be perfect. Each word is carefully chosen to not require much polishing in a second draft. My process is somewhere in the middle. I’m mostly writing dialogue with a few descriptors. Here’s an example of what I wrote last night.

                                                           sVck

“How was your dinner date?”

Savanah hung her head. Humphrey eyed her with a snarky smile. “I checked your window at 12:30 and you still weren’t home. And your 9:00 o’clock came out of your hall looking unsatisfied. What happened?”

“Things got out of hand, Humph. We fucked.”

Humphrey spit out his coffee. “You what?! You fucked a vampire!?”

“Would you keep it down, for christ’s sake?!”

“What do you mean, you fucked?”

“We did it. It was awesome. I’ve never been with a woman before. She did stuff to me. I came so fucking hard.”

“That’s awesome, Savvy. You needed to nut. Seriously. You’ve been doing a lot of blowing with no payback. What else happened?”

“I asked her about vampire life. I told her about my alternative food source. She showed me her thralls. Four guys. They ate raw meat and she fed on one while I watched. I, uh, showed her my method.”

“You blew one of her guys?”

“While she watched.”

“Hot.”

“He keeled over. Dead.”

“What?”

“I don’t understand what happened. Maybe he was so weak that…”

“…you sucked him to death?”

“Yeah.”

“Dammnnnnnn.”

In my next draft I’ll go through and add descriptions. Spice it up. Sometimes I leave the dialogue when I feel the reader knows who is who without the need to write “he said” and “she said.” It creates a better back and forth. 

What’s your process?

Name

 

1978

I am six-years-old. It is midnight. I am debating if I can survive jumping from the backseat of a car traveling at sixty-miles an hour onto the highway. I’m not even tall enough to see out the window. I will have to hope I get lucky.

As I contemplate the leap, I decide to question my captors hoping they will set me free or turn the car around and bring me home. “What did I do?” I ask the blonde. I try to be cold and emotionless when I say, “Where are you taking me?”

She responds with a smile so wide it shows her back teeth. Her smile is that of a wolf. “Jan-Ives, you didn’t do anything,” she says, emphasizing the word “you.” She drags it out like laundry from a washing machine. Her words are heavy, cold and wet. “Your mom just needs some time to get back on her feet. You are going to what is called a foster home.” She uses my full first name, proving that she doesn’t know me.

“My name is Jan,” I say through clenched teeth. Her smile fades and as she turns away.

I have never hated anyone before. I am six. I hate this woman.

I don’t know the man and woman in the front seat. I was never introduced, but I silently select the names Dick and Jane for them. I do not respect them, so I do not ask them their real names. I don’t care. My mother held back the tears when she told me I had to go with these people. She said I would be all right–that she would get me as soon as she could.

Alone in the backseat of the speeding car, I stare intently at the lock. It is a silver piece of metal that looks like a skinny bullet the Lone Ranger might load into his six-shooter. With no plunger to press against, the bullet hurts when it is pushed to lock the door. I am deciding if I will pull it. I am contemplating pulling it to unlock the door, open it, and jump onto Route 495.

Jane tells Dick–the driver–that the next exit is the one they should take. I know my chance of escape is growing smaller by the second. I don’t know why my mother told me to go with these people in dark suits in the middle of the night. I have school–1st grade– in the morning. She must have forgotten. I don’t understand why she would let me go. If I can get out of the car, I can get back to her. She will apologize for the mistake. Everything will be okay.

When I leap out of the car, I tuck and roll along the pavement to the grassy median strip. I execute a perfect somersault and rise agilely to my feet and begin pumping my legs for the other side of the highway. I hear the screech of brakes and the blaring of horns behind me and the inevitable crash of several vehicles. I dare not look back as I run onto the opposite highway that leads home. Cars and trucks slam on their brakes, and another pileup ensues. As my feet touch the grass that precedes the safety of the woods I hear shots ring out, and I see several bullets explode into the wood of the trees ahead.

I open my eyes as my fantasy and my journey come to an end. I decide that even if I survived the escape, I wouldn’t know where to go to get back to my mother. The car slows down and pulls into a driveway. I look out the window and see a gold Cadillac though it is too dark to see the color and I am too young to recognize the make. The only car I am capable of correctly identifying is a Pinto. I received the Matchbox version for my sixth birthday. It was my only present.

The engine turns off, and Jane turns toward me. The headrest obscures the right side of her face, and with the warmest smile she can muster she says, “Jan-Ives, we’re here. This nice family is going to take care of you.” She keeps smiling her wolf smile.

Dick opens the door. I step out and take a good look at him. He is wearing a dark suit like Jane’s, and an offensive amount of after-shave. I hold my breath as Dick puts his hand on the back of my neck. It is a loose grip, but if I decided to bolt, it could become tighter. He gently pushes me toward the front door of the largest house I have ever seen. There is an attached garage, but it is empty.–or perhaps it is too small to fit the monstrous luxury vehicle in the driveway.

Dick releases his grip on my neck, steps forward and rings the doorbell. Soon, I am welcomed by the Coutu’s. A father, a mother, two boys, and two girls, all of whom are older than me, greet me from inside what seems like a mansion. Compared to the one-room motel I was living in an hour before, it is.

The kids show me around while the parents discuss ransom with my captors. In the kitchen, Marky, the youngest boy, introduces me to the canine member of the family. I look down to see Sparky a short-haired Dachshund. I have never seen a dog of this breed before. “Go ahead, pet him,” urges Marky with a sly smile.

Butchy, the oldest boy–big and meaty like Thurgood–attempts to assuage my fears, “Don’t be afraid. Sparky won’t bite.” He is an enormous seventeen-year-old with muscles that give shape to his t-shirt, and a buzzed haircut. I doubt he knows the meaning of the word “afraid.”

I crouch down and pet Sparky’s soft fur. The little red dog turns around and chomps me on the wrist! I am shocked, but I do not pull away because he is not biting me hard. I look up at Marky with questioning eyes. All four kids are laughing with joy as Sparky begins to pull me toward a cabinet below the sink.

“Go ahead,” Marky urges. I open the cabinet to find a box of Alpo dog biscuits. I take out a small treat, and he politely takes it from my fingers. I smile and pet Sparky again. I like this dog.

“He can give paw, too,” says the oldest girl, Suzanne (though I have no doubt they call her Suzy).

The four adults have entered the kitchen. “You are going to like it here. The Coutu’s are very nice people,” says Jane. I stare at her. My hate wells up behind my eyes and is released in salty streams of despair. The men shake hands, and my two abductors leave me with my new family.

Mr. Coutu looks at me and extends his hand. I can only stare at it. He is wearing a dark green polyester suit, and I wonder if everyone got dressed up for my capture and delivery.

He is still holding out his hand as I look dumbly at it. I have never shaken anyone’s hand, let alone an adult’s. He takes his hand back and puts it in his pocket when I don’t give him paw.

Mrs. Coutu crouches down to my level and puts her hand on my head. She is wearing a green skirt and white blouse and has wavy, shoulder-length hair. She looks like the stereotypical housewife character on any number of 70s sitcoms and dramas. She strokes my long brown hair, and I suddenly feel like Sparky. I wonder where my biscuit is. “How do you say your name?” she asks me with a genuine smile. Speak! A new command.

“Jan D’Alesio,” I reply with practiced ease. I am new to the first grade, so I am used to annunciating my strange name. I drop the “Ives” purposely.

Mr. Coutu shakes his head. “Jan is a girl’s name,” he says as he runs his fingers along his thick mustache. “Let’s call you…” he ponders for a moment before finishing his thought, almost as if he were indeed thinking, “J.D.”

Now, I hate two people.

As an adult, I continue to use my name as a mental litmus test. The speed at which someone grasps it is the amount of mental lucidity to which I give them credit. All of my adopted animals retain the name they know. To change their names would be to cause them the same subtle trauma I suffered in the foster home. I wouldn’t change my name now. To me, my name is a badge of honor. It is like a tattoo or scar. Names are important. To take a name away from a person is to take away his or her power. This is true when it is done to an animal, or a six-year-old boy who has just been taken from his mother.