Reading: Still reading Dan Brown's Digital Fortress and Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop

Listening to: Blind Melon Compilation

Visualizing: My father's Face

My father and I are so alike about so many things, from political views to book genres, it�s sad that we rarely got along while I was living at home. We are both so strong willed and one little disagreement about something usually exploded into a huge debate. He always struggled to understand me but I was too �girly� for him at times, which automatically made me the mama�s girl. My sister on the other hand was daddy�s little �boy�. Not as if there weren�t enough boys in the house as it was; three boys to be exact. My sister just wanted to be outside, shooting things, with my dad. There was a time when I did myself.

You have to understand my father a little bit; he�s a very complicated person. He grew up poor, only knowing Spanish, and worked very hard to become the man he is now. His whole purpose in life was to make sure that his children had everything he didn�t. Sure, the money he has now is �evil� oil money, but he worked damn hard for the $40 an hour salary he had before he retired. So hard, in fact, that I really didn�t know my father very well. I don�t even know what his favorite color is. He would work all day, work outside when he got home and hunt. He always had interesting projects going on, from welding boats and trailers to inventing contraptions to capture gophers. When he wasn�t doing that he was reloading bullets and making belt buckles. The man never stops. I think I was about 8 when I decided to put away my shiny black shoes and ruffly dresses and ventured out to my dads workshop. I knew he loved it when I did go out to visit.

�There�s my boy!�

I would giggle and sit on a sawhorse and watch as he went to work. He showed me how to use different tools and I became very efficient with a miter saw. He was the reason why I took up hunting, I really didn�t enjoy shooting little animals but knowing that my father was proud of me was what kept me doing it. He started to call me Annie Oakley, because I was becoming such a good shot.

That all ended with one incident. It was dove season and I had taken my first shot of the evening. I went searching for the dove that I had hit and found it huddled under the brush. What I normally would do would be to grab its tiny head, without looking at it, and twist it all the way around quickly until the head detached. That way it was quick and painless for the animal and I didn�t have to think about what I was doing. For some reason I looked at it and I found that I couldn�t do it. The poor dove was trembling in my hands, bleeding from all of its openings, and I couldn�t end its misery. I started to cry and took it to my father; maybe he could save it somehow. You have to understand I was only around ten years old. He was furious, �What are you doing? Kill it! Can�t you see it�s in pain?�

�I can�t, he�s just hurt, maybe we can save it.�

He grabbed it from my hands and did it for me. �Never let an animal suffer, that�s the first rule that I taught you and you broke it. Go home.�

I was broken hearted. I walked the short distance to my home with my shotgun open on my arm. I knew he was right. I had an obligation to make sure the dove suffered as little as possible but instead I was weak and in being weak a creature�s last moments of life were filled with agonizing pain.

I stopped hunting after that. I started to spend more time with my mother instead. I discovered that my father and I, although very similar, were two different species. My mother, on the other hand, was more like me in the feminine sense.

My father was a little disappointed, but would lavish me with �girly� presents whenever he could.

�This will be the one that will get married and make us lots of grandbabies,� he would often joke. I would pat him on the cheek and say something sarcastic involving feminism. We still had our laughs.

I think I�m going to stop with the father talk now. Maybe continue some other time.