A gallon of gas vs. a box of plastic bags

Can someone explain something to me? SO MUCH of what we wear/put on our skin and hair/listen to/play with/drive/eat/smell is either derived from petroleum or gets to us, in part, because of petroleum. It's not just about the gasoline we put in our gas tanks.

Why is the cost of a gallon of gasoline $2.50 higher than it was a few months ago when the costs of other petroleum-based products have not risen commensurately? I know prices in general are up, but I haven't seen a $2.50 markup on a jumbo box of plastic bags or a tub of petroleum jelly.

If it's about supply, or investors, or refinery capacity, or those countries in the Middle East who are selling us petroleum, why isn't the cost of every petroleum-based product going up equally??

What do you think?

My book is on Amazon now! :-)

It's here: Omaha Beach.

If you want to leave a review, I'll write it for you. HA. Kidding. If you'd like to leave a review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Target, that'd be sooooooper.

Not to be an alarmist, but . . .

I don't recall what the Wall Street Journal wrote about preparing for Y2K, but here's what one WSJ journalist has said about rising food costs and possible food shortages in the USA:

"Load Up the Pantry."

At our house, despite efforts to cut back on unnecessary driving, I'm pretty sure we're spending more on gas for the cars than on food right now. The thought of food costs rising faster than the cost of oil isn't a happy one, even if we are an overweight nation.

Omaha Beach, part deux

Not part two of the book, but part two of the publication news.
Omaha Beach now has a different cover (fab, fab, fab!) and a better layout inside. It also has an ISBN!

Here's a link: Look here.

On a side note, I returned home last night from a trip to London, where I worked at the London Book Fair for comic book publisher Cinebook. An international book fair is a great place to embarrass yourself by trying out your textbook French, German, Italian, Cantonese, etc. on people who actually speak the language. Tee hee.

If you're blondish and mention that you live in California, expect to be asked by at least one person from another country if you surf. I am, I did and I was. And I don't.

In a narrow, crowded restaurant with uneven floors in the Earls Court section of London, I enjoyed the best tikka masala I've ever tasted. At the tables on either side of ours (we were almost bumping elbows with the diners at those tables), unidentified and highly gutteral languages were being spoken with such intensity that I could practically feel the speakers' breaths in my face. It sounded like a throat-clearing contest.

My one tourist foray of the trip was to Hampton Court, just outside London. Hampton Court was taken away from Cardinal Wolsey by Henry VIII after Wolsey failed to persuade the Pope that it was a good idea for Henry to divorce his wife and marry Anne Boleyn. Some of the outstanding features of the palace include a 500-year-old astronomical clock (taken down for renovation during my visit), the Chapel Royal (closed between church services the day of my visit), the gardens and the Royal Tennis Court (designed not for modern tennis but for the centuries-old game jeu de paume). I was really disappointed to miss the chapel and the clock, but the living history presentations around the palace (including actors preparing a meal in the palace kitchen) assuaged my feelings. I'd watched several PBS specials on Hampton Court before this trip and am thrilled that I got to visit the palace.

Omaha Beach is now in print!

To everyone who's been beating down my (virtual) office door asking when I was going to publish my Omaha Beach collection of short fiction . . . it's done! Omaha Beach is available in print and as a PDF download. These stories, many of them set near a fictitious lakeshore beach outside of Omaha, Nebraska, are about survival.

I'm revising the layout, so I've taken down the link to the preview site. :-)

The Fiction of Real Life

Standing on the tarmac at Munich, rolling
new words around my mouth. Hübsch. Süß. Liebling. Mein Liebe.
I like them all.
I’m not sure I like you as well, but your face
anchored by your tender mouth
floats beside me in the falling mist—
your smiles, too, rising falling rising—
a barometer ticking off the measure of my tempers.

In two days we never once
mentioned Grass, Heine, Hesse or the rest of
the 27 Deutsch writers I’d memorized
in alphabetical order
in order
to impress you

You were too busy searching for my heart.
Implacable American. (There.
I said it for you.)

I was too busy building castles.

Now the fairytale mist gathers into real rain drops.
You lean into my shoulder for warmth. Again,
your timing is off, for
I’m shivering with cold and isolation.
Your precise lips part and form the words to
the first American ballad you ever learned:
“Are you lonesome tonight?” you croon
in sweet imitation of the King.

©2006 E.M. Jeffrey

Name this place . . .