Ah-Huh, So That’s What You Do

It’s much easier to tell someone I’m a retired teacher than to say I’m a writer. Similar to my experience as a teacher, I find most people think not only can they teach but they can write, too. No doubt there is some truth to this. However, just like everyone can cook or tell a joke, carving out a career as a teacher or writer poses the same challenges as earning a living as a chef or comedian. While they’ve developed reality shows to help expand opportunities for those with talent cooking or making people laugh, I am still waiting for my readers to produce the first show that serves as a platform for those who make viewers want to learn or read more.  In the meantime the question comes up, “So, what do you do?”

The two book shelves in my study.

As I’ve noted before, I have completed my first novel and I am looking for an agent to represent me to the publishing world. This requires a degree of salesmanship most writers lack. After all, we’re writers, not sales people. That’s why we have agents; but first the writer must find an agent. Fortunately, they don’t hide. Unfortunately, they usually say no. Staying motivated while sending out a query letter is the equivalent to a person in sales making a cold call. Just as every 16-year-old kid with a love of singing wants to be the next Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber—well, maybe there are better role models—every potential author wants to be the next Harper Lee. Her royalties for To Kill A Mockingbird earn her $9,249 every day.

Newspaper article my friend shared
talks about workshop by author Ricard Bausch.

When I’m not making a fool of myself on some awards show or getting arrested for driving under the influence (remember, this is supposed to be satirical), I’m penning the next brilliant post for this blog, polishing my latest short story, creating characters and plot points for my next novel, networking with other writers, attending seminars and workshops, or doing research. It was at my monthly writer’s club meeting I learned the aforementioned Harper Lee statistic. At the same meeting there was a seminar on the seven stages of story development.

A little more than a week ago a friend gave me a newspaper clipping about a workshop being offered by Richard Bausch, author of eleven novels and eight collections of stories. He selected ten of the 150 applicants submitting 20 page manuscripts last year. I sent him the first chapter from my novel.

Novel I am currently reading. I first read it a
little more than 40 years ago.

Conducting research as a writer is not the same as a scientist working in a laboratory. Although, I’m sure there are more similarities than differences. While we may not always know what we’re looking for, more often than not we know it when we see it. More than anything else, agents and publishers claim to be looking for a unique voice. My mind immediately turns to Gilbert Gottfried or Bobcat Goldthwait, but I’m not sure those are the voices they want to hear. Searching on Google may provide facts and information to make a story accurate, but becoming the next Twain, Hemingway or Lee requires immersion in literary works. For those of us without adequate e-reader resources—an issue I hope to resolve in the near future—the bookshelf is an excellent starting point. Beyond that, there is the library.

To PC or Not To PC, That is the Question

The iMac desktop has served me well for six years.

Two weeks ago as I was putting the finishing touches on the post, Solving the Puzzle, I was confronted with one of those problems we all face. My desktop computer began to cough and sneeze and break down at the most inopportune times. As with most situations like this there is a certain degree of denial that precedes the realization of what is taking place. So, when it seemed a little slow in responding I decided to give it a rest. But then it decided it wasn’t sure if it was going to boot up or not. Frantically, I made sure everything was backed up, “Just in case.” While I have not officially pronounced it dead, its failure to boot up for the past week forced me to take action.

No, that's not right. Computers aren't supposed to ask the
questions. We ask them questions (and then they Google it).

I used my wife’s iPad to investigate the possibilities of a replacement. Being tied to a desk in a portable world is a little uncomfortable, especially for someone who tries to convince himself daily that he is enjoying the freedom of retirement. So, buying another desktop seemed imprudent. Sure enough, as many technologically advanced twenty-somethings and younger pointed out there are laptops available at two or three hundred dollars. Surely all anyone my age needs is a word processor and a browser for the Internet.

Hold on there a second videogame breath. My first computer came out of a box and bore the name Apple IIe. The year was 1980 and the next smallest computer was about the size of a Ford Explorer. In the years in between I would waver between the PC world and the ups and down of Apple and its iWorld. I even built my own PC just before moving to California. It lasted about six years; about the same as the iMac that refuses to boot. In between I had a non-descript PC from Best Buy, which saw a fair amount of time in their service department under one or the other of two two-year buyer protection plans. I’ve never had a Mac serviced; they just keep going for about six years.

The MacBook laptop that went to law school in New York.
I used it to write this post on my blog

When we retired about eighteen months ago, I convinced Debbie she really didn’t need a laptop. Reluctantly, she bought an iPad. Now, I find it hard to tear her away from it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t edit the iPhotos she takes as well as the desktop program. The cheapest Apple laptop is several times as expensive as the cheapest PC laptop. Then, as we’re celebrating my mother’s 86^th birthday at El Torito, Heather says the MacBook laptop I bought her for law school is just sitting on a shelf—she uses her office computer and iPad.

So, now I am writing Hioh Silver on a seven year old laptop plugged into a power strip because the battery no longer holds a charge, but the iPhotos program lets Deb do the editing of photographs she needs. For now, the question of whether to pc or not to pc gets put on hold.

Weather Deprived No More

Wind whipping through the palms.

Every night on the news for the past week the lead story has been the devastating weather conditions more than 200 million Americans face as the result of a winter storm created by the Polar Vortex. Needless to say Californians, especially those of us living in southern California, are unaccustomed to being upstaged by some meteorological conspiracy so obviously designed to drive up ratings in households from New England across the Midwest and right down to the Florida panhandle. If the economy wasn’t already on its way back the outlook for growth could not be brighter. Commercial enterprises from Toro snow-blowers to clear sidewalks to Eveready batteries to energize heated gloves, not to mention the extra layer of clothing J.C. Penney provides to go over Jockey thermal underwear, are thriving as most of the country confronts one of the coldest winters on record.

Fierce winds force closing of umbrella.
Notice leaves scattered on top of pool.

Meanwhile, here in Southern California, where variability usually means 68 or 72, instead of the monotonous drone of 70, we have suffered a weather phenomenon bringing unseasonable warmth into our region. For the past seven days the temperature has reached 80 degrees or warmer, and there’s no end in sight. While we may not be in the path of the frigid winds reaching down further than normal to create freezing pipes and drifts of snow in places south of the Mason-Dixon line, we have been repeatedly blasted by our own version of the “Vortex,” the Santa Anas. These winds swoop in from the East defeating the mild offshore flow of air and raising thermometers as they deposit leaves and Palm fronds across artificially induced lawns and innocent pools, many of which lie dormant once water temperatures drop below 76 degrees.

Clothing Crisis - Is it all right to wear
shorts in winter?

Unlike my Midwestern family and friends who with the touch of a button or a yank on a pull cord have a powerful drive and sidewalk clearing apparatus at their disposal, I am forced to operate a net at the far end of a long metal handle to skim the debris floating on top of the water, so it doesn’t descend to the bottom and choke my robotic pool cleaner.  Worse is being deprived of the decision as to whether to wear my Eddie Bauer cable knit sweater or J.Crew sweatshirt as my third layer prior before putting on my down coat, but instead face the question of whether it is more appropriate to wear long or short pants in the heavy winds.

I believe it was Jack Black who said it best in the immortal classic movie, Holiday; “Strange things happen when the Santa Anas blow.” So, I can only speculate, especially since I have no meteorological evidence to support my conjecture, it was this wind blowing across the high desert increasing temperatures here that caused the disturbance known as the Polar Vortex that is grabbing all the headlines. After all, if the Santa Anas can make Kate Winslet fall for Jack Black, then anything is possible.

Solving the Puzzle

A typical crossword puzzle.

Every once in a while I catch a segment of a radio program on National Public Radio that feature a “Puzzle Master” named Will Short. I’m not sure where else Mr. Short might appear with his puzzles, but I’m sure placing his name in a Google search can solve that puzzle. If you’re wondering why I didn’t do this for you that puzzle, too, can be solved by looking for the diminutive italicized print at the end of this blog. In these segments a phone-in contestant tries to solve the puzzle Mr. Short poses over the airwaves. Those players fortunate enough to decipher enough of the problems win a prize—the latest compilation of Mr. Short’s puzzles.

Growing up the most popular form of puzzle was the crossword puzzle. These brainteasers designed to challenge
the developing mind appeared in the original primary school newspaper, The Weekly Reader. Their other location was inside the Green Sheet, a four-page insert containing comics and other important features printed on green paper inside the Milwaukee Journal. Children whose parents moved beyond Priscilla’s Pop, Family Circus and Pogo and attempted to use their minds to ponder what letters fit in seven across or eleven down were more likely to accept the challenge of unraveling the riddles life sets in their path than those whose parents threw out the paper once they laughed at Ziggy for once again doing something even more ridiculous than the idiotic things they did.

Current progress toward completion
of this 550 piece puzzle.

A new form of puzzle using numbers in place of words came into my world sometime during the past quarter century. It is called Sudoku and consists of nine 3X3 boxes arranged in a tic-tac-to fashion. Supplied with a certain group of numbers, the objective is to fill in the empty boxes with numbers so that each box, row and column contains every number from 1 to 9. Although my mathematical processing skills lag behind my verbal processing, I find the challenge fascinating. So much so, that up to this point in time I have avoided taking on these puzzles even once. While some challenges promote a sense of well being others prove addictive. In a thoroughly satirical move I have chosen to let you decide which is which (answers may vary depending on the age, intellectual skills and birth order of each participating reader).

What the puzzle will look like when complete.

For many of us, however, the word puzzle connotes a particular form. Yes, that’s right, the one where a bunch of pieces are jumbled and the player attempts to put them back in the right order to form a design or picture. Again, looking back the ones we solved as children were mounted on boards with an imprint of the outlines of each piece, making it simpler for the child to match the shape of the piece with the marks on the board. Often referred to as jigsaw puzzles because the curvy contours of the pieces appear to have been cut by such a tool, versions for the young are limited to between six and fifty fragments. For the rest of us, the manufacturers of these conundrums present photographs shattered into 137,468,205 shapes to arrange in proper order without a board.

At this point, some readers are nodding their heads but wondering what event motivated this topic. Well, you know the line in the Bob Seeger song, “Take those old records off the shelf”? Well, even if you don’t, I decided to pull an old puzzle—probably 20 years or more—off the shelf. It’s a 550-piece photograph of four young men with somber faces and mop-top hairdos wearing black suits and ties. The picture is iconic in its portrayal of a band whose music lives on long after half of them are dead, but the shroud of darkness in their attire and the blurred background make this puzzle as difficult to solve as the legacy that bears their name, The Beatles.  

What Happened to Making New Year’s Resolutions?

My brain developing a resolution.

When I was attempting to decide what to have for a snack on New Year’s Eve I happened to remark I planned to make better choices this year to drop a few pounds. Without any subtlety, my wife a-truly-caring-compassionate-stand-by-your-side-no-matter-how-ridiculous-you-make-me-look-only-criticize-to-help-you-improve-partner-for-life said, “How cliché.” My normal response, as any truthful husband can attest, would be to render a “Just you wait and see,” defense. For some odd reason, my reflexes possibly compromised by the lack of sleep the previous couple of nights and a rather tasty IPA at dinner, I said nothing and began to reflect on my tremendous lack of success in the world of New Year’s resolutions.

Gaining some clarity.

One of the greatest barometers I have found for measuring the quality of commitment to New Year’s resolutions is the February 28^th attendance at my health club. Having been a member of a health club for the past 25 years, eight of which have been at the facility I currently use three times a week. It used to be five times a week, but when I joined a yoga studio sixteen months I cut it back to three. One constant among the three clubs to which I have belonged is the fluctuation in membership, or more accurately attendance, at these clubs between early January and late February.

Locker rooms fill with unfamiliar faces, many cling to every word offered by the personal trainer providing the three complimentary sessions that come with the special January enrollment. Other grimaces harbor a slight familiarity; like they may have used the elliptical next to you a year ago or dropped a weight they were trying to get on a bar somewhere near your toes around January 2010.  If the affordable care act truly wanted to become affordable they might offer incentives to individuals who paid for a year membership in January and made routine visits to their health clubs in March through December. Cost of locker room maintenance may increase, but coronaries may fall.

An epiphany. 

While exercising and dieting may top the list of resolutions people make at New Year’s, they are not the only goals they set as they unwrap a new calendar. With the economy finally starting to show signs of improvement a number might declare their intent to find their ideal job and make what they are worth—yeah, like that’s going to happen; remember this is satire at its worst. A few may even get the notion this is the year of their entrepreneurial prowess and explore getting a small business loan to open that nose hair and follicle removal store they’ve always dreamed of owning. Or, one might plan to write the great American novel. Oh, wait; I already did that. Well, the goal might be to get it published, and not by some do-it-yourself-so-you-can-pretend-to-be-an-author-outfit.

Maybe, all you really want to accomplish in the New Year is to improve your relationship with your spouse, parent, sibling, child or friend. Perhaps, this is the year to finally put together the puzzle in the box you’ve had for a decade, or fix a broken chair, plant a garden, clean a garage, take an extra vacation or listen to some vinyl records.

No matter how cliché, the question isn’t whether to make the resolution; the question is will the resolution remain filled with good intentions or be kept.