I am dithering like Hamlet about submitting a short story I’ve written to a short story contest. I’ve some time to decide, since the contest closes in April.

The story itself is an odd sort of hybrid. If you don’t know what it’s “really” about, you can read it as a story and not have any problem with it. But there are some people who would know where I was coming from when I wrote it, and I’m pretty sure it would not be appreciated by them.

So. Do I take a chance? The problem is, I can’t have a true perspective on whether or not it’s any good. I never do. But the people I might ordinarily ask are among those who might not like it. I need to look for someone knowledgeable about writing and ignorant of the subject matter. As if.

In other news, I have two other stories in progress — another GA backstory with the slimmest of C! frames, and a complete Combat! story with Littlejohn as the lead. The latter is one of those stories that I can’t seem to find an end for; it wants to keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny and I’m not sure it should. So for now I’ve put it aside and I’ll come back to it later. The GA story is going well, as seems to be the case with the GA universe stuff. For better or worse and right now, that’s where my writing heart really is.

On Rhapsody: Soldier of Love, Sade

Maybe? Could it be? While I’m recovering from laughing myself sick that Les Habs have to go 19-7 from here on out in order to get to the playoffs, I’m hoping like you wouldn’t believe that this IS the year for the Cavs … and that we get to keep LeBron when we’re done.

Oh, yeah. Go Habs go! Vive Jaro!

Ever have an unnecessary day?

Yesterday, we went to Columbus to file something we didn’t need to file but which Tom said we did. Everything went fine — to a point. Weather was fine, driving was fine, I got in the building okay and filed the papers. Then I went back outside and tried to start the car. No dice. Sounded like maybe the battery was dead, so we called the ever-efficient Progressive roadside assistance and the guy came. Jumped the battery. No car; no start (lots of cry).

The guy who came was really nice and knowledgeable about cars. He said he thought the problem was in the fuel line. So I called Progressive back. She said we could have the car towed home, no problem. For $560.00. So we consulted with our helpful assistance guy, and he said there was a Chevy dealership down the road. So back I went to Progressive and they called a tow for us.

At the dealership, they charged us $80 just to look at the car. Then they came back and told us the fuel pump was busted, and it would only cost us $1,000 to have it fixed. We called home and asked my mother-in-law to call our car repair guy and get his guestimate on what it would cost. If it was enough less, it would be worth it to pay for the tow and then have him fix the car. It wasn’t.

So we wound up with a rental car and ours is still in Columbus. We shoulda stood in bed.

Oh, yeah. Our company’s going to rework the administrative side of things and I may be out of a job.

Tom has begun to stabilize somewhat. It doesn’t really change much, except that things are more peaceful at home, but how I feel is no different.

When we first were married, we had a lot in common. We liked the same music, mostly the same movies, or were at least willing to ‘trade off’, saw sports, politics, and other issues pretty much the same — or at least I thought we did — and enjoyed going to art galleries and exhibitions together.

Well, we’ve still got the art, but the rest of it is, for lack of a better word, lost. Take movies, for instance. I have begun watching foreign films a lot, especially French movies. Usually the only time I can watch them is when Tom goes out to see his high school friend who has a band on weekend nights, which he has started to do. He, on his part, is watching a lot of movies which, no offense, put me to sleep. I’ve tried, really I have, but I can’t do it. There are a handful of old friends (MIB I & II, Tombstone, The Brendan Fraser Mummy movies, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter) which we watch together, but you can only watch them so often.

He’s gotten horribly cynical about life, the universe and everything. It’s not that I don’t see the bad — you’d have to be blind not to. I know people are not universally good, but I tend to see them through a compassion born of an awareness of my own failings. Our takes cause us to react in completely opposite ways. It’s kind of like the George Bernard Shaw quote that Bobby Kennedy made famous: “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’” I would rather find a way to make things better than complain about all the things that are wrong, and pray for my leaders, rather than simply abuse them for their mistakes.

And I fear that he really doesn’t believe, isn’t a Christian. When we talk about it, I get the feeling he’s made up his own version of the faith — let me tell him what Scripture says and he tells me that’s wrong, and then tells me how it “really” is (usually some particular viewpoint he holds dear).

I find myself wishing the Lord would just come in and take over and change our lives. I have friends who aren’t Christians who tell me how easy life is for me and how easy it is to be a Christian. Well, I have news for you. Some of it is easy — Jesus told us:

“Come to me all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30.

I have always felt that He was reminding us that we were no longer under legalism or the law, but grace — a much easier burden. But when you come down to hard choices, sometimes “easy” goes right out the window. If I was living in the world, I could walk away and divorce him. But as a Christian, as things are now, that’s not an option. The Lord expects me to live up to the promises I made 17 years ago. I can’t just quit, even if I really want to. It’s no excuse to say that I don’t love him any more.

My Facebook status over the weekend was a rather cynical quote by Chekhov: “If you’re afraid of loneliness, do not marry.” It’s something you can’t appreciate the truth of unless you’ve been there.

So here we are. I am praying daily for the grace to keep going. And learning how to be alone (not physically; in that sense, I NEVER am), but emotionally.

On Rhapsody: ‘Jazzman’, by Carole King

I really love this song. There’s no official video for it, but this one’s pretty nice. It’s supposed to be about a wounded soldier in Afghanistan thinking about home and the land he’s in …

Well, I finally got around to seeing my new doctor.  I like him, so far; he’s much better than the condescending Clinic doctor I had for so many years.  The one who misread my symptoms so that I wound up in the ED in observation with severe abdominal pains from a gallbladder attack.

We talked about my working out and not seeing results on the scale.  He ordered some preliminary tests run to check the odd thing here and there, and — believe it or not — I’ll have the results back tomorrow!  I used to wait weeks at CCF and a lot of times I never heard unless I called in.  If they deliver here, that’ll be a big plus in their favor.

I just want to know where I am on this.  Basically, I feel pretty good.  My blood pressure was 116/68 (pas mal!) — I think my blood counts should be normal, and if we can just get this issue licked, I’ll be so happy.  Well, that, and trying to figure out why I have messed up balance and very little coordination.  It’s frustrating; I took ballet and tap classes when I was young and even when I was older and had put on some weight, I could watch someone dance and duplicate what they did.  Now, I consider it a victory to walk without stumbling.

So, we’ll see.

On Rhapsody, “La Ultima Notte”, by Josh Groban

Somewhere in the Greater Cleveland area, a person is driving around having killed one person and seriously injured another one.

Two days ago, a black Ford pickup truck ran down two men in a crosswalk.  They identified the man who was killed today, and to my enormous shock and dismay, I recognized the name.  Tibor Sarossy was a client of my husband’s when he practiced law, and Tom considered him a friend.  Right now, I’m guessing Tom hasn’t heard the news and it’s going to be terribly painful for him when he finds out.

Tibor was a character.  He was enormously proud of his Hungarian (“Magyar”, he would have said) ancestry and he invited Tom to meals at Balaton on the east side.  He was very intelligent, and absolutely marched to his own beat.  He’d gone through some tough times, thanks to some family things that happened and managed to survive with considerable éclat.

Frankly, ma’am or sir, driver of that black Ford, I don’t know how you look at yourself in the mirror this morning.  Not only was Tibor’s life (and that of his friend, who is still in bad shape) not yours to take, you didn’t even have the guts to stop and be accountable for your actions.  I’d tell you “Shame on you!”, but I have a feeling that it’s pointless.  Somehow I don’t think shame is on your list anywhere.

Parisian Prodigal, by Alan Gordon
Hardcover, 336 pages
St. Martin’s Press
January 19, 2010

About five years or so ago, I was fumbling through the new mystery section at the library, looking for one of my favorite authors who was supposed to have a new book out.  I never did find that one; instead, I came across a book called An Antic Disposition.  Don’t ask me what it was about this book that made me pick it up, but I did and I’m glad I did.  It’s easily one of the best books I’ve ever read and is on my desert island list.

The thing is, I kind of came in mid-stream, so to speak.  Disposition was the fifth book in the Fools’ Guild series by author Alan Gordon.  Lucky me!  I got to go back and read the first four books and there have been three books since, counting the current entry in the series, The Parisian Prodigal.

The backstory on these books is that the medieval fool was far more than the 13th century equivalent of Jay Leno.  The conceit of the series is that the Fools were actually more like MI6 or the CIA — using their undoubted influence on their noble or royal masters to manipulate events and cause political change, hopefully for the better.  The hero of the series is one, Theophilos (his Guild name), who takes on several other names through the series as part of the missions he is sent on.  Along the way, he acquires a wife, Claudia, (who also becomes a fool), a daughter named Portia (I see speeches in her future which include the words “quality”, “mercy” and “strained”) and an apprentice named Helga, along with myriads of fellow fools, good and bad.  The current one is apparently a soulmate of Harpo Marx — a ‘mute by choice’ jester named Pelardit, who is one of my favorite characters in the series.

The past three books have been tied together.  They take place in and near Toulouse, where the Fool Family (as they are known) have settled in.  Theo is Chief Jester of Toulouse and has ensconced himself in the household of Count Raimon, presently ruling the city.  Raimon receives a visitor from Paris who claims to be his legitimate brother, born to his mother, who was cast off by his father and fled for Paris, as she was a member of the French royal family.

Raimon is naturally skeptical and indirectly sets Theo to discover who this newcomer really is.  Unfortunately, the voyage towards the facts includes a trip to a local bordel, where Raimon’s putative brother awakes next to the prostitute with whom he spent the night, to discover she has been stabbed to death.  With his dagger.  With the help of his family, Pelardit, and Sancho, one of Count Raimon’s men at arms, Theo (known as Tan Pierre in Toulouse) sets out to discover the truth of the matter.

These wonderful books are far more than mysteries.  I find myself learning new things about the era they are set in quite painlessly (even without meaning to! ), laughing a lot — Theo, et al. are quite intelligently witty and best of all, not figuring out who the killer is by page 57.  Mr. Gordon has created a world and a group of people I have enjoyed getting to know.  I hope to continue to do so for some time to come.

Someone at work asked me why I was a Montreal Canadiens fan. Well, it’s like this …

Back in the late 70s, Cleveland had a/an (allegedly) professional NHL team, the Barons.  I loved ‘em, the poor saps, although they were every bit as bad then as the Indians are now.  It could be fairly said (given the pitiful state of the defensemen on the team) that the Barons could have a full complement on the ice and still put their opponents in a power play position.  My favorite player was goalie Gilles Meloche, one of the few good players on the team (and who later was a coach for the Pens).  He had a below-four GA average, which is amazing when you consider there wasn’t much in front of him.  Our first line was the 3M line of Al McAdam, Dennis Marouk and Bob Murdoch.

I won tickets to actually go see games, and I almost never missed a game on the radio (or on TV, on those rare occasions when they were televised and I was able to get to the TV set).  I even bought a real jersey (I’m trying to remember how I convinced my mom to let me do that!)

Well, one of the years of the Barons’ existence was the 1976-77 season when the Canadiens only lost eight games.  The amazing thing was, one of those losses was to the BARONS(!) of all teams.  We were all so thrilled (all ten of us fans, I think, by that point) you’d have thought we won the Stanley Cup.

Anyway, after the Barons went away, I became intrigued by the Habs (as they are known in Quebec) and Guy LaFleur, who was one of the big guys in hockey (at a time before Wayne Gretzky came along).  And since I couldn’t bring myself to root for the San Jose Sharks (which is what I think the Barons became when they merged), I started supporting les Habs.  It was harder in those days, with no Internet, since my folks wouldn’t let me subscribe to the Montreal Gazette.  Eventually, life got in the way and I let my sports enthusiasms kinda fall by the wayside, except for the perennially interesting Browns (this was the era of the Kardiac Kids and the eventual appearance of Bernie Kosar on the horizon), and I let hockey slide too.

Since my current fascination with all things French, French-Canadian and Cajun arose, I started following the Canadiens again — it helped that the NHL didn’t quite manage to commit suicide with that idiotic strike — and so, kiddies, that’s why Aunt Janet has bookmarked the Gazette Canadiens page and why she may have to start wearing a wig.  She keeps tearing her hair because Jacques Martin won’t give Halak an ongoing chance as gardien! Ah, well … Go Habs Go!

Can you say ‘Jaroslav Halak’?  Good!  I knew you could …

Tuesday Randomness:

I finished “Against All the World”. It’s here.

Unless we can ski on icy grass, looks like the Nordic Flurry x-c race at Chapin Forest won’t happen — although there’s plenty of time to get more of the white stuff. I can only pray.  I’d really like to try the 5k.  If I could walk 5k, I should be able to ski that far.

According to the radio (WTAM) this morning, the 2010 Cleveland Orchestra strike is over.  Doesn’t it seem silly for an orchestra to go on strike, or is it just me?

And in other news … the Habs lost to the Rangers, 6-2.  Unfortunately, Halak was between the pipes.  I still think it’s the defensemen’s fault, but you watch, even though they didn’t blame him, Jacques Martin will put Price back in tomorrow night against St. Louis.  Oh, well.  Go Habs go!