Writing A Book

For the past two months I’ve been writing a book that has turned into an obsession. It’s more than just a story, but to call it a novel sounds pretentious. But at 16 chapters with no end in sight, I suppose it qualifies. Every time I try to summarize what it’s “about”, it ends up sounding ridiculous. Let me try again…

It’s about a man who has a prodigious ability for winning games of chance, a gambling savant, who meets and falls in love with a woman who is his total opposite in every way that matters and who happens to be clairvoyant. Eventually they end up hating each other and getting a divorce, about as ugly a divorce as can be imagined since it involves, infidelity, bankruptcy, and a suicide attempt. After the protagonist’s parents pass away, he moves back into their home whereupon he starts getting nightly visits from his ex-wife in his dreams. Unknown to him, his ex-wife is seeing him in her dreams every night as well. After a while it is difficult to differentiate between reality and dreams, as the two of them try to deal with issues of forgiveness, the possibility of redemption, and the spectre of loss.

See what I mean?

But here’s the cool thing, writing a story is a little like being God. You create these characters, endow them with personality, then turn them loose to interact with each other. Sometimes you are pleased with them and the decisions they make, other times you want to smack the hell out of them. I imagine that God feels the same way looking down upon us. The big difference obviously is that I can write my characters out of trouble. In the real world, what’s done is done. Still, it has been great fun creating an entire universe of people whose fate is in my hands. I spend half my time researching details. What exactly was the color of the steel in that great big arch bridge on I-95 leading into Maine? Google Earth to the rescue, green! Then I write a couple thousand words a night, and when I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing.

Two things I’ve come to understand over these past two months. First, I fully understand why so many novelists are crazy. Writing changes you, transforms you into someone else, a not entirely pleasant experience. Secondly, it is great fun. Creating something, no matter how amateurish, is an exhilarating experience. Although my story is not auto-biographical by any stretch, it does contain much of who I am. I can only write what I know, so my experiences inform my characters. I have no idea how it will all end. I feel as though I’m about half way done.

I’ll keep you posted.

Wonder What It's Like In Key West Today?

It is March the 18^th. I wake up this morning at 6:10 to the sound of ice pellets ticking against the windows. I stumble out into the hallway; walk over to the big Palladian window that overlooks my front yard. My heart sinks. My chin drops to my chest. There’s an inch and a half film of slush covering the world, and now a mixture of sleet and freezing rain is adding to the misery. There is not one single sign of life, no dogs, cats, birds or even squirrels to be seen. Where do they go at times like these? I trudge into my office and check out the weather radar map. It shows a band of green and pink running directly through Short Pump, with an ominous blue band to the north and west. It is 33 degrees. This is not the day that the Lord has made; this day comes directly from the pit of hell courtesy of Lucifer himself.

I slump back in my chair. I grab my cell phone and open the weather gadget that shows the 7 day forecast of some of my favorite places. I flip over to Key West. Just as I suspected, the forecast for the entire week shows bright sunshine and 79 degrees, all seven days, into infinity. I remember when I was younger I used to brag about being from Virginia. Specifically, I would champion the fact that in Virginia one gets to enjoy all four seasons, and about how the changing of the seasons brought with it charm and variety. Lies, all lies.

I have a birthday coming up. I will turn 55. Seasons have become overrated. The only season that appeals to me on mornings like this is the monotonous 79 and sunny of places like Key West and San Diego. I’ve been warned about global warning for over 15 years now and, well, it can’t get here soon enough for me.

What Is The "Good Life"?

Yesterday was our day to take dinner out to my Dad. It was the day before St. Patrick’s Day, so Pam decided to plan an Irish dinner. By 3 o’clock the kitchen was alive with activity. There would be her famous meat loaf, with a raw sliced sliver of carrot, coin-shaped hidden inside one serving. Whoever got the orange “coin” would be blessed with good luck throughout the year. There would be mashed potatoes, green beans, and homemade Irish Soda bread with raisins. For dessert she had made bright green Pistachio pie. In honor of the day, she renamed all of these dishes to suit the occasion. Meat loaf became “Blarney Stones,” dessert became “Shamrock Pie”. Then she went out and bought special green shamrock paper plates to serve the pie on, along with matching four leaf clover napkins. For Ezra she bought Irish themed stickers featuring Snoopy and Woodstock dressed up like Leprechauns. She even wrote his name at the top of a piece of green construction paper so he would have a place to stick them. The dinner was a rousing success. Everyone cleaned their plates. There were six “Blarney Stones” in the dish and only 5 of us, so in keeping with the famous Dunnevant luck; the lucky coin will appear in dad’s leftovers today.

As I watched Pam flitting about the kitchen preparing this meal, it occurred to me that a life well lived is not heralded by screaming headlines in the newspaper, rather it comes in the form of a thousand daily graces. It doesn’t come from wearing the right clothes, living in the right house or driving the right car, it comes from sharing your life with people who take care of the details with tenderness, people for whom the little things in life aren’t little at all. The “good life” is the sum total of these tender moments. My wife’s talent for transforming the routine into something extraordinary has made for me and our family a remarkable life. Even after nearly 30 years together, her loving kindness still astonishes me.

Want some marital advice? Marry the right woman.

I Have A Problem

 Dear Compassionate Reader,

 

I have a password problem. I love technology as much as the next guy. Seems like every week I discover some new urber-cool app that I just HAVE to have.(Not really, I am 54 after all). However, what with my business needs, personal finance demands as well as the occasional entertainment app, I am constantly being asked for a username and password to gain entry into the glorious world of the World Wide Web. So, what’s the problem, you ask? The problem is that I can’t keep up with them.

All of the cyber security folks out there are constantly encouraging me to come up with original, difficult to hack passwords. Apparently, the internet is populated with nefarious geeks bent on world domination, whose goal in life is to gain entry into my Spotify account and wreak havoc. Ok, I get it. But the more in decipherable my password is, the less likely I will ever remember it without adding it to my dog-eared password and username cheat sheet. Yes, that’s right sports fans; I have a single sheet of paper with all of my usernames and passwords written out. Now, I’m painfully aware that it would be better if I had them in some encrypted file somewhere on my computer, but I’m not savvy enough for that. So, I carry around my trusted cheat sheet. It’s like my digital keychain. It has passwords for 19 different websites and apps. If ever I were to lose this thing, my life would be over.

In addition to that potential nightmare, there’s the related problem of all the places I go where I have established a username and password, failed to write them down, so I can’t gain access.( Hello, Twitter, GoodReads and Soundcloud). I’m aware that admitting my failures in this regard will open me up to howls of laughter from my young tech-savvy friends, but so be it. I need help. I would ask my wife for help since she is the All-Knowing, Strikingly Gorgeous, Internet Goddess in my house, but I’m thinking it would less humiliating to be schooled by a twenty-something know it all than Pam. Just sayin’.

So, hit me up with the sarcastic jabs, and then offer some guidance for your old friend.

 

Clueless In Cyberspace,

Doug

NOOOO!! Is That Meeting Today?? NOOOO!!!

I was awake before the alarm went off this morning. Today is one of the two or three days of the year that I dread the most, the day I meet with my accountant and give him my 6 inch stack of paper so he can prepare my tax return.

The very idea that I should have to save these scraps of paper in my tax shoe box all year, then pay my guy $750 bucks to construct my 50 page return galls me like nothing else in this world. Less you think I’m some 1% billionaire, think again. I am only a reasonably successful small business owner. However, because of the complexities of the tax scheme under which we labor, I began employing accountants over 25 years ago to fight my battles for me. When I sign off on the thick volume of forms, schedules, and summaries that he produces, something inside me becomes enraged. Why should I be forced to do this? How can filing taxes have become such an arcane exercise so hopelessly beyond the capabilities of mere mortals?

The worst part is I don’t even know how to help my kids file their own taxes. When you’ve had it done for you for longer than either of your children has been alive, you become worthless to them, unable to answer even the most basic of questions.

So, my meeting will go something like this:

Accountant: Ok, Doug, I see you’ve got all your receipts. Good. What kind of year did you have in 2012?

Me: Terrible.

Accountant: Sorry to hear that. So, you made less money?

Me: No, a little more, which means I’ll probably lose the ability to deduct something and end up having to pay more.

Accountant: Ha! Doug, you are so funny!

Me:…………………crickets

Accountant: Doug, I see here that you only sent the IRS $2500 in December, not the $4000 that we had agreed on, any particular reason?

Me: A very good reason…I didn’t have enough money in my account to cover a $4000 check, so I gave them what I had.

Accountant: I see…. Well, my preliminary calculations indicate that you will probably owe a bit more this year, but it might not be too bad.

Me:………………………crickets

Accountant: I’ll have this return back to you in a couple of weeks.

 “Not too bad” turns out to be an outrageous lie. I owe an insane amount of money to the Feds and the State. I scrape together the money and pay what I owe, since the last person on earth you want to have as a creditor is the Internal Revenue Service. I survive to fight another day.

This nation once had the stones to put a man on the moon, whip the Germans twice in 30 years, and invent Jazz, but can’t figure out how to tax its citizens in a way that doesn’t involve a 67,000 page tax code.

Hopeless.

Do You Need Some Nanny-ing?

The modern, Welfare State is sometimes referred to by its critics as the “Nanny State”. The term “nanny” can, of course, refer to either a hired nanny who serves as a substitute for the mother too busy for work so mundane as raising children, or it can also refer to one’s grandmother. In either case, we all understand what the roll of a nanny is, ie…to force us to do unpleasant things that left to our own devices we would not bother to do, like eat our vegetables, brush our teeth, do our homework, take out the trash, pick our clothes up off the floor, make our beds etc..

Renowned British-born and seldom watched talk show host Piers Morgan recently objected to the nanny State criticism, saying that he thought most people needed a little nanny-ing every once in a while, so why shouldn’t the State provide it? Now, let’s think this concept through.

Do I ever need “ nanny-ing” ? The honest answer is, yes. Nowadays, I get a little nanny-ing from my wife now and then, since she is the one most likely trying to get me to do stuff that’s good for me. She might shoot me a nasty look when I pick up that 7^th cookie from the plate thirty minutes before dinner and say something like, “What, are you like in fifth grade?! Stop eating those cookies before dinner! It will ruin your appetite.”  I drop the cookie and slink away before she realizes that I have two more in my pocket. But, now, let’s examine how this example of nanny-ing is different from government provided Nanny-ing.

Pam’s nanny-ing costs me nothing, except temporary embarrassment. Government Nanny-ing costs all of us plenty. Government would seek to prevent me from eating seven cookies and pilfering another two by limiting the amount of raw sugar my wife is allowed to purchase at the grocery store, which in turn drives up the cost of sugar, creates a black market for cookies and turns the Cookie-Monster into public enemy number one, severely crushing Sesame Street’s ratings resulting in ever higher government subsidies for Public television. It’s the Iron-Clad law of unintended consequesnces.

Mayor Bloomberg sees New Yorkers with huge beer bellies everywhere he looks, so in his roll as Nanny-In-Chief decides to arbitrarily reduce the size of fountain drinks sold within the city. So now, Joe the Plumber can’t get his Big-Gulp, so in frustration, goes to his local bar instead where there are no intake restrictions, which results in some of the shoddiest plumbing work seen in New York since the great toilet scandal of 1916, increased alcoholism in the Plumbers Union resulting in a new government study into why Plumbers drink so much.

The lesson should be clear, even for third rate British television personalities. Although nanny-ing may be a minor annoyance in your own home, it doesn’t result in higher taxes for your neighbors, which makes it profoundly more desirable than the government kind.

Baptist vs. Catholic

I must confess that I know very little of the history of the Catholic Church. I couldn’t name 5 Popes. Oh, I know something of the Vatican, the incredible art that lives within its walls etc. but as far as the business of the church, I am clueless. But on the rare occasions when it’s time to elect a Pope, I become fascinated.

First there’s the red-robed Cardinals walking around in circles chanting stuff and looking terrible solemn. Then there’s the walk over to the Sistine Chapel where the security detail guards dressed in the coolest uniforms ever lock the doors, shielding the 115 cardinals from the outside world. Once inside these fine feathered gentlemen will take 4 votes a day until there’s a two thirds majority agreement. Once agreement is reached on the next infallible man, a hastily erected chimney on the top of the chapel will belch white smoke as a sign to the faithful that a new Pope has been chosen. Now, let me tell you, these Catholics can teach the rest of us a thing or two about drama!

Can you imagine the Southern Baptist Convention going through these histrionics to elect a new…what do you even call the head of Southern Baptists anyway? First of all, you probably couldn’t get 115 Baptists to agree on a building to be locked away in, besides which, it would take two years to pick the 115, for fear that some annoying moderate might slip through the cracks. And, can you imagine those 115 Baptists being able to keep a secret long enough to start a fire to break the news to the world? Half of them will have tweeted the results within 15 seconds of the vote! Oh, I think the head guy is called the President.

Anyway, the Catholics have always done pageantry better than anyone. The most dyed in the wool atheist alive would feel some sense of reverence upon entering the Sistine Chapel, for example. Regardless of one’s theological proclivities, there’s something overpowering about the profound reverence one feels upon entering a Catholic church. They’re all so dimly lit, so magisterial, so quiet. What, with the flickering candlelight, stained glass, and people kneeling all over the place, it makes you check yourself to make sure you look presentable.

Now, I couldn’t take a steady diet of all that formality and ritual, but I have to say as a Baptist, that I do long for a more serious, humble experience in church every once in a while. Our services more resemble a Kiwanis club luncheon with all the glad-handing, laughter, and jokes flying around. “Greet someone around you who you haven’t met before, church!” the pastor extols while lively music rings from the rafters.  For all of Baptist rhetoric about how God is so Holy and such a righteous judge, we sure do a lot of shucking and jiving in his presence. Most of the folks I’ve seen in the pews of a Catholic Church look like they are so deep in thought that the last thing they want to do is shake hands with a stranger. Of course, it’s always difficult to be glib and informal by candle light.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no desire to convert to Catholicism. It’s a theological mess for one thing, biblically incoherent and just plain creepy at times, but whenever it’s time to elect a Pope, I do envy them their seriousness, their sense of history, purpose, and the grandeur of their style. They do the Glory of God better than anyone on the planet, and in 2013 there are worse things a church can be known for.