New Year's Eve...

New Year’s Eve. A cold dark night, indeed. Took a chopstick in the eye two days ago, and am still smarting from it. The redness is leaving, but still having focus issues. No white flashes, which is good. But will look after it all the same. Had a detached retina in the same eye ten years ago and don’t want to revisit that for anything.

Hanging back tonight, watching a little TV. Cooking some pork chops and opening a bottle of wine. Looking forward to 2015, though to be honest I don’t expect to stay up long enough to greet it. Still too tired and beaten down from the crud.

Time to move ahead into a new book. Unbroken, maybe. Started to revisit Denis Johnson’s Nobody Move, and also Don DeLillo’s Underworld, but need to find something fresh to round things out. Finished the 1930s volume on story writing—not your rah-rah, let’s-meet-over-tea, self-help manual—and found it all the more enjoyable because of that.

Movie tomorrow? A long walk? Who knows? Wish we could snowshoe, but with a bad case of bronchitis stalking around the house, there isn’t much chance of it happening.

Christmas cheer...

Beautiful Christmas dinner with friends and family last night. Goose with Cumberland sauce…stuffed apples…duchess potatoes…roasted Brussels sprouts with squash and cranberries…candlelight and wine.

Afterward, sticky toffee pudding, more wine, and carols at the piano.

Today, many partings. Florida. Connecticut. England. An empty house filled with lingering memories. Reminders of everything that makes life worth living.

 

A Small Not-so-Good Thing...

Out of pocket the past few days. Been trying to catch up with the holidays without much success. Feel like the guy in the movies who’s left behind when the car speeds away. Can see myself through the rear window growing smaller and smaller. Legs churning. Arms flailing.

Christmas tree did a face plant into the sofa last night. Chalk it up to negative tropism. Or bad luck. Or gremlins. Whatever evil force behind its undoing, the entire menagerie ended up on the living room floor. Heard it from the den, and thought, uh oh. Ran in to check, and was greeted by the sight of spilled water, broken ornaments, pine needles, a fallen angel....

The tree is now on the front lawn, looking like something out a Raymond Carver story. Some of us were more traumatized than others, but in the immediate aftermath of the crash even the cats looked like they could use a drink.

de rigueur...

Clouds sitting low across the mountains. Looks as if it might snow, though haven’t heard anything suggesting it’ll happen. Hope if it decides to come down it waits a week and treats us to a white Christmas.

US diplomatic relations have restored with Cuba…North Korea has launched a cyber attack against Sony Pictures…and LL Bean duck boots have become a fashion statement on college campuses. I learned all of this since waking up.

Been thinking about the Robert Hellenga’s, “A Christmas Letter.” A terrific story that first appeared in Ploughshares. I’ve decided I need to re-read it on Christmas.  Also, I want to crack Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, which has been sitting on the nightstand for months.

 

The runaround...

Wild day. Christmas lunch at Edelweiss, then back to the office. From the office to Jeep dealership. From the Jeep dealership to the repair shop. From the repair shop back to the office, and from the office back home—only do discover the file I need to work on is lost in cyberspace back at the office and not in my dropbox where I thought I’d saved it.

Crud.

Too tired to drive back and search for it. Will have to jump out of bed early tomorrow morning, instead, and hope I named it something intelligible.

 

Clipped...

Sporadic work at the keyboard this morning, interrupted by a last minute application for new health insurance. Haircut just before noon. More work. Then home to some critical reading in the bathtub.

New project at the office! Fingers crossed it’s a busy year.

(Saw TL Jones's "The Homesman" yesterday. Found it fascinating.)

Baby, it's cold outside...

Cold weather moved in this morning on the back of a strong wind. Had visions of the Christmas lights being blown off the house, but the worst of it wasn’t as bad as it might have been, and things have calmed a little. Looks to be a blustery week with temps in the 40s. Would rather see snow and cold.

Had to take the Jeep in for service check. Ignition problems of some sort. Fingers crossed it won’t be a big deal.

Can’t believe the end of the year is only two weeks away. My reading list keeps growing, my drafts keep piling up, and the days just seem to get shorter. What I wouldn’t give for a few days of research time in the library!

Had two close friends for dinner last night. Ate stew and drank French wine, talked everything from contemporary literature to classical music to Renaissance architecture, and in short had as good a time on a winter night as anybody can hope for. 

Of cats and men...

Sun’s down and I hardly know where the day went.

Spend a good part of the afternoon shopping for health insurance. Guess that counts for something.

Tired now, and the kitties have come to visit. Think I’ll spend time with them.

 

Christmas is a coming...

Busy day. Up early, some quick revisions, then out the door to the office to clear up the paper cluster on my desk. More beautiful weather, coming and going. Wore cargo shorts and light jacket all day. Enjoying it now, as the weather folks are calling for snow on Sunday.

Contributor copies from the Tulane Review arrived yesterday. My story, “Give Me Your Tomorrows” is in it. The piece was loosely based on a terrible accident that took place a few years ago at the 7-Eleven store on Colorado Avenue. A girl was burned to death after having been pinned between her car and a gas pump, due to the negligence of another driver. An awful, awful thing.

Can feel the holidays breathing down my neck, and still don’t have all the decorating in place, much less the shopping. Managed to trim the tree last night—all eight-feet plus of it—and to borrow a phrase from the kids, it rocks. Looking to get everything else in place over the next day or so. We’ll see. This time of year, everyone seems to bite off more than they can chew.

Miss my folks. Need to give them a shout. The kid, too.

Bits and pieces...

Been refitting some old pieces. Salvage work. Don’t like to throw anything away, but there’s a price to pay for looking backward. The warts usually look worse in retrospect than they did when you convinced yourself to move on.

Ran across some sage insight a few days ago. It came from a Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference in the 1930s. It insisted writer’s choice of subject matter was sacrosanct, and beyond criticism. Be yourself, it seemed to say. If something moves you enough to write about it, then write. You can learn how to make your story stronger, but you can’t fake inspiration.

Not exactly noteworthy...

Did some revising of a story this morning, then came to my senses and went outside to do catch up with yard work. Not sure what the temperature was, but raked leaves in shorts and a tee shirt.

Later, chopped kindling, chased down lights for the porch, and watched a little football. Not ready for Monday morning yet.

Non-events...

Friday evening. Just getting ready to head over to the post office and drop off a letter or two. Sky’s going dark, so it must be turning the corner on 5:00 pm.

Got up early for my meeting, but it turned out to be for nothing. Friend I was supposed to catch up with didn’t show. Got home in time to read the paper and get a little writing done, but that was about it.

Went out at noon and bought our Christmas tree. A twelve-foot balsam fir. Left it at the lot and will pick it up later this evening.

Been fighting a hamstring pull for well over a week now, and it’s putting a serious crimp in my program. Forgot how painful they can be. 

Pondering, weak and weary...

Overcast and cool all day. Don’t think I saw the sun once. Spent time going back and forth between home and the office, taking care of small things.

Early meeting with a buddy tomorrow. Hope to spend a little time learning more about the proposed production schedule of his new television program.

Weekend’s supposed to be great, weather-wise. If it is, we’ll look to get the Christmas decorations up. Big chore, but the days are closing in.

Dead dog tired last night. Went to bed early. Feel much the same tonight and will probably repeat the process. 

Wednesday, and Here we are...

Cold today, but fought off the icy advances of Jack Frost with grim determination, wearing cargo shorts and a leather bomber jacket long after the temps dropped.

Finished “So the Wind Won’t Blow it all Away” this evening. A strangely moving story that made me wish Brautigan hadn’t done himself in. Would have liked to know what he thought about the world today.

Couldn’t catch any traction with my own work today, but kept slugging even so. It’s all you can do, right? Did have a nice moment when the mailman came this afternoon. Contributor copies of “Blues Legend” arrived from the Dalhousie Review. 

Chugging along...

Slow start today. Things clunked along, but that was as good as it ever got. Nice day for the first week in December. Sunny skies with the smallest bit of wind. Went for a long walk along the river at noon, then came home and noodled with some new storylines. Need to break out the snowshoes this weekend. Get ready for the next good snow. Glad we had a nice long Indian summer, but want to make sure it's a good, productive winter. 

From Broadway to the Broadmoor...

Home late. Theatreworks had a special salon presentation this evening in the Broadmoor. Along with 70 or so other lucky folks got to sit in a rich lady’s living room and listen to Brian Dennehy discuss the intricacies of his craft. Not a bad way to kill a cold Monday evening.

Late to rise...

Rolled out of the sack at the ungodly (and wonderful) hour of 9:00! Where did that come from? What great timing!

Went to work on a newer draft, and made surprising headway in a short period of time. Hope the whole story goes that way, but easy solutions don’t come as easily as they used to when you mature as a writer. You’re always looking for ways to deepen stories instead of end them. Not sure you hit any more homeruns than you did when you were quick to get the pieces out the door, but you enjoy the challenge of trying.

Read two terrific television treatments this afternoon. Both by a good friend and longtime colleague. One of the pieces is already in production with MGM, and should find its way on air before long. The other is looking for a home. Hoping each enjoys great success.

Weather turning colder. Hard to believe tomorrow is December 1st.