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Bonus Milestone

Threes are wild. Word 33,333 was “was.”

It’s Party Time

16. A photo of you at a party. 6/11/2005. I turn 30.

The amount of effort that went into throwing this party for me still boggles my mind. It was an amazing mesh of friends from different spheres. Here we have Karen & Dan, Margaret & Michael and me. Then there’s Dave D, Sean and Sarah. And much joy and love.

Some folks have been asking about this photo-a-day thing and how it relates to NaNo, so I’ll put it out here in case anyone else is wondering. You might recall (or you might not) that a few times I’ve done photos of myself every day during November, just as something else to do in conjunction with writing the novel. This year, I came across this meme which lists 30 photo subjects and I thought that would be more interesting to do than posting what amounts to the same photo of myself for 30 days. So there you have that.

Up over 30,000 words (around 30,800 as of this writing) and I get an idea that makes me want to start all over again. I think I’m going to shoehorn it into the thing I’ve already been writing, but I’m afraid of ruining it for future use. I think it’d be really fun to write though. It’s called Me Talk Zombie Someday. Tentatively.

Anyhow, you’re probably sick of these, but I’m not, so here’s another bit of witty repartee between Paul and Arthur.

We headed outside, into the night and parted ways at our cars.

“See you Sunday?” Paul asked. He was planning a barbecue for Sunday and his wife had promised that some of her few remaining single friends would be there. The idea of a set up excited and frightened and terrified me. It was an amazing opportunity, rife with possibility, but somehow juvenile, unattractive. I had agreed to go, to give it a shot, to make the effort.

“Of course,” I said. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“And be on your best behavior,” Paul reminded me.

“You know, I’m not always an asshole,” I protested.

“Be on your best behavior,” he repeated.

“Alright, alright. I’ll leave the clown shoes and the taser at home,” I said. “But your kids are going to be sorely disappointed.”

“They’ll get over it,” Paul said. “It’ll be nice for them to see Uncle Arthur behaving like an adult for once.”

“They call me Uncle Arthur?” I asked, shocked. “They don’t call me Uncle Arthur.”

Paul sighed, caught himself, like he’d let something slip he hadn’t wanted to. “No, man, it’s just a figure of speech.”

My eyes widened with realization. “They do call me Uncle Arthur. Holy shit!” Impulsively, I threw my arms around Paul. “This is the greatest thing ever!”

“Yeah yeah,” Paul said, escaping from the hug. “Hooray for you, my kids think you’re the ‘shinzle’, or whatever it is they say these days.”

“It’s shizzle.”

“Shinzle, shizzle, what’s the difference? They’re all ridiculous words. Everything they say is gibberish, what’s it matter if I can accurately reproduce it or not?”

More Love? It’s unpossible!


15. A photo of you and someone you love. 12/2009 Tony and I hug.

That right there? That’s love, and there ain’t no denying it.

Not much writing yesterday (580 words) due to circumstances beyond my control (i.e. madness at Morseland->3 hours of sleep->bartending->just wanting to sit on the couch and let the world entertain me [instead of constantly entertaining it.]) So. This is why the big buffer of words built up at the beginning (all Bs included at no extra charge) is so important. Was feeling very discouraged until 2 things happened.

The first was that I read a pep talk email from the NaNo folks. I didn’t even really read it. I don’t know who wrote it. I think it was just the idea that someone else who was writing was saying, “Hey! Keep going!” It was the spirit of the letter, much more so than the content.

The second was that I now have a reason to finish. Incentive. Motivation. Drive. People often ask if there’s a prize at the end of NaNoWriMo; if you “get anything” if you finish. Well, yeah, you do: you get a rough draft of a novel. Congratulations! But now, there is something else. Now, there is hockey.

The other reason for not having written much yesterday was lack of inspiration. Kinda hit the wall with ideas of what to make these ridiculous people do. This morning I had some ideas while driving to work… So, we’ll see.

Current word count: 28311

This excerpt is about a headache I…I mean…the narrator had…last night.

The headache was alive, was wet and liquid and slimy, oozing around on top of my skull, between skin and bone, over one eye, then the other, tears flowing freely from the right one, salt sting causing me to squint. The pain throbbed in my ear, silent, but speaking to me in ways I couldn’t have ever hoped to understand. Telling me things I shouldn’t know about myself like, “You are weak,” and “It would not take much effort at all for me to kill you.” I was at its mercy, and the headache, it knew it, could taste my submission, I gave up everything I had, everything I was for it, and still it pressed on, bending my neck, forcing my head into my hands, my fingers massaging my temples, tracing patterns that in other situations could summon Gods or cast spells.

Relatively Speaking

14. A photo of one of your relatives. 10/8/79. Gerald and mom playing Clue.

It says “one of your relatives” but here are two of them. This is cousin Gerry playing Clue with my mom. What you don’t know about my mom is that she was the Clue champion. Nobody could beat her. This photo is amazing because it absolutely captures how Mom played the game. She was relentless. She looks like she’s actually interrogating Gerry. “We have your buddy Professor Plum in the other room, and he left you high and dry! He told us all about how you did it with the rope in the Ballroom. ”

14. A photo of one of your relatives. Undated. (Grandaddy) Paul & (Uncle) Paul.

And looking through all these photos, I found this one as well. I think it’s an absolute fantastic father & son moment. I suppose part of this photo-a-day thing is picking the one photo you want to represent each of the days, but hell, I just love the stories each of these pictures tells….

Word count: 28,044.

Here’s an excerpt. Paul & Arthur are still at the faux-Irish bar (Paddy O’Irish). Arthur’s favorite Cola employees (Cheryl, Tammy, Kelly) are there as well. Charming as ever, Arthur has once again raised their ire…. This whole bar scene was written just so that I could have Arthur say the very last line. This is how far I’ll go for a joke.

Kelly was out of her chair faster than I thought was humanly possible. Her hands flew towards my throat. I instinctively jumped back, but she was a woman on a mission. She was just about to wrap her hands around my neck when, fortunately for me, Paul stepped in between us. He managed to separate Kelly from me and make her take a few steps back.

“Come on, Kelly,” he said, using the voice I recognized as the one he used to defuse potential explosive situations at home. “You know he was just messing about.”

Kelly was still seeing red and was not hearing a word Paul said. “That fucking asshole.”

Paul persisted. “Kelly. It’s Arthur. He does this. He can’t help it.”

“It’s true!” I offered. “I can’t!”

Paul waved me off. “Go sit down,” he ordered. But his parental voice didn’t work on me. I wanted to watch.

Kelly did seem calmer. Her voice was so quiet that I could barely hear her when she said, “I’m going to kill him.”

She sounded serious. I almost believed that she had it in her.

“Kelly, he’s not worth it,” Paul said. “Come on.”

Somehow, that had the desired effect. Kelly cast one more glare in my direction and then returned to her chair. It wasn’t until everyone started talking again that I realized that the crowd at the bar had gone silent as soon as Kelly had erupted. Now the world around us resumed. Paul put a firm hand on my shoulder and lead us back to our stools.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to get fired. Or killed,” he said.

“Did you mean it?” I asked.

“Mean what?”

“When you said that I wasn’t worth it. You don’t think I’m not worth it, do you?”

1997

11. A picture of you in your 20s. 6/97, my 22nd birthday.

Turning 22, graduating from Northwestern. Those were heady days indeed. This picture proves two things:

1. Judging by the hat, I’ve been a Blackhawks fan for a long time, so take that all you bandwagoneers.

2. I’ve also been a hairy bastard for a very long time as well.

The picture doesn’t reveal much else. It was taken at my studio apartment in Evanston (722 Clark St). I am seated on my futon (recently discarded) wearing a 30/06 shirt from my brother (which I still have) and jean shorts (which I definitely do not still have) and socks (which I have many of, though likely not that pair.) On the futon behind me is a corner of my Bugs Bunny throw pillow (location unknown.) I am holding an ice cream cake. It has construction vehicles on it. I am 22 years old and the world is my oyster….

To understand this excerpt, I guess you’d have to understand that earlier in the story, the narrator (Arthur Traum) has made up a story about Heidi Swanson, who has some rare disease (Flombosis) and that she would be devastated to know that he had done some work while at work. Just another little bit of fun play between Paul and Art. I really actually enjoy writing these bits of repartee between Paul & Art. They are extensions and exaggerations  of how Dan (on whom Paul is based) and I would interact during the work day, and they’re very fun to make up. This is 340 words out of 24,153.

“Heidi Swanson is going to be so disappointed,” Paul said from the doorway. I looked at my watch. Barely half an hour had passed, but I had managed to finish with the crystal pieces, all of the picture frames and nearly the entire bag of magnets.

“Oh, fuck her, man,” I replied, snapping off another photo. “To be honsest with you, I think she’s faking.”

“Kids these days,” Paul said, looking through some old, broken picture frames that were stacked in a corner. “It’s amazing what they’ll do to get a little attention.”

“I blame the parents. They’re so concerned with their own lives and their careers and who’s going to win this season of America’s Next Favorite Grape Stomper, or whatever, that they don’t spend enough time with their kids. Children end up being raised by television and heroin. It’s no wonder that they turn to things like stealing postage stamps, plagiarizing presidential speeches, falsifying election results and faking made-up diseases.”

Paul nodded solemnly. “I lose sleep at night worrying that my own kids will end up the same way. Do I spend enough time with them? Do I pretend to be interested enough in whatever ridiculous shit they tell me? Am I too protective? Not protective enough? Being a parent isn’t easy, Art, no matter what they tell you.”

I put a supportive hand on Paul’s shoulder. “You’re a great father, Paul,” I said. “I’ve seen you with your kids. You’re amazing with them. There are so many times I would have told them to just fuck off, or at least that they were dumb dumb stupid heads but not you man. No matter what happens, you just seem to smile and nod and take another shot of Jim Beam.”

“Ahh, sweet bourbon,” Paul said. “Of all the things I keep in the first aid kit, I think it’s the most important.”

“Paul, I’ve never told you this before, but….”

“What is it, Art?”

“If I could have picked my father,” I said, “I would have picked you.”

Childlike

10. A photo of you as a child. 9/1/84. Return trip on the ferry from Lonz Winery.

This is perhaps the best photograph ever taken of me. Those eyes have already seen it all. There is the hint of a smile there, but the whole look just says “I know something you can never know.” Or perhaps it’s “I’ve planted a pound of C4 on the ship’s engines and unless I get $20 million, I’ll blow us all to kingdom come….” Actually, funny story: strongest memory of this boat trip is a bunch of drunken fools, one of whom took a dump over the side of the ferry. Classy!

Word count: 24,555

Ridiculous factor: Off the charts.

The bigger question was, what the hell was Stephanie Green doing with magnets? Candle holders were her domain. Was she branching out? Was Cola branching out? It was a mystery that I had to get to the bottom of.

With my theme music playing in my head (“duh duh duh da duh dun da duh dee duh dah duh dee duh da da da duh dahhhhhh”) I stole over to the PD room, knocked on the door frame (did not say “Knock knock!”) and entered. The Four Shoppers looked up at me, acknowledged my entrance and went back to whatever it was that they called work.

Except for Kelly. Ostensibly their leader (though not the department head; just the Alpha Female in the room.) She fixed me with a glare and beckoned me over. Kelly was all about mirrors and clocks. Fucking mirrors. Want to sell a mirror? Take a picture of it, then select the shiny, reflective part — the part that makes a mirror a mirror — and make it look like clouds. That’s right, I said clouds. Photoshop has a handy filter for this. I never knew what it was for before I started at Cola. Apparently it’s for mirrors. Clocks are generally easier — just make sure the hands are at 10 and 2 (positions that aren’t just for driving — with hands at 10 and 2, the clock evokes the golden ratio, making it more attractive to the customer.) Head bowed and humble, I approached her desk. It was best not to make eye contact, or really, to look at anything but one’s own shoes. Risking her ire was a dangerous game, one that I played almost every day, but always from a distance. Face to face, Kelly was a force to be reckoned with. I preferred passive aggressive measures, at a safe remove.

Family

9. A picture of your family. January 8, 1978. "A Family Portrait"

Another tough one. Raises questions of what family is, and so on and so forth. Back when I was 2 and a half years old, it wasn’t so complicated….

The novel, if that is its real name, has gotten weird. From mystery-of-an-ethereal-candleholder to zombie/cicada story to now….some sort of Mark Leyner-esque megalomania-filled rant…. But, I wrote a couple thousand words today. Next year? Back to historical fiction. Or another Baywatch novel. Easier to keep on track.

Words: 20,639. Here are 348 of the more ridiculous ones.

“I do not sound like him,” Therese protested. “His ‘they’ is a non-existent shadowy cabal made up of elected officials and corporate bigwigs. His ‘they’ is the product of watching too many movies, playing too many video games, and smoking too much dope.”
“Hey!” I exclaimed. “I stopped smoking dope years ago. It made me paranoid.”
“Well, I think it stuck, Arthur. You’re obviously delusional.”
“Delusional? Me? Just because I think there are better ways to run a business? And because I think — no, I know — that while it appears that we live in a democratically governed free market society that there are actually five people — Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, the cryogenically stored brain of Dick Cheney, and Wesley Thomas, a 53-year-old farmer from Akron, Ohio — that are secretly in control of everything?”
Paul added, “You also think that all the hot sales assistants want to sleep with you.”
“Alyssa totally does. She told me so last Thursday.”
“I think that must have been a dream.”
“No, it was definitely real. We were walking down the street and she said, ‘Arthur, I need you to make me a woman.’ And I said, ‘Alyssa, I’m not God. I can’t just make you a woman.’ And she said, ‘No, stupid, I want you inside me.’ And I said, ‘You mean you want me to like climb inside your skin.’ And she said, ‘No, dummy, I want you to take me to bed.’ And I said, ‘But it’s only 11:30, you can’t possibly be tired yet.’ And she said, ‘No, you idiot, I want you to have sex with me.’ And I said, ‘Oh, yeah, I knew that’s what you meant.’ And then all of a sudden, we were in Detroit, only it wasn’t really Detroit. And she turned into Hilary Clinton. And there was a talking rabbit. Now that you mention it, that was probably a dream.”
“Probably. That’s a good one though.”
“I have to remember to write that down in my dream journal.”

Still plugging away…


8. A photo of your favorite band/musician. Soul Coughing? Sure, why not?

Not as psyched about this particular part of the photo-a-day meme. Required me to choose a “favorite” band. Then it required me to find a photo of them. I haven’t taken photos of any bands. Anyway. Here is a picture of Soul Coughing.

Very nearly gave up on this thing today. Just felt like, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” Hey, been there before, right? Just not in love with anything that I’m writing. But, this evening, a well-timed pep talk from the NaNoWriMo people convinced me to just keep going. So, thanks NaNoWriMo people…. I guess. Anyhow — word count: 18,167. Excerpt: some silly stuff I wrote yesterday.

Jimmy kept the one room shed dark most of the time, but when I finally made my way inside I found it to be brightly lit by a dozen floating fish-shaped lamps. Paul was standing in the middle of the room gazing up at the lights with a look of child-like wonder on his face. I joined him. Each of the lights was cycling through a set of soft pastels, and though they each put out an incredible amount of light, more than one would expect, it still maintained a gentle quality, not harsh or glaring; just…bright. Jimmy was seated at a long table, tinkering with a lamp that had somehow malfunctioned.
“Jimmy,” Paul breathed, “these are amazing.”
“Yeah, Jimmy,” I agreed,  “these are awesome. When did you come up with these? I thought you were snowed under with your holiday things.”
“What? Oh. These are just something I’ve been messing with in my free time.”
“In your free time?” I asked, disbelieving. “…Ok.”
“Anyway, I wish you’d tell Trammel how much you like them,” Jimmy said, looking up from his work. “He thinks they won’t sell.”
“He thinks they won’t sell?” Paul exclaimed. “They’re floating fucking fish lamps.”
“Yeah. He says that fish shaped stuff is done. Last year.”
“Does he know that they float? Like. In the air?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“Um, Jimmy?” Paul asked.
“Yeah?”
“How do they do that? Float, I mean.”
“Oh, it’s really quite simple. The excess thermal energy generated by the light in the lamp is used to heat a small capsule of gaseous iron maganate, which, when it expands creates a negative gravitational index.”
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Yeah. A chemist friend of mine who works for NASA hooked me up with it. Here, check it out.”
As he spoke, he gave the tail of the lamp he was working on a quarter turn. It lit up purple, cycled through green and red. He held the fish in his open palms and shortly, it floated out of his hands. He gave it a gentle push and it joined the rest of the lamps just slightly over our heads. The lamps gave the room a peaceful, ethereal feel. I wanted half a dozen of them for my apartment.
“How much would these retail for?” I asked.
“That’s the thing. Right now we’d have to sell one for $13.99. I’m trying to get the cost down to two for $10. You know how Trammel feels about the Threshold.”
The Threshold was the name Trammel had given for what he felt was the price point that an average consumer would buy something. It varied from product to product, but there were some general rules. For something like this, which fell firmly into the novelty lighting category, Trammel stood firm at two for 10. When something had been dumbed down, cheapened or otherwise fucked with in order to fit in Trammel’s pricing structure, we said that it had been “Thresholed.”
“You mean these things are only $14? And the only reason Trammel doesn’t want to produce them is because they’re fish? And you might not be able to make them two for ten?”
“Better products have been axed for worse reasons, Arthur,” Jimmy said solemnly. “Is it lunch time?”
“Yes, it is,” Paul said. “I’m starving. Let’s go.”

Love!

7. A photo of someone you love. Phil Martin & me at Morseland 11/2/10

Another tough one to figure — what with photos of my best friend(s) and family coming up. Certainly Phil falls into those categories as well, and people in those categories crossover too. But, hell, decisions had to be made, so Phil makes it in. How could I not love him? Driving out to Golf Mill on Saturday mornings, through the gray of Chicago winter and the morass of teenaged minds; chopping wood; getting lemonade on the nose. So much history.

Realized I haven’t updated the word count here lately: 15,517.

Today’s excerpt is based on an actual conversation about an actual website:

Shutting the door of the cutting room behind me, I found myself mere feet away from the cubicle. A trip that should take five minutes at the most, it had taken me nearly a half hour to traverse the building. I couldn’t believe I’d finally made it. I rested for a moment against the cubicle wall, listening to the bickering coming from within.
Paul’s voice: “It’s fake, Therese. It’s not real.”
Therese: “How do you know that?”
“Because, Therese, I looked it up on Snopes.com and it said it’s not real. Also, because I saw the same email 2 years ago. Also, because nobody would actually publish a real how-to website on how to make a bonsai kitten.”
I could hear Kate say something, but because she spoke so quietly and in a monotone, I couldn’t make out any of the words. I was surprised that either Paul or Therese could understand her, but apparently Paul heard her perfectly because he replied directly. “Kate, there is no valid reason to censor the website. Anybody who is stupid enough to believe the website is real — no offense to either of you, of course — has bigger issues. And anybody who’s insane enough to try it probably already has a freezer full of body parts.”
“Ewww, gross,” said Therese.
“I’m just saying,” Paul replied.
Therese scoffed. “‘Just saying,’” she mimicked. “You’re just saying that you think it’s okay for someone to post instructions on how to abuse kittens on the web.”
“There are much worse things out there, Therese! And we shouldn’t be looking to censor the web, especially not a site that’s so obviously a joke! The site’s owner can’t and shouldn’t be held responsible for what people do after they look at the site. You can’t blame Ozzy Osbourne for suicides, Dexter for murders, or Grand Theft Auto for carjackers. If people are fucked up, they’re fucked up. End of story.”
“You sound just like Arthur,” Therese said. I smiled. It was true. He did.
“Well, there are worse people to sound like,” Paul said. “Where is that dude, anyway?”
If I’d needed a cue, that was it. I love making a good entrance. I stepped around the corner. “Have no fear, my friends. I’m right here.”
“Heeey, Art,” Paul said. We high-fived.
Therese and Kate, who had both been facing the center of the cubicle, turned their chairs back towards their desks.
“Ladies,” I said, walking to my desk. “Nice to see you again.”
I fell into my chair, exhausted from running the obstacle course that was the Cola Industries building.
“Hey Art,” Paul said, “don’t get too comfortable.”
I sighed. I just wanted to sit at my desk, maybe waste some bandwidth out of spite. “Why not?” I asked.
“Time for lunch.”
Immediately rejuvenated, I jumped from my chair. “Cool. Let’s grab Jimmy.”

A Well-Reasoned Boycott

No update here for long while. Can’t afford waste wrds or even letrs here, so make do.

No, just kidding. Word count up to 26k+. Well far behind, but who gives a rat’s tooshie? Two more big milestones to hit. 4k till 30, 14k till 40 and….let’s not think about the last one.

Another tasty excerpt:

“What on Earth are you doing?” my mother asks.

“Oh, we’re boycotting ‘The Vagina Monologues.'” I reply.

“Why are you doing that, Will?” she sighs. Eve Ensler, Oprah Winfrey and Roger Ebert are the three people alive that my mother will listen to.

“We don’t believe that the vagina should be given this platform to speak without proper penile representation. No platform has been given for the penis to present its views and we believe this is patently unfair.”

If only you could see my mother roll her eyes. It’s like she invented it and has been doing nothing but practicing her mastery of the skill her whole life. It’s truly amazing.

“Have you even seen the show?”

“Of course not. You can’t properly boycott something if you have full knowledge of it. Look at the Italian-American boycott of ‘The Sopranos’ — the leaders of the protest group had never even seen a single episode of the series. They managed to get quite a bit of attention for themselves. That one woman even landed an Olive Garden commercial — now tell me that’s not irony.”

“But you hate those people. And that restaurant.”

“Exactly. But seriously, how ridiculous am I, if they’re not.”

“You lost me.”

“Exactly. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a costume to put on. I am this boycott’s mascot, after all.”