My Part in Art

Me and a copy of Maz artwork for a project she's working on.

Nothing Sold Today!

Darn the luck.

'Fresh Ideas' Sold!

The nice editors at Every Day Fiction have decided to publish my story "Fresh Ideas" on their flash fiction website. (Stories under 1k words.) Luckily, 'Ideas' is fiction and so I will avoid needless mortification. 'Ideas' was part of my original Ten-in-Six. A workshop project about an odd man pretending to work at work, it was rejected 3x since September. After the last rejection, I made a small change to the ending that seemed to do the trick.

I'll post when the story is up. Now back to work. My antique computer has slowed to a crawl and will no longer transport me to Google search. I think I need to add more coal to the funnel in back.

Link to Race Time Weather Woes

Alas, the weather had the final word at Emil's most recent marathon.

Puss 'N Fruit

Tom Ruegger sent along this fascinating find from the now-defunct American Pie and Cat Association.

Link to 3D Effects on Screenwriting

That is the question movie-makers are asking.

A Blister!

It's been awhile, but I developed a blister from walking. Now I'll have to use Body Glide on my feet — an act of pure nostalgia.

I've decided to take the great long story I worked on last fall and expand it into a novel of about 200 pages. That means I'm only 130 pages shy. The theme is redemption through suffering, a bit lofty sounding for a story involving a forest monster running around eating people and livestock. But I've been invited by a publisher to submit the finished product which torpedoes my excuse that no one's interested. I'm plotting out the next two sections on 3x5 cards. In the past, tapping out a detailed outline fried my brain, as if I'd already written the book. Room must be left for the subconscious to plot various twists and turns. Hopefully, I'll add final changes around Halloween, a suitable time to submit a (hopefully) scary story.

There. Well. Ha! I've said it. Halloween. Inquire often. Ask me how the story's going. Hold me to it as you would hold a great round fellow to a diet.

Cancer Skin Graft, Walking, Writing

Graft Dodger. Not really, but I liked the sound of it. My stitches stay for another week and I need to keep the nose moistened to facilitate healing. A year shall pass, said the dermatologist, before my old honker appears normal. (If it ever did.)

Walked 52 minutes this morning, speeding up at times to a brisk pace. My plan is to gradually acclimate to faster foot turn-over so my transition to running will be seamless. Walking for almost an hour 3x a week, I have to say the knee has held up well. Alas, my weight ballooned again so, with no swimming for three more weeks, I've got to eat less and get into the gym more. I feel like I've said the same thing over and over for the last 18 months.

Several potential writing projects, lean with promise, seem to have dwindled away, joining the ghosts of many others over the last decade. Perhaps there is a Project's Graveyard, similar to the Elephant's Graveyard only without big, round tombstones. One can only speculate.

Johnny Black Nose

Skin graft has turned blacker than a collie's snout, making it appear I feel asleep on a barbecue grill. Itches too. The divot behind my ear was leaking but appears to have stemmed. Tomorrow I get the stitches out. Yeah. Walked early on Tuesday, logging 52 minutes at a moderate pace. Last week, I lost momentum with pitch meetings and surgery. For the next three weeks I'll focus on establishing consistent work-outs 3x a week. On week four, the focus will shift to walking faster. (I may incorporate a session at a local high school track.) The goal will be to eventually walk 3 miles in 39 minutes - 13 minutes a mile. Afterwards, I'll look into slowly running the distance. But everything depends on the knee. Any soreness or pain, and I stop. And I can do all that regardless of nose color. Though I prefer it wasn't puppy black.

Cheruiyots of Fire

Speaking of running, the 114th Boston Marathon wrapped up with Kenyan (really?) Robert Cheruiyot finishing in a course record 2 hours, 5 minutes, and 52 seconds. Americans Ryan Hall and Meb Keflezighi ran 4th and 5th. Woman's champ Teyba Erkesso edged a Russki dame to finish in 2:26:11. Top Yank Female was Paige Higgins, finishing in 13th place.

Congrats to all who trained, qualified and ran. Huzzah to you, I say.

UPDATE: Biggest cause of marathon injuries: Bad Gatorade? Cheerleader mayhem? CNN has the big surprise.

The Price of Commitment

For over five years I studied t'ai chi. I learned the Yang Family long form, short form, fast set, push hands; attended t'ai chi camps and workshops; assisted the instructor, read books, bought videos, checked out websites and practiced persistently. But there came a time when I was faced with moving up or moving on. To move up would have required me to drive cross-town in rush hour traffic twice a week and study at the main guy's school. I would need to make a big financial commitment as well as up my practice time. This decision came just as I began running again, mentally committing myself to finishing a marathon after years of false starts. So I moved on, ran, and eventually joined Team in Training, completing 5 marathons. And while I still practice t'ai chi, I have decided the level I'm at is the last level I'll reach. Which brings me back to running. Every setback is a time to examine commitment. Do you renew or fold? This cancer business on top of last year's knee operation, illness, learning to chi walk, tendinitis, anemia and all the hurdles I've faced since September 2008, including misdiagnoses from a hack doctor, have made 'fold' seem not only realistic, but the smart play.

• Any outdoor exercise must now be tempered by the knowledge that I'm very skin cancer prone. So its cover-up exposed skin and train in the early morning or evening. (Or retire to the state of Washington.)
• I'm pushing 60 and have sustained a fair amount of damage over the decades from a severe leg wound to broken bones to sprains and torn muscles.
• Odds are that I'll never again equal where I was physically in 2008. That means I'll probably never qualify for Boston or run Heartbreak Hill.
• Maybe the point of all these set-backs is not to press on, but to quit before something worse happens.

I'm caught in limbo, unable to sustain a training program that will get me running again and unable to move on. I wish I could let running go and take up cycling or Candyland. I'll be like Chuck Liddell, the Ice Man, who could've eased into training fighters after the Rampage Jackson beat-down, but returned to the octagon, losing four of his next five fights, one of them a knock-out. That's not a graceful exit. But that's how I'll leave running. Painful as it is to keep starting over, I'm going to need another series or two of smack-downs to prove I'm finished. And I may not believe it even then. 'Cause if I'm not moving on, I'm moving up. Moving on up. Moving on up to the Eastside, to a de-luxe apartment in the sky. From now on, I'll run a dry cleaners. Wait. Skip that part. Run again soon, I'm believing.