Artistic triumph

Teri seemed to be just a little too excited that I was going to be out of town, so it was more than a little gratifying to return home Sunday to find her day without me wasn't as much fun as she expected and she was pleased I was back.

After several months of having me at home and constantly underfoot with not a single business trip to break the pattern, Teri proclaimed herself more than a little ready to have a night all to herself without a snoring husband to disturb her sleep, a slovenly husband to clutter her nest and a noisy husband to keep her from a bit of much needed quiet reflection.

The occasion of my brief disappearance was a trip to the greater Atlanta metropolitan area to attend the concert debut of my friend Mark's embryonic band, The Barrier Road Brothers.

Mark picked up a guitar for the first time something like four years ago, and it instantly became a passion and much needed creative outlet for him. In that short time I've watched his skills with the instrument grow from awful to awkward to pretty darn good.

Mark's chose well when he selected his band mates. The other two "brothers" consisted of Todd on guitar and Rob on mandolin. Both have been musical mentors to Mark and both are members of bands that get paid for their gigs, even though, unlike me, neither has seriously considered quitting his day job to follow the path of an artist.

Mark set the day for his public debut months ago, and on Saturday morning I pointed our fading old Jeep in the direction of Atlanta and hoped the old girl would get me there and back.

Since much of what Mark knows about making music comes from having followed the Grateful Dead around for something like 75 shows, I wasn't at all surprised when the venue changed at the last moment from his driveway to his living room or that the show kicked off a little over three hours after the scheduled performance time.

Nobody minded the late start since the house was well provisioned with both food and drink. The catering was highlighted by enough delicious baked ziti to feed an army--cooked with love by Mark's wife Cristin. The menu was made even more agreeable with the delicious addition of large homemade meatballs swimming in a bubbling vat of what New Orleanians call red gravy. When I added a glass or two of red wine to the mix, I was content to wait as long as it took for The Barrier Road Brothers to make their way to the stage.

When the set kicked off, I was more than a little surprised at how good these guys were together given a set list that came together at the last minute and with a minimal amount of rehearsal. Todd lives just down the street from Mark, but Rob lives in New York, which makes playing together problematic for this trio. The set ranged from Dylan to the Amazing Rhythm Aces and everything in between, and the all ages audience in attendance hailed it as a triumph. And it was.

The happy afterglow of the show was marred a bit by a guest who had overserved himself prior to arrival and picked up the drinking pace once he got there. This led to a bit of drama and ultimately the loud and abrupt departure of the guest in question.

When calm was restored and the band had been properly congratulated, the rest of the guests went their separate ways. At that point, the trio and I repaired to Mark's basement with a bottle of single malt whiskey and a bucket of ice. Once glasses materialized and we were properly settled in, the three played together until nearly 3 a.m. for their appreciative audience of one.

It's amazing to see how talented players can make good music together even though they don't really know each other or even some of the songs they are playing. Several times, having received just a few words of instruction on a chord pattern, Rob or Todd would confidently and accurately play along or even take the lead on songs they had never heard previously, much less played before. With a slight nod here and there or an occasional glance at a chord the other was fretting, they could stay in sync and in tune, and there's something very mystical about that.

I returned home Sunday afternoon more than a little tired but very pleased to find a wife who had missed me. I'm happy for my friend Mark and the joy he experienced making music with and for his friends, but, more importantly for me, the events of the weekend renewed my resolve to keep the boob tube switched off at night and find even more outlets for my creativity through the course of the Best Year Ever.

Tomorrow night I'll take my first guitar lesson.

Tony rides a float

First of all, how about a few shout outs to some of you discerning readers today?

I know this is strictly amateur hour, but it’s my blog and I can pretend I’m a late night DJ from the 1970s if I want to.

Hello Marble Falls, Texas (howya doing Mom?). Hi there Morrisburg, Ontario. It’s great to see you, whoever you are. Olivet, Michigan, thanks for coming back. Atlanta, Cleveland, New Orleans, Denver, LA, Chicago, Seattle, Houston, New York, Philly & DC—how’s life in the big city today? Hi Wisconsin, how are the crops looking? Raleigh, Tuscaloosa and Chapel Hill—you make me feel smarter knowing the college towns are checking in periodically. Hi Sandra from next door and Thoan and Tuan in Vietnam. Hi Glendale, S.C. Did you know that MapQuest says there are three of you? That’s about as bad as Atlanta and streets named Peachtree. Jackson, Miss., Burlington Vt., and wherever else you may be, thanks for stopping in. I’m really glad you’re here.

Okay, that’s out of my system.

Well, not quite. I’d like to give a special shout-out to the 14 anonymous discerning readers who participated in the poll. Chalice of Revelation won the day with Cup of Revelation coming in a distant second. Nobody liked either of the two “fulfilling” options. I applaud your good taste—you picked my first and second favorites in that order. And an honorable mention goes to the discerning reader who placed a write in vote for “Chalice of Strutination.”

One of the nice things about the Best Year Ever is the dress code. I don’t write in the buff (not a pretty thought, sorry I put that out there), but I do dress casually for work these days. Right now I’m wearing a blue Rock ‘n Bowl tee shirt and some really tired shorts, and that’s pretty much the standard uniform. About the only time I’ve put on big boy pants all summer is on Sunday mornings, and that’s only for a few hours.

So I was looking something up the other day. One click led to another, and I found myself staring at tee shirts for writers. It was love at first sight. I told Teri that the day my first advance check comes, I’m buying one of these suckers. I won’t buy one a minute earlier since tee shirts are one thing there are plenty of around Chez Henley.

Anyway, here’s what was on some of the better tee shirts:

Writer’s block: when your imaginary friends won’t talk to you.

Please don’t make me mock you in my novel.

If I stare at you, it’s not because you look good. It’s because you just helped me figure out how to off my villain.

Want to know if I have a dark side? Read my stories and we’ll see if we can still be friends . . .

I’m a writer. Sure, I don’t make as much money as you do, but I get to wear this to work.

I prefer to think of myself as “pre-published.”

Please do not annoy the writer. He may put you in a book and kill you.

On with the show.

As promised, here’s a brief writing sample from Project Y. Right now Tony is riding in a Mardi Gras parade. I did my very best to give the reader a real feel for what it is like to be aboard a float rolling through a massive crowd. I thought this section would turn out dreadfully, and it certainly started out that way, but I think it came around in the end, even though it lacks a single word of dialogue.

My self-described “avid” reader in Great Britain sent me some good advice on sentence construction the other day after she noticed that my sentences tend to ramble on and contain awkward constructions—kind of like this one. My editrix wants me to lay down more simple declarative sentences, and I promised her I would try. Hers is actually the only advice I’ve received since the inception of the blog, so I promised I would take it to heart. Having said that, you’ll see no signs of repentance or reform in my writing quite yet. Let me know if you see an improvement the next time.

Content warning: even though there are no inappropriate words in the following excerpt, it does acknowledge the existence of a certain female body part.

Riding aboard a Mardi Gras float is an experience that stimulates the entire body to the point of sensory overload. The slightly greasy feel, reflected luminescence and petrochemical smell from strands of plastic pearls fresh out of cartons that had been sealed months ago in China; the colored lights on the float flashing like a sideshow marquee, the competing soundtrack blaring from the speaker system of the dance team in front and the blaring brass and thumping drums of the marching band behind; the otherworldly sight of fellow riders in their bright costumes, hoods and gold masks riding this improbable conveyance; the shaking of the float as it lurches and lumbers down St. Charles Avenue; the twisting canopy of branches produced by the ancient live oaks lining the avenue and reaching out like grasping witches’ arms; the thousands of glittering multicolored strands of beads dangling from tree branches and power lines all along the route and placed by the errant throws of more than a dozen previous parades; the heady scent of beer mixed with diesel fumes; the particular tinkling scale of a handful of tossed aluminum coins striking concrete—all of these and more were previously foreign sensations for Tony.

But, more than any of these things, the raw energy, noise and unquenchable desire of the hundreds of thousands of people lining the route struck Tony to his core.

In New Orleans, a Mardi Gras parade is truly interactive, and for the majority of the parade route there are no barriers, either physical or social, to keep the crowd from the floats. Parade goers scream, jump, wave signs, straddle the shoulders of their boyfriends, bang the sides of the float, climb ladders and trees and do anything else the human imagination can conceive to attract the attention of a float rider and secure more of the beads, cups and other trinkets being hurled from the rolling treasure carts. As the float progressed along the route from the tamer family crowds of St. Charles Avenue and grew closer to Canal Street and the French Quarter, women began to bare their breasts to secure prized beads, a tactic that apparently worked well judging from the quantity and size of the beads they wore. Some particularly beautiful and agile members of the crowd appeared to be weighed down to the point of toppling over from the mass of the beads around their necks.

At one point Tony looked forward at a mild leftward bend on St Charles Avenue and could see several of the floats ahead. For a moment he paused from throwing to watch the peculiar and wondrous sight of an unending shower of objects raining down in into the writhing masses of humanity surrounding each float like agitated, seething beasts.

The parade lumbered along at the pace of a gentle walk and would come to a complete halt periodically for lengths of time ranging from anywhere from less than a minute to fifteen minutes or more. The reasons for these stoppages were never explained, but Lynda told Tony that they could be caused by anything from a broken axle or electrical fire on a float to an injury or even death occurring somewhere along the parade route. According to Lynda, most years one or two people were sacrificed over the course of the Carnival season by falling from a float, being run over by a float, from an act of violence, heart attack or some other cause. Once, a horse fell over dead in the middle of a parade causing a long delay until the carcass could be hauled away on a flatbed and ruining the evening of the ersatz cowgirl riding him, she told him.

After a little practice, Tony got the hang of bunching the strands of beads and getting them into the hands of the individuals he targeted in the wailing mob. It was no small feat to hit a specific moving pair of hands in a moving, rocking float as everyone around the target tried desperately to intercept the flying treasure, and Tony was amazed at how often he could find his mark. Lynda told him that most riders had a “type” they liked to throw to-—beautiful young women, grandmothers, small children, old black men, teenagers, drunks nodding off in folding chairs, whatever. And clearly there was a rider to match every type, since virtually everyone in the crowd wore multiple strands of plastic beads. For Tony it was all about making eye contact, regardless of the “type” of person behind the eyes. As soon as his eyes connected with those of another, he unloaded.

Other than the pure sense of desire emanating from the crowd, the biggest impression of the ride was the unceasing din--a continuous roar of lust that didn't seem quite human. Tony could see that the crowd took brief breaks between floats as the bands and other sideshows passed, but as soon as the next float approached, the crowd stirred again. This placed the riders in the midst of an unceasing adrenaline fueled maelstrom.

Tony unburdened his treasures into the maw of the beast as furiously as he could, but there was never a question of the insatiable hunger being fully satisfied. As his float neared the end of its route Tony realized he had been on his feet and throwing continuously for several hours, yet he didn’t feel a bit tired. He knew his out of shape body would punish him in the morning, but he couldn't remember feeling better or more awake than he did at this moment.

Tony was overwhelmed at becoming the object of such adulation and raw human emotion, and the energy of the screaming masses made him feel completely alive for the first time in his memory. At one point, completely caught up in the frenzy, he raised his head and howled into the New Orleans night.

Everybody has a story

Last night a man I've known for a couple of years, but not that well, introduced me to his wife. In the process of the introduction he mentioned I am a sales representative for a textbook publisher. "Was," I said, which led to a brief overview of my Best Year Ever program. I'm still not very comfortable talking about what I do and generally fumble vaguely through the explanation when I'm forced to account for myself. Mostly this is because I don't want people I barely know to think I'm a hopeless dreamer or an unemployed nut job. I want them to know me a little better before they find those things out about me.

If and when I complete something I am able to sell, I think I'll be a lot more comfortable telling people I'm a "writer" or, better yet, an "author".

"So, what do you do?" I asked, hoping to turn the spotlight in the other direction.

"I work at Wal-Mart," she answered.

She didn't continue, so I decided to press on a little further. "Really. What do you do there?"

"I answer the phone," she said. Her tone of voice made it clear that there was nothing she or anyone else could find remotely important or interesting about her position.

"That must be interesting" I said as enthusiastically as I could. "Tell me, what's the strangest phone call you ever took at work?"

"Well, one time a lady called to ask what day of the week it was."

We both puzzled over why anyone would think Wal-Mart was the place to go for that kind of information.

Then, warming to the topic, she continued. "And one time someone called me to ask how to make coffee. I guess since we're Wal-Mart, we're supposed to know everything."

"And, even though we're open 24 hours, people still call to ask when we open and close. 'When do you open up?' they ask, and I tell them we're open 24 hours. 'Yes, but what time do you open up,' they say."

I'm beginning to re-remember a lesson from my days as a reporter long ago: everybody has a story, and just about everybody is ready to tell their story--all you have to do is ask.

One thing I'm trying to do better this year is make new friends, reconnect with old friends and stay connected to the ones I already have. Some people I know seem to find it second nature to stay connected with others--my brother is one of those. I, on the other hand, sometimes think I could be perfectly happy all by myself on a desert island. Keeping relationships alive is hard work for me.

For years my profession was my excuse for allowing connections to languish rather than chalking it up to my natural inclination. To be fair to myself, my travel and work schedule really did make keeping up with everyone in my life a real chore and make connecting events like family reunions almost impossible to attend too much of the time.

Yesterday I reconnected with Chuck, an old buddy from my Homestead, Florida days. His son is now a senior at the University of Georgia (Go Dawgs!), but Teri reminded me that their boy was just an infant the last time we saw Chuck and his lovely wife Shannon. Really?! How did that happen?

It's been even longer since I last communicated with my high school and college buddy David. We were pretty tight back in the day, but that day was almost 30 years ago and we hadn't communicated since. We've been in touch lately, and catching up has brought back a bunch of wonderful memories. I passed the 50 year mark yesterday and he crosses that line tomorrow.

Saturday I'll drive to Atlanta for my friend Mark's driveway concert debut. This is a big deal for him, and I'm really looking forward to being there, butane lighter in hand, to lend support to his efforts.

I've got a couple of other "connecting" trips planned over the next few months as budget and time constraints allow.

I'm not sure why connecting is so top-of-mind for me right now. I think it has to do with the lead character in the story I'm writing and the lesson he's teaching me along the way.

I had two new year's resolutions when The Best Year Ever began on June 1. One was to complete a saleable book length writing project and the second was to "get healthy." At the time I set the health goal I was thinking only of diet and exercise, and that part of the plan is coming along pretty well. But I'm realizing that healthy also has to do with relationships, so connecting with people has found its way into The Best Year Ever Plan.

While we're on the subject of relationships, thanks to all of you who called, sent cards, e-mailed, and posted good wishes here and on Facebook on the occasion of my 50th birthday. I've never much liked birthdays, and I really didn't like the idea of this particular one, but it eased the pain knowing you were all thinking of me fondly.

My favorite and perhaps most heartfelt birthday wish yesterday came from my friend Tuan in Vietnam. Here it is verbatim:

Congratulations to you for 51 of your springs!

All the best will come to you to achieve what you are desperate for now and great happiness between you and Teri.

Heaps of snake wine to cheer for your health, success and happiness!

Your friend,

Tuan

Isn't that beautiful? My friend Tuan truly has the soul of a poet. Discerning reader, whatever you may be desperate for, I hope you achieve it too.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow for a new excerpt from the rough draft of Project Y. That was going to be today's post, but I got sidetracked, and have babbled on long enough for one day. Some of y'all like the writing excerpts for whatever reason. If you're one of those, tomorrow's your day. Otherwise, you're excused.

Half a century

Today I've inhabited this planet for half a century.

I'm not sure what to think as I pass what is simultaneously a milestone and just another day.

My callow youth is officially in my wake, and I can only just sense the first wisp of decrepitude waiting for me on the horizon.

I truly don't know whether to celebrate . . .



. . . or mourn this day.



Some of both, I guess, but mostly I'll try to ignore it.

Nowhere in particular

Quite a few people I know are frankly baffled by my Best Year Ever Plan, and I'm frequently asked questions to the effect of "what do you do with yourself all day now that you don't have a real job?"

I wonder the same thing sometimes, but the days do have a way of passing quickly and mostly pleasantly.

Most weekdays I spend a fair chunk of time strapped to the computer trying to make Project Y fly. I'm more than halfway through the first draft and starting to pick up steam. My goal is to complete the first draft some time in September, spend October and maybe November rewriting the sucker and then trying to find a market for it.

On any given day I'm not very happy with what I've written, but overall I'm very pleased with what I think I could have at the end of the process.

The thing I've discovered is that trying to write a book is a whole lot like hard work, and today I woke up and didn't feel like working. The sun was shining and the forecast high was 90 degrees with almost no chance of rain. That's one of the best parts of the Best Year Ever Plan--the freedom to take a day off when the mood strikes.

So late this morning I threw some books and cheese crackers in my backpack, loaded up a cooler with sodas, tossed the bike in the back of the Jeep and headed for Trailer Park Beach (pictured above). What an agreeable way to pass a day. With school back in session the usually busy beach was virtually deserted. I could count the other people there on one hand.

If you weren't one of those four or five other people, let me tell you what you were missing.

It was warm, but not unbearable, and the cooler weather of the last few days made the temperature of Trailer Park Lake almost brisk--perfect for a nice long swim on a late summer's day.

Mostly I sat on the beach as my body photosynthesized vitamin D. I read and did some thinking, and along the way I think I may have finally stumbled onto the title for Project Y. But I need to cogitate on that a bit longer.

After a couple of hours of beach time, I hopped on the bike for about an hour of battling the hills of Oak Mountain State Park. This park is a biker's paradise and there are always plenty of them out there. Most of the bikers I see clearly take their hobby seriously, and they have gear and clothing that wouldn't be out of place at the Tour de France. I have no doubt that some of the bicycles I see out there are worth more than the old Jeep I drive.

Then there's me, pedaling away on a bike that cost less when it was new over 10 years ago than an iPod costs today. It still has the collapsible side baskets I installed in my New Orleans days when I would bike from our house to Whole Foods or Langensteins to "make groceries" or occasionally pop over to the French Quarter. There's not much use for those baskets in Suburbingham. Here the grocery stores are far away and located on big roads filled with Dale Earnhardt Jr. wannabees, and only a fool would try to reach a grocery store on a bicycle around here.

With my tired bike and my less than chic, come as you are attire, I must have looked quite a sight to the biking enthusiasts of Oak Mountain Park as they blew past on their Lance Armstrong specials. But, what the heck--I figure that I may be slow and not styling, but I'm getting the same workout they are. I just have to pedal a lot harder and in a much lower gear to get my aging Trek and aging body to bend to my will. Speed and efficiency are overrated when you aren't trying to go anywhere in particular. And the net result is the same.

Strutinating a co-organizator

What is it with crooked politicians, and why do they seem to congregate where I live?

Louisiana is famous for having colorful crooks in public office, but it turns out my new adopted home state of Alabama has more than its fair share too.

If nothing else, 15 years of living in New Orleans gives you a grounding on how corruption works. When I first moved to Louisiana, a governor’s race was in progress and the runoff pitted a charming former governor named Edwin Edwards versus a honey-tongued former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan named David Duke. Edwards was an unrepentant rogue who once famously said of another race “the only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.”

Edwards (seen here in his prison garb) was dirty and everyone knew it, although he had twice previously been acquitted on federal corruption charges. I’ve heard it said by people who should know that Edwards owned the software firm used by the state to pick jury pools, and that had a lot to do with his previous acquittals.

During that crazy election, people all over the state were faced with choosing between a thief and a klansman and they narrowly opted for the thief. In fact there were bumper stickers on cars everywhere reading “vote for the crook, it’s important.”

There were televised debates during that election, and they were something to behold. I’ll never forget one question asked of Edwards. “Governor Edwards, can you promise me that, if you are elected, you won’t appoint your friends and cronies to public office?”

“No I can’t,” said Edwards, literally winking and grinning directly into the camera. “Everybody is Edwin Edwards’ friend.”

Edwards is in prison now serving out a 10 year sentence for racketeering.

Then there was my congressman for the entire time I lived in New Orleans, Dollar Bill Jefferson. Everyone knew Jefferson was slimy, but nobody could stop the powerful New Orleans political machine he partly controlled. Every election day, Jefferson’s minions would ferry poor people to the polls to vote. They went willingly out of a sense of civic duty and also because they each got a bottle of whiskey and some “walking around money” on the bus ride home.

Jefferson briefly became nationally famous when the FBI found $90,000 in cold cash in his freezer in a raid of his home.

Earlier this month he was finally convicted on 11 counts of corruption by a federal jury.

The only one of these that saddened me was Oliver Thomas, city councilman for the Uptown New Orleans district I lived in. I had met him a number of times and liked him a lot. He was very popular among both black and white residents of the district, which was an accomplishment in itself in a racially divided city. He was effective. He was very active in his church parish and seemed like a decent guy. He was also intelligent and was widely acknowledged to be on the fast track for mayor.

I once called his office once about a pothole in front of my street after repeated complaints got no reaction from the public works department. The pothole was fixed the next day and he sent me a copy of the stern follow up memo he sent to the department head, earning my vote for life.

Oliver took something like $15,000 in a kickback on a parking contract, pled guilty and is in federal prison right now. A lot of New Orleanians were shocked and disappointed when that happened. We expected better from him.

I thought moving to Alabama would mean moving out of a swamp of corruption--but no.

As soon as I move here, the state’s last governor Don Siegelman gets convicted for bribery and mail fraud and is currently in prison. Watching from the sidelines, that whole deal struck me as a political “hit”. The guy’s dealings weren’t shady enough to make the evening news in Louisiana, much less rate a federal conviction.

Now the mayor of Birmingham, a wacky little man named Larry Langford, will go on trial in October on some sort of federal corruption charges. I live in Helena, a small town in the exurbs of Birmingham, so this fellow isn’t my mayor, but it’s sure fun to watch from the sidelines as he bobs, weaves and dissembles like an angry rooster.

Do you wonder where these guys come from? Here's your answer.

Over the last week or so, the local newspaper has taken great delight in covering an obscure school board race in the city of Birmingham. One of the candidates, Antwon Womack, has distinguished himself in this race as having some real apptitude for political corruption. Among other things, he lied about his age, he lied about his place of residence, he lied about positions he has held in political organizations and he lied about his educational background (he dropped out of high school in the 9th grade but claims to be a college graduate). He even lists himself as Dr. Antwon Womack in grant applications.

When “Dr.” Womack was confronted with these whoppers by a skeptical press, he defended himself saying he wasn’t a liar--“it’s just the information I provided to the people is false.” Then came my favorite part of all—he told the press he didn’t want to be “strutinated” any longer. Strutinated! What a wonderful word. At some point, that’s going to find its way into a book.

The newspaper loves to print Womack’s press releases verbatim, and I would too if I were the news editor. They are priceless and hilarious gems of illogic and illiteracy. Any guy who calls himself a “co-organizator” on his website is okay in my book.

The election is tomorrow. What if he wins?

Nothing interesting happened today

Worthy Cause

Today I received a really sweet e-mail from my friend Jacqueline.

Jacqueline is a dog lover--a real dog lover. She's one of those people some other people consider a bit nuts for the depth of devotion given to their canine "children", but others of us completely understand. Like Teri and me, Darren and Jacqueline don't have human kids of their own and they lavish love and attention on their two very special canines. Not too long ago she sent several people some incredibly cute pictures of her babies asking our input on which she should submit for possible inclusion in an upcoming golden retriever calendar.

Their two great dogs, Ben and Zee (pictured above), both came to them through the good work of Adopt A Golden Atlanta, an organization Darren and Jacqueline enthusiastically support. This is also the group producing the aforementioned calendar as a fund raiser. Zee is a sweet and somewhat shy dark coated golden retriever, while Ben has a light coat. Ben has the intelligence and temperament of a golden retriever but tacked on to the broad body of a great pyrenees, which I think is what the other half of Ben's lineage actually is. Ben is one very cool dog.

Jacqueline was writing to let me know she had donated to Adopt A Golden in memory of Callie The Wonder Dog. Most of you know that Callie, our golden retriever and best friend for the last 13 years, was in the late stages of a terminal bout with cancer, and last Saturday we took her to the vet to end her pain.

Here's a link to the "memories" page of Adopt A Golden. I just wish Jacqueline had warned me about the poem at the top of the page--it was beautiful but hit me like a ton of bricks. I told Teri not to go there until she was home and had some time and definitely not to read it when she was at work.

I made a little donation of my own in Callie's name to Adopt A Golden Atlanta a few minutes ago. It wasn't in this month's budget, but I don't think Teri will mind.

Several times a day I catch myself wondering why Callie isn't in my office checking up on me or I'll think I need to get up and let her out or feed her or check her water bowl. Of course I quickly realize the water bowl isn't there any more, and neither is Callie. My sister Carol warned me about this. She said this happened to her for quite a while after her beloved dog Scooter died in 2005.

It's going to be a very quiet weekend at Chez Henley. As I write this Teri is making her way to the Sandestin Resort for an advertising convention that will run through Saturday night. I've mentioned before how much I dislike being at home alone when Teri is away on a business trip, and how I'm completely aware of the hypocrisy involved in that attitude since I'm sure I've spent a thousand or more nights away on business over the course of our marriage.

With Callie and Teri both away on business, I'll be left with only Scram our stray Katrina cat to keep me company. Scram is one of the world's great cats, but he's only one of the world's great cats if you happen to be Teri. Those two are tightly bonded--Scram can take or leave the rest of the world, including yours truly.

Scram will likely show up only long enough to eat and try to stomp on my keyboard while I'm working. In fact he just hopped on my lap in an effort to distract me. The rest of the time he'll be on patrol in the Bayberry Woods, a kitty paradise.

Speaking of paradise, most evenings Teri and I spend some time in our comfy chairs on the back porch and discuss, well, just about everything. These times on the porch just talking are almost always the best part of our day. A couple of days ago I said it seemed like there was a hole at our feet where Callie should be flopped as she eavesdropped on our conversation. I told Teri I could almost literally see her there, and she said she was having the same experience. Then we talked about whether good dogs go to Heaven.

There's no theological support in our faith for the idea that dogs have souls, so that kind of rules out the idea, I pointed out.

"Just the same, on the day I get to Heaven, I really hope that Callie is there waiting for me with the body she had in her prime. I want her to be dancing, with her tail wagging and asking me where I've been," Teri said.

Yeah. That would be great.

Help wanted

I just wasted an entire morning writing a short story for an NPR contest called "Three Minute Fiction". Ugh.

I heard about it while settling into my captain's chair for the day, and I immediately had to give it a whirl. The idea is that you have to write a short story of 600 words or less that begins with the sentence "The nurse left work at five o'clock." You can enter yourself by going to npr.org. The contest ends next week.

The 600 word limit is shorter than most of my blog posts, so after Lorraine's comment on my "short and sweet" item the other day, I thought I'd try it out to see if I could tell a whole story in under 600 words.

Oh, the first prize? An autographed book.

So now, instead of moving forward on Project Y, "A Bad Day For Big Time" is now in the NPR slush pile along with thousands of others (they had over 5,000 entries the last time they did this). I'll let you know how that turns out when the results are announced.

Okay then, I want your help with something. There is an object that appears in Project Y (I have to come up with a title sooner or later). It's a cup or chalice and some people in the story believe it has mystical properties. Teri calls it my "sorting hat" just to tick me off. Anyway, this object gets lost by its owner, and a portion of the story involves the finding and retrieval of said item.

Here's the deal--I came up with an incredibly dumb name for this object, but after a lot of thought and bouncing names off Teri, I have what I think are some less dumb options.

On the upper right hand side of your screen, you'll see a poll. Click on the name that you like best or dislike least from among these choices.

Thank you!

Two prisoners

Another good day behind the wheel. The truck was moving slowly, but it never completely crashed and only swerved off the road a few times today.

Here's a little of where the story went. Today's excerpt is from a chapter I call "Two Prisoners." In this scene our hero Tony, strapped to a folding chair by two full rolls of duct tape (one red and the other green), is being guarded by the girlfriend of an outlaw motorcycle gang member.

In case you're wondering, I posted the picture of the potato chip bag for three reasons:

1. Zapp's Cajun Crawtators make a brief appearance in this chapter, although not in this excerpt.

2. Zapp's Cajun Crawtators are the best potato chip ever made.

3. I'm starving and I want some right now!

As always, I've toned down any language to keep this appropriate for all ages and sensibilities, and today will substitute "newt" for any offending words. Always bear in mind that this is coming from a rough draft.

Without further ado . . .

“Your boyfriend has a shaved head covered with tattoos and filed teeth, and you’re afraid of that Klunky guy?”

“Aw Terry ain’t so bad when you get to know him. The tattoos on his skull and the fangs are mostly for show. He hardly ever hits me--only when I’ve got it coming—and he almost never tries to really hurt me when he does. He’s not like my husband or my mom’s old man. They would both beat me hard--sometimes for no reason at all. Trust me, there’s a lot worse out there than Terry.”

“You’re a nurse Tami?”

“Almost was. I coulda been a great nurse too. I got great people skills. I was going over to the Charity School at Delgado Community College for a while. I was doing fine and making A’s the whole time.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing good. I married Julian to get out of my mom’s house, and found out there was worse than living with my mother--so I didn’t mind too much when he found hisself another girl and kicked my newt out. Then there was Hurricane Katrina and all that drama. Somewhere in the middle of all that I started taking too many drugs and too much alcohol, and I started doing some things you got to do to pay for ‘em. It was all happening around the same time, so it seems like one big, bad thing, and I stopped going to classes somewhere in there. You know, it’s the usual Katrina story—you’ve got yours too—you don’t need to hear mine.”

“I don’t have a Katrina story, I’m from Atlanta,” said Tony.

“Atlanta? Really? I’ve always wanted to go there and visit the Coca-Cola museum—I hear it’s nice and you can drink all you want of like a hundred different kinds of Cokes. But I’ve never been anywhere really. I’ve been to Houston a few times and got evacuated there, but it’s just the same as here only a lot bigger and with a lot more Mexicans. And Julian and I went to St. Louis once to pick up some stuff for a friend. We drove by the arch, and we passed through Memphis. I wanted to go to Graceland, but Julian said he didn’t have time and we had to get back. He kept saying he’d take me to Disney one day, but he never did,” Tami said.

“You’re a pretty girl and you seem pretty smart, Tami. Why do you let men beat you?”

"What are you, newting Dr. Phil? You have more hair than he does and you’re missing the moustache, but you’re as tubby as he is anyway,” she snapped. “I’ve seen that show on TV a thousand times--the one about how letting men mistreat you is a sign of low self-esteem. Let me tell you how it really works Mr. Tony. Life is what it is for people like me. When you’re trapped, you get along as best you can and make the least newty choices you can in a world that don’t have no good ones. You do what you got to to get by, so you either do things you aren't so proud of or you work at a bunch of dead end jobs that don’t pay hardly nothing. You got education and a real job and I bet you got a house, insurance, a good car, stocks and a bank account with money in it. People like me got none of that newt.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not trapped too—literally and figuratively,” Tony said.

“Poor baby! I bet you still wouldn’t want to trade places. I wouldn’t if I was you. You’ve been places, and nice places I bet. I’m not going anywhere you’d want to go. After a while you know it’s not going to get any better for you and you decide to either go along with the plan or you slit your wrists or you just stay wasted all the time. I’m a chickennewt newt and scared to die, so I’m not going to off myself unless I can’t go another day, and that could happen I guess. I already tried staying newtfaced all the time, but that just makes it hurt worse some ways and feels the same as suicide, only slower. So I guess I’ll play out the string a little while longer.”

“Tony, why are the boys going to kill you?” she asked, changing the subject to something less unpleasant for her.

Belief-o-matic--politics, religion and art

I'm going to keep it short and sweet today since it's getting late and I only just now shut down the word factory.

Another day of good stuff. Today's scene contains probably the best writing I've done so far, and I'm not finished with it. Tony is still strapped to his folding chair by red and green duct tape, but I don't think he'll be stuck in that shotgun house under the supervision of Yard Dog's old lady for very much longer. I created Tami Mercier Jones today and immediately fell in love with her. I gave her the cutest tattoo on her ankle which I pilfered directly from Google Images, and a personality straight out of New Orleans central casting. She's the most "real" character in the story so far, and her interactions with Tony have made him more real too.

I was leaving church after the service yesterday when I passed by our pastor, Dr. Jeff Lowman. Jeff looked even more official than usual yesterday as it was Communion Sunday, and he was decked out in his formal robe. He only pulls out the black robe on Sundays for these once-quarterly occasions. Usually he speaks from the pulpit dressed in a nice suit.

This Sunday he retold the story of Zaccheus, a particular favorite of mine. There's a great little children's song little ones love to sing in Sunday School along with the wonderful accompanying hand motions. It starts, "Zaccheus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he." If you've ever been to a Christian summer camp or Vacation Bible School, I probably just gave you a flashback to your childhood.

"I read your blog," Jeff said as we passed each other in the post service scrum. That gave me pause. There's nothing in the blog that I wouldn't want my mother to see--in fact, she's one of the discriminating faithful regularly inhabiting this virtual space.

But Project Y is a different matter. It's a story inhabited by some characters who aren't very nice, and they say and do things that I never would. I don't even utter mild curse words unless I succumb to some sort of social pressure to do so, and some of the people I've invented talk and behave worse than sailors on shore leave.

There's a small chance that at some point in the future my pastor and my mother are going to have the opportunity to see what's coming out of my head, and they may have some concerns. What are they going to think?

Oh well, I'll deal with that later.

It would be easier if I didn't belong to a conservative Christian church. You would be hard pressed to tell the difference between our Presbyterian church and a typical Southern Baptist congregation here in Suburbingham without attending for some time and knowing a fair amount about the subtle theological differences. Politically and attitudinally, there's no difference at all.

I have a friend, let's call him Mr. X (although he probably wouldn't mind my using his real name), who is on a lifelong spiritual journey. Raised in a Christian background, he has rejected the church and its doctrines and has spent decades trying to fashion his own belief and value system.

Recently he mentioned going to the website beliefnet.com and taking the belief-o-matic quiz as a part of his ongoing spiritual quest. This is a quiz similar to the ones the denizens of Facebook are very familiar with (which Jimmy Buffett song are you? Which Gilligan's Island character are you? Etc.) only this one asks you a series of multiple choice questions. You answer the questions and assign each a weighting of relative importance, and then it tells you what religion is the best match for you--atheist, Hindu, Catholic, whatever.

I've always felt like the radical left winger in the conservative Christian churches I've been a member of over the years, which probably strikes anyone who knows me as pretty funny. I may be the only member of my church who voted for Barack Obama in the last election, breaking a long string of Republican votes for me. If I wasn't the only Obama vote in the congregation, the other person who voted for him isn't speaking up either.

So I went to beliefnet and honestly answered the questions on the quiz to see if some bit of software code thought I belonged at another, more liberal church that might be more in keeping with some of the more unsavory elements of my creative process.

While taking the quiz, I was sure that some of my answers would surely put me in the camp of the more liberal end of the Christian spectrum.

Nope.

After submitting the answers, belief net informed me that there is no doubt about it. I am what I am--a conservative evangelical Christian.

I'll figure out how to deal with the guilt and some potentially awkward moments if and when the book falls into the hands of my pastor and my mother and the public at large.

Good dog!

Callie the Wonder Dog is gone and our hearts are broken. Teri and I have both lost our best friend today. Her time had come, and this morning we took her to our veterinarian Dr. Fuller to bring her pain to an end. We were both there with her at the last moment to see her off and everyone in the room cried at the loss of this special spirit--including Dr. Fuller.

I'd like to offer some eloquent and beautiful words to mark her passing, but I'm not thinking clearly right now, so I don't want to attempt it. Frankly I'm having a little trouble typing and my computer screen is kind of blurry. Maybe later.

I've uploaded a small gallery of some of my favorite pictures of Callie taken over the last few years--at college, at a picnic, at a ball game, and with friends of all ages. For the last 13 years she put herself in the middle of whatever was going on our lives and made literally hundreds and hundreds of friends along the way. Click here to see a few more pictures of this magnificent, loving and loyal friend.

I thought I'd be prepared for this moment, but I wasn't. No, not at all. This is a very difficult day.

Are you a writer?

"Are you a writer?" asked the young woman behind the counter at our tiny Suburbingham library. It was a fair question since the books being held for me included How I Write, Now Write! and Writing Fiction, the first of which was written by the prolific and very popular Janet Evanovich who cranks out her Stephanie Plum novels like McDonalds cranks out Big Macs and with about the same level of quality.

I felt like responding with "If I were a real writer, would I be going to Janet Evanovich for advice?" But instead I only mustered a weak, "Well, I'm trying."

Turns out that the young librarian is a writer herself and spends her free time working in the genre of young adult fantasy. We gave each other a brief pep talk and I was on my way.

It's kind of discouraging to realize how many of us think that we're writers and storytellers and how all but a tiny handful are deluded.

There's a project called National Novel Writing Month (you can Google it) that each November challenges anyone and everyone to write a 50,000 word novel over the course of that one month period. Everyone who completes the task is declared a winner. Last year over 119,000 people signed up and nearly 22,000 of them were winners. Gadzooks! If that is any representation of what I'm up against, the odds of success are mightly slim.

Back in fantasyland, where I beat the long odds and this writing thing is going to work out great for me, my production and spirits remain high. The workers have been humming right along in the dream factory and cranked out another couple of thousand widgets yesterday, some of them even worth keeping. The story is at one of those point where it's writing itself for the last few days, and I can't wait to get back to it today. This has already been my best week since I launched this rocket and it's not over yet. In that spirit, for the second day in a row, here's a sample of the rough draft of Project Y.

In this brief bit, our hero Tony has found himself in a pickle. As always, the language has been altered to protect the innocents.

The three men took turns strapping Tony to the chair using every inch of the two rolls of duct tape they had on hand. Since one roll was green and the other red, the process ended with Tony looking a little like a seated mummy decorated as a candy cane.

When the last bit of tape covered Tony’s mouth, the three men began discussing their plans for the coming rally as Klunk playfully and absentmindedly toyed with his captive by periodically touching his lit Camel cigarette to Tony’s face. The screams, muffled by the duct tape, got a laugh from the three every time.

“I want to talk to the brothers tonight at the business meeting,” said Klunk between puffs and pokes. “I have an idea for making this the best rally in history. Then, if the brothers approve, I want to talk to the other clubs when they get here.”

“I don’t know Klunk, said Crusher. “You’re not even a real member.”

“Yet,” interjected Klunk.

“Yet,” agreed Crusher. "But we’ve only let you hang around because you’re friends with my cousin Gary. I'll grant you that there is something different about you lately, and if you can get the other clubs to let the Diablos lead our recreation time, it would be good for us. Depends on what you have in mind.”

“Hey Dog, I see Sissy pulling up and dropping off your old lady,” Said Crusher after lifting a sheet now doubling as a window curtain. “It's time to go. Klunk, we’ll talk about what you have in mind when we get there.”

A woman entered the living room not looking at all surprised or even very interested in the sight of a man trussed up in red and green duct tape and she casually greeted the other three.

“One more thing,” said Klunk waiting by the door with Crusher as Yard Dog completed his instructions to the woman. “It’s time to change my handle. Klunk is just too, well, clunky. It sounds like I’m somebody’s bumbling kid brother. I want a better name.”

“Klunk was perfect, and it’s what we had in mind when we named you,” said Crusher. “But I see your point and I guess we can bring this up with the naming committee tonight. What did you have in mind?”

“Well I’ve got two ideas. I like Krunk. That’s only one letter different from Klunk and Krunk was one of the bad bodyguards in the original Transformers cartoon. I've seen every episode a hundred times.”

“Okay, not bad. What’s your other idea?”

“It’s my favorite. I really like ‘The Dark Lord’. It has a real ring to it.”

“Well let’s start with Krunk, and we’ll go from there,” Crusher said mildly as the three stepped outside to jump on their waiting choppers.

Supporting cast

The phone rang late last night at Chez Henley, but it was even later at the call's point of origin, a beach somewhere in South Florida.

In the background I could hear laughter and occasional loud exclamations, and I thought I could just barely hear waves lapping on shore. And was I really sensing a whiff of cigar smoke and the heady perfume of scotch coming over the line?

It was three old friends on the last night of their company sales meeting. They seemed a little tired but very energized, a common effect after several days attending these assemblages. They had one more full day of sessions ahead before heading to the airport to make their way home late the next afternoon; but, heedless of the inevitable pain to come in the morning, they were determined to pleasantly pass a bit of time together on the beach on a Florida summer's night.

In any other year I would have been with them on that beach but not on the Best Year Ever. My name came up in the course of conversation and someone pulled out a cell phone.

Mark in particular seemed philosophical. The sultry nights, the comfort of food and drink, the companionship of friends and the high energy levels tempered by the grueling pace or these meetings will all combine to make you introspective given half a chance--and his thoughts, unfiltered by alcohol, ran to future plans--short term, intermediate term and long term--both his and mine.

My friend Mark is one of the world's great planners and he always has dozens of carefully worked out ideas in various stages of incubation and execution. It's a real talent and one which very few people possess. Mark's careful planning combined with his dogged persistence in following through on his agenda have made him very successful over the years.

For example, an enthusiastic singer and guitarist, Mark has long been planning his public debut in Atlanta to be held later this month. To prepare for this event he has brought to bear all the thought and logistical skills employed by General Sherman in his Atlanta Campaign of 1864, none of which I'll detail here. I'm invited and can't wait to attend.

At one point in the conversation, the best planner I know made it clear he thought my Best Year Ever program was mostly pipe dream. He held little or no hope for its ultimate success and thought I would soon be on to other things. To that end he started the planning process on what those future things might be for me.

"Hey, you should check out my blog once in a while," I said just a little too defensively in an effort to head the conversation away from the ugly direction it was taking. "I'm really making progress, and today I passed the 40,000 word mark."

"I've seen your blog," he said dismissively. "And I'm not interested in reading about your artistic process. I'm only interested in the final product. You could write 850,000 words and it doesn't make any difference if they're all drivel (only Mark used a much more earthy word than 'drivel')."

I see his point, but I'm determined to see where this path takes me, even if the sharpest planner I know can't see the future in it.

To that end, how about a little slice of the 850,000 words of drivel within me?

Here's an excerpt from yesterday's production at the dream factory when a new character shows up. If I've done my job, he can introduce himself. This fellow will resurface down the line at the tale's climax.

As always, I've edited out the naughty words here and they appear as "skink".

Major Albert “I Get That A Lot” Pacino, commander of the New Orleans Police Department’s 8th District, hated his job and he was especially miserable at Mardi Gras. A 30 year veteran of the force and within two years of packing it in, he had just been rudely snatched from the relative tranquility of Uptown’s 2nd District. At the 2nd he let his able lieutenants and sergeants run the shop without much effort or energy expended on his part which left him free for his ongoing daydream of the the happy days to come at his fishing camp on Bayou Lafourche. But after the latest effort to shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic, he found himself buried in work as the head keeper of the zoo that was the 8th District.

The 8th Police District includes the French Quarter and Central Business District, and running it is a challenging and high profile assignment in the best of times--at Mardi Gras with a shorthanded police force, the job is simply impossible.

It takes a special kind of cop to work in the 8th District, and those men and women have an unenviable task. The officers of the 8th have to be friendly and helpful boy scouts to throngs of drunken tourists and let them run wild in the streets (within certain unfixed and ever moving limits) so as not to send too many to Central Lockup and hurt the city’s reputation as a carefree and somewhat naughty destination. The cops of the 8th must keep the predators and hoodlums at bay so those tourists can roam the Quarter leaving behind their money in boozy carefree abandon; they must pacify the permanent residents of the Quarter who are always campaigning vocally about whatever quixotic liberal cause bubbles to the surface on any given month; they must mollify the hotel, restaurant and shop owners who control the commercial interests of the city and have the ear of City Hall. Then there are the out-of-work "civil rights" lawyers fighting so their homeless clients can sleep in Jackson Square, urinate in the alleys, panhandle and generally degrade the tourist “experience”. Street performers, religious nuts, cabbies, celebrities, strippers, African-American activists, the men and women plying the world’s oldest profession, the Catholic Church, gay and lesbian groups, the Chamber of Commerce—these are just some of the dozens of often conflicting constituencies in this unique community.

City Hall wants the Quarter to be a safe and happy place for everyone to visit and spend money, and that job falls to the cops of the 8th District more than to anyone else. As the top cop in the district, Pacino was the person most responsible for keeping the peace and cash flowing through the bawdy and beautiful tourist factory that is the French Quarter. A testy third generation cop, Pacino had a low threshold for skinkstuff, and being commander of the 8th meant having it heaped upon you on a daily basis. This made Pacino a very poor match for the job he now held, and he knew it.

Since he began his career on the beat as a street cop and worked his way slowly through the ranks, he never lost touch with the life of a cop on patrol, and he was better equipped for keeping his men and women happy and keeping them away from the inevitable temptations any police officer faces, but especially any officer working the Quarter.

Pacino was transferred into his personal hell when the new police superintendent shuffled most of the administrators in the department to show who was in charge, like an alpha dog marking his territory. As a result, Al Pacino was bounced from his pleasant retirement in place in the 2nd to the constant skinkstorm of the 8th, and was counting the days until it was over.

Pacino’s head had been thumping for three straight days and no amount of Tylenol would help. He leaned back and rubbed his temples as his two most trusted aides continued their briefing.

“Homicide’s got nothing new on the tourist killed on Barracks Street the other night,” said Lieutenant Colleen Bodet. “And we keep getting calls for updates from the Lexington, Kentucky newspaper and a couple of TV stations from up there. The superintendent is freaking out that we can’t solve a tourist murder at Mardi Gras in a French Quarter that was crawling with cops.”

“This one is a mess,” she continued. “We’ve got zip for physical evidence and the victim’s hillbilly drinking buddies are maybe the worst cooperating witnesses I’ve ever seen. They were both a few feet away from the killer and they can’t agree on the physical characteristics or even the race of the guy. One of them thinks there was someone else with the killer, but the other isn’t sure.”

“The only thing we know for sure is that it started when the victim who was drunk and looking for a fight, started shouting insults to the perp, calling him skink, skinker--stuff like that. The victim and his friends didn’t know the guy. The perp responded with some choice remarks, the victim charged at him and the perp slit his throat with a knife or razor. The victim’s friends ran for the cops after the perp threatened them too. When we got to the scene a couple of minutes later, the victim was dead and the perp was gone.”

“Jesus. Nobody in the neighborhood saw anything?” Pacino asked.

“No Al, nobody. Some neighbors said they heard drunks shouting outside, but it was late at night at Mardi Gras, so it didn't seem unusual. They didn’t even bother look out their windows since everything quieted down after just a minute or so.”

“Okay, what else you got?”

“Just routine stuff. College kids busted some shop windows on St. Peter. Another group of college kids assaulted that crazy street preacher who comes in every year to condemn everyone to hell. The kids roughed him up a little and smashed up the big electronic cross he carries around--you know, the one that flashes “repent sinners” in red lights. A pudding wrestling contest at Pole Dancers got out of control and caused a huge mess on Bourbon Street. There was chocolate pudding everywhere for two blocks. An argument in the kitchen of the Red Bean Grill between a busboy and a line cook over the proper amount of cayenne in the ettouffe turned into a knife fight and both had to get stitched up. They’re both at Central Lockup cooling off and the restaurant owner is begging us to release them now because he’s so short staffed. And we had to arrest Klumpy the Clown on a decency charge. You don't even want to know what he was doing with his balloon animals. It crossed the line, even for Mardi Gras."

“Oh, I got an e-mail from our gang unit to all the districts that there could be some sort of motorcycle pow-wow in town starting tonight. They think we might have something like a couple hundred Hell’s Angels types around for the next few days. We don’t know much else, but you know if they do show up, they’ll be rolling through the Quarter at some point.”

“Great. That’s just what we need. Colleen, how about bouncing back to the gang unit and Bob over at the 6th and tell them they should keep an eye on that biker bar and drug emporium over on Terpsichore, and maybe someone should have a chat with that guy Emile, who owns the place. He might know something.”

“Okay," she responded doubtfully. "But everyone else has the same staffing problems we do for the next couple of days boss. Hell, all of the detectives in the 6th are in uniform this week and half of them are patrolling our district to support us. By the time they get to it, the bikers will be on their way home. But I’ll let them know.”

Novel territory

Like a strengthening weather system off the coast of Africa being upgraded from tropical depression to a minimal tropical storm as it meanders lazily toward eventual landfall, forecasters project that sometime today Project Y will also receive a category upgrade.

As soon as the next 907 words are tacked on, Project Y will more or less officially move from the status of novella to novel.

Last night after locking up the dream factory following another day of making too many defective widgets (although quality control did seem to be returning just a bit yesterday), I jumped on the internet to seek out guidance on how long Project Y should actually be. The ever present word count on the lower left corner of my computer screen tells me exactly how far I've come at any given moment, but I had no idea how far I needed to go to create a book of just the right length for potential publication.

After Googling phrases like "number of words in a typical novel" and "how many words in a novel", I found myself slipping through one of those rabbit holes the web searching is so good at creating. Dozens of links later, I was digesting a whole lot of often conflicting information.

Like anything to do with the arts, there are no hard and fast rules on the minimum length of a novel, but the number cited most often is 40,000 words, and that's where I'll be a little later today.

Yee haw, I almost got me a novel! It's not a very good novel at this point and it's certainly far from finished, much less polished, but it's an actual real live breathing novel nonetheless. How cool is that? As with everything else associated with Project Y, "I can fix it in editing" is the new mantra in our house and Teri frequently finishes my sentences for me with that phrase.

The next question is how far should Project Y extend beyond that minimum number. How many words are there in a "normal" and publishable work from a first time author? Again, the results of my rigorous internet research varied wildly, but somewhere between 80,000 and 120,000 words seemed to be most common range, so I figure I'll shoot for around 100,000 and see where the story takes me.

Among the most useful tools I added from my word count research came from a short video I found along the way. It's a very short song about word count and the novel Catch 22. Click here if you want to see it, but be forewarned that the little ditty will instantly worm its way into your brain and won't go away for a while.

After seeing the video, I immediately went to Amazon and looked up the "text stats" on way too many of my favorite books. Among my favorite "first novels," A Confederacy of Dunces was a surprisingly hefty 125,650 words while Carrie weighed in at a svelte 60,190.

So, the next time I refer to the work in progress, it will be Novel Y and no longer Project Y. Okay, it's time to open the dream factory and see if the workers are productive today or showed up drunk again.

Free commercial

Yesterday the words laid down for Project Y were still awful, but at least there were more of them. I slogged through another 1,940 words of atrocious prose like a runner in a pool of molasses. Let's see if there are any breakthroughs today.

At some point I need to create a timeline. The story originally was to take place over a couple of days, but I need more time for events to develop, so I'm going to have to back up everything I've written so far to take place earlier in the week. I haven't come close to finishing the first draft yet, and the second is becoming a bigger project with each passing day.

I had a couple of brainstorms over the weekend that should make Tony more like a person and less like a puppet and will finally give him some motivation. That's the good news. The bad news is that it gives me even more to fix on the second draft.

And now a word from our non-sponsor.

Since my writing has been wretched the last few days, and I don't have any new bits of Project Y I'd feel proud to share, it's time for a bit of product placement.

For 12 months ending in June I kept a blog about a trip to France Teri and I were planning to take with a group of friends. The blog was written for a total intended audience of just 11 people and was lucky to reach that many on a good day. The trip itself was wonderful and that blog is now a digital artifact somewhere out in cyberspace. Neither that blog nor this one are commercial enterprises, so I have never "monetized" either by allowing ads to appear in them.

In one post on the France blog I happened to mention a major clothing retailer as a place to acquire a good rain jacket. The company's promotional arm had a search engine that caught this mention of their name and promptly sent me a $10 gift card out of the blue along with a very nice e-mail. It was the first time I had been "paid" for my writing in over 20 years.

I'm not angling for the same sort of thing to happen here--this commercial is brought to you only by my passion for a delicious taste sensation and my desire to give you the same opportunity for pleasure in your own lives that Teri and I have only recently discovered.

To set this up, you need to know that Teri is absolutely crazy over the diet cherry limeade sold at the Sonic drive up restaurant chain, and every once in a while she will snap one up at their half price "happy hour" which runs from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. daily. They really are tasty, especially on a hot Alabama summer day, and with virtually no calories, they are a guilt-free treat.

Since the nearest Sonic is miles away from our house and since the Best Year Ever is one where we are fiercely determined to live within our means, Teri can't have one of these heavenly cups of nectar very often, even if they're half price.

But we have recently discovered a way to reproduce her favorite diet cherry limeade at home that's every bit as good and way cheaper.

Here's the recipe:

1. Take a big glass and add ice--crushed ice is preferable if you have a fridge with that functionality.
2. Fill the glass with Diet Cherry 7Up (or the regular sugary kind if you're not counting calories).
3. Add a squirt or two of reconstituted lime (not lemon) juice, such as ReaLime.
4. Garnish with a wedge of lime and/or a maraschino cherry if you're feeling particularly festive.
5. Sip on a hot day and say ahhhh!

Both Diet Cherry 7Up and ReaLime are products of the Dr. Pepper beverage empire, but I promise that's a coincidence and I'm not shilling for them. But if they somehow find this post and want to send a bottle or two of Diet Cherry 7Up our way, we'll happily take it.

Ho hum, another anniversary

Yet another wedding anniversary has rolled around. Today marks our 18th year of wedded bliss.

Ho hum.

Not much about an 18th anniversary of anything is really special. After all, the 18th anniversary means there have already been 17 and the implication is there will be plenty more of the same to follow. After 18 years of marriage, everyone expects the long running show will continue, even though it doesn't always work out that way. I've seen plenty of marriages older than ours crash and burn, but the odds of that happening do decrease the longer you're together and learn to fight through the bad stuff that inevitably comes along.

I looked it up, and the 18th is the "porcelain" anniversary, and one signifier of the excitement level of a marriage in its 18th year is that my very first thought of potential gifts ran to toilet bowls instead of salad bowls. Not exactly fireworks, eh?

The early anniversaries are all big ones. Any marriage that survives its infancy and those early struggles should be heartily celebrated. Most of us "grownups" have at least tried marriage with varying degrees of success, and we understand that sharing your life and fortune with another person is a big and ongoing adjustment. Can I get an amen? After 18 years, the adjustments continue, but they become ever smaller--more like fine tuning.

Then there are those "big" anniversaries, which include any number divisible by five. I know Teri pretty well by now, and I know the expectation is that I will get in touch with my inner romantic for each and every one of those those five spots.

When I was coming of age, the 18th birthday was a very big deal. Not only did it mark the age at which you could vote, it was also the drinking age in Georgia at the time. The less said about that, the better. The two biggest birthdays of my life were the 16th (driving) and 18th (official adulthood). The birthday coming up later this month is weighing on my mind more than any other since that momentous 18th, and I haven't quite decided if it is cause for celebration or dismay.

So while that 18th birthday was huge, the 18th anniversary, not so much. After all, what can you say about an 18th wedding anniversary other than it's just another in a long series? Big deal.

Teri and I like to joke, but we're not joking really, that we're both "particular", which is code for "a bit odd and increasingly inflexible." We also joke without joking, that we have to stay married to each other since nobody else would put up with us or our eccentricities, especially mine.

Teri and I have spent most of our wedding anniversaries apart, as August 10th coincides with the usual window for my former industry's big annual sales meetings. For some reason the national sales meeting was a bit later the year we got married, so that was poor planning on our part and meant our big days were generally marked by a series of hasty phone conversations and perfunctory declarations of our love for each other. If I wasn't living out The Best Year Ever, I would be in South Florida right now attending product sessions and regional meetings with the rest of my friends and former colleagues as I geared up for another sales year.

We officially marked our big day yesterday with a plate of cheap Mexican food at La Fiesta followed by a long nap to recover from the massive carbo load we had just taken on. The Best Year Ever budget is a tight one, and that was a major splurge for us. While it wasn't exactly champagne and candlelight, it satisfied--kind of like the marriage itself.

Last night we looked at our wedding pictures. We were over 30 when we married, but we looked like children in those photos, and thin children at that. Some of the smiling faces in those pictures are of people no longer with us and who we miss dearly. The small children in those shots are now young adults starting to find their own way in life.

Tempus fugit, my friends--time flies!

Today will be just another day, more or less, with no further celebrations planned. Ho hum.

A part of me recognizes that marriages should be treasured and celebrated, and not just on special days, but all the time. Life has a way of throwing curveballs at you, and it doesn't always work out the way you had expected. For two people to join forces and face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune together and for a long time is a truly amazing and beautiful thing.

Teri and I have willingly made a lot of sacrifices for each other over the years, but none is bigger than Teri's gift of allowing me to attempt The Best Year Ever. The trust and love that gift represents is astonishing but built over a partnership of 18 years and counting. And that really is worth rejoicing.

Happy Anniversary Teri!

I love you, and marrying you 18 years ago today was the best thing I've ever done!

Fighting through

I could only manage 850 words of utter dreck yesterday before shutting the computer down in complete disgust. Dreadful, absolutely dreadful. It's really frustrating knowing what's coming out of your brain and onto the page is odious offal and not being able to stop yourself.

I know I have a good story, but I'm having trouble getting my characters to get through it in an interesting way, and that's a real problem.

Also, I'm really beginning to get ticked off at Tony, the protagonist of the story. He's supposed to be a tragicomic figure--a burned out, middle-aged middle manager caught in a situation utterly foreign to him and completely out of his control. I want the reader to feel sorry for him, but also root for him to grow through his experiences. I want him be seen as a bright guy with a narrow worldview. None of this is coming through to my satisfaction.

Instead, my lead character is a puppet. He has a wooden personality and only moves when one of the other characters pulls his strings, dragging him from scene to scene. When I try to inject some independance or personality into the poor guy, it usually comes out in the form of a juvinile bit of sarcasm.

I keep telling myself that I can fix all of this in the second draft--just get on with the story. Keep it moving.

I'll take another stab at it today in hopes that my muse Nat'ly decides to make a visit.

Maybe the writing is less than stellar right now because of the overall mood of Chez Henley right now. Teri and I are more than a little sad about about the prognosis for Callie the Wonder Dog. Helplessly watching her as she gets a tiny bit more ill each day is hard for us to take. The best cure for the sadness is Callie herself. She still greedily begs for bits of whatever is on our plates, demands her evening walks, enthusiatically greets visitors and demands love. "I'm not gone yet," she reminds us dozens of times a day. And thanks to all of you for your kind thoughts and good wishes for Callie over the last few days. Teri and I both know we are irrationally attached to this animal, but we're comfortable with that.

Alabama had its first swine flu death after a man in his 50s died in a Birmingham hospital last week. "But he had underlying health conditions," one public health official was quick to add in an effort to reassure the public. I, for one, wasn't at all comforted by this information. I'll cross the half century mark later this month and I'm beginning to suspect that everyone in their 50s has underlying health conditions. If you don't know what I mean by this then you're under 50. Just wait.

The last years of my father's rich and full life were marked by a series of health crises brought on by a combination of age, genetics and living out his prime years in an era where "everyone" had a two pack a day habit. It was difficult for all of us to see this once vigorous and powerful man reduced to spending the bulk of his day on his living room chair watching the world pass by on the cable news channels as machinery and plastic tubing supplemented his oxygen supply.

I remember asking my father how he was feeling after one particularly bad health episode. "Getting old isn't for sissies," Dad said. I laughed at his comment--he didn't. My health is pretty good and is actually improving as I shed excess pounds in the Best Year Ever diet plan, but for the first time in my life, I'm beginning to understand what Dad meant. I'm starting to get the idea that the real joke is that his joke wasn't a joke at all.

That's enough gloom for one day. Let's move on to something completely different. A letter from our church came addressed to me this week. That's unusual because most church correspondence is addressed to both of us. Teri commented on how unusual that was. "Maybe they're reading the blog and I'm being hauled before the board of elders on a morals charge," I said lightly as I opened the envelope and unfolded the two page letter within it.

I read the first sentence and instantly dropped the letter on the kitchen counter as if it were on fire. A confused and contorted expression crossed my face as I began making strange distressed noises, and Teri looked over with some concern.

She asked what was wrong, and, still unable to form coherent words, I just nodded to the pieces of paper on the counter. Teri picked up the letter and got as far as I did before her expression and vocalizations matched mine as the cat fled the room fearing for his life.

Here's what the first sentence said. "Your name has been placed in nomination for the ordained office of deacon in the Presbyterian Church in America at Evangel."

Teri and I are both Christians and have always been active in our church. We're in the pews every Sunday we're in town and have taught Sunday school for years. But, other than serving on the church board of our New Orleans Methodist church for a time, I've never been a church officer, and certainly nothing like a deacon. This has been for a number of reasons, including that my heavy travel schedule hasn't allowed me to take on a responsibility like this in the past.

There's a likelihood that, even if I accept the nomination, I won't actually become a deacon as this is an elected position in our denomination and there will probably be more candidates than slots.

Teri and I both had the exact same initial thought--we've been members for several years and it's not a huge congregation, so they should know us pretty well by now--don't they know what they're getting into?

More on this as the Best Year Ever continues. In the meantime, pray for me. No, seriously.

I'm almost finished with The Palin Diaries, another selection sent to me as part of my friend Steve's occasional random book club. Every so often I'll open the mailbox and there will be an unexpected package from Steve containing a book he thinks I need to read.

This fat book is Michael Palin's diaries of the entire 1970s, the period when his comedy troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus was making its wildly popular cult comedy TV series and movies like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In addition, during this decade he had three children, watched his father decline and ultimately pass away and rubbed shoulders with nearly every celebrity of that era.

Throughout the book he dutifully and honestly recorded his thoughts and feelings in his diary. This is a brave book to publish since this is Palin's actual diary, and he never hides his thoughts or emotions about anyone or anything and he doesn't change the names to protect the innocent. It's a fascinating read, particularly when the extraordinary and the mundane intersect. In one paragraph he'll be having dinner with Mick Jagger or hosting Saturday Night Live and in the next he'll be attending his son's' Christmas pageant or ruminating on very local politics. A lot of his diary is filled with the concerns of any traveling businessman--road food, transportation issues, hotel incidents, etc., and it gets old hearing how he performed in that day's squash game, but it's an extraordinary work when taken in toto.

Even though he has had numerous other professional accomplishments, when I think of Michael Palin, my mental picture of him is as he was in the 70s in the Python era (and pictured here). I was surprised when I did the math somewhere deep into the book and realized that the incidents he recounts took place between 30 and 40 years ago and that Palin is now 66 years old. They seem like yesterday to me, and to him too, I'll bet.

I'm in my own world today--back tomorrow!

On borrowed time

Just got back from a visit to our vet Dr. Fuller and he confirmed what we already knew--Callie The Wonder Dog's cancer is back and growing very fast, and there's nothing we can do at this point other than making her comfortable and controlling her pain for the time she has left. Thankfully Callie has been in relatively little pain to this point, but we can see her level of discomfort increasing daily, which breaks our hearts.

A good Christian man, Dr. Fuller reassured me that God would let me know when it was the right moment to bring her in for the last time. He outlined the symptoms to look for if we were reluctant to heed that message and were tempted to delay before doing what will be the best thing for her. He estimates that her time will come somewhere in the next three to six weeks.

Wow.

If you've ever met Callie, you already love her--she doesn't give you a choice about that. She is a very special dog, and Teri and I have been blessed to have her in our lives for the last 13 years.

For the moment, she's still a happy girl, despite the growing sickness inside of her, and she was wagging her tail and making new friends at the vet's office today.

She can't handle a walk in the heat of the day right now, and she can't go too far without exhausting herself even in the cool of the evening. I'm hoping for one little cool snap like we had a few weeks ago, so I can take her on a final short walk through the woods in the light of day. I think we'd both like that.

I don't know what I'm missing

Right now the men and women who were until very recently my colleagues are becoming a little frantic as they make their final preparations for their summer Global Sales Meeting which cranks up this weekend. At least I think it's this weekend; I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong.

Until a couple of years ago, these events were called National Sales Meetings, but National became Global to avoid hurting the feelings of the attendees from Canada, Europe, Singapore and Australia. Speaking of Australia, HBYE had its first visitor from Down Under today. That's four continents down, three to go. Anyone know somebody at McMurdo Station in the Antarctic?

Every college textbook publisher holds their meetings in January and August, just prior to the start of a new academic term and a new selling season. The gatherings last anywhere from a four days to a week each and I've spent close to a year of my life attending them.

The ostensible purpose of the meetings is to introduce the sales force to new books and new revisions of old books. Increasingly the focus is also on new technological innovations like on-line textbooks and homework management systems, but a lot of other dynamics are always in play as these are the only times of the year that the entire editorial, marketing and sales groups are in the same place at the same time.

The events are held in really nice locations, usually a large resort hotel or a big-city luxury hotel. The upcoming meeting for my former employer will be at the Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach (pictured above). Other places I've attended National (ahem, Global) Sales Meetings include, Colorado Springs, New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Palm Springs, Tucson, Phoenix, Hilton Head, San Diego,and dots on the Florida coastline too numerous to mention. I've been to a handful of meetings held outside the US, including beautiful ski resorts in British Columbia and Quebec and one meeting in Bermuda following a very successful year for the company.

While at these meetings the sales reps are wined and dined, they become reacquainted with colleagues and old friends from all over, they rub shoulders with authors and other interesting people, they are entertained and are generally made to feel special. The reps often go to great restaurants, visit museums or are treated to shows. And drinks are free at the hospitality suite (or hostility suite as it's sometimes called) which is open past midnight, making it the perfect gathering spot at the end of the day for a nightcap or four.

Sounds pretty good doesn't it?

Before you sign up, you should know exactly what you're in for. The hotels are really nice, but you'll be visiting them in the nadir of their off seasons so the company can book them on the cheap. That means the Arizona desert or the South Florida beaches in August.

And that beautiful beach out your window? You won't be visiting it unless it's between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., because that's the only time you're not already occupied. Because the meetings are held right before classes start, the reps are busy putting out their customers' fires during any free moment they can steal, and there aren't many of those. The day often starts with a working breakfast followed by product sessions all day (often interrupted by a working lunch), and it ends only after the evening's "mandatory fun" du jour (author dinner, banquet, beach party, etc.) is over. There have been times at these meetings where I've realized that I'm in a cool place and haven't set foot outside the hotel in three days.

If you still want to sign up, you'd better be ready to be "on" the whole time and keep your emotions and feelings in check. This isn't always easy to do when you've been cooped up, liquored up, worked up and sleep deprived for the better part of a week and everyone around you has been as well.

Having said all that, I always enjoyed going to the big meetings, especially the August meeting. It's the time when a new year begins and everything starts afresh for the people in the college textbook business. I loved spending time with my old friends and making new ones.

The annual awards banquet, also known as "The Prom" is one of the highlights of the year. Everyone dresses to impress for the big night--nice suits and slinky dresses are the order of the day. There is a cocktail hour in the foyer of the hotel ballroom, after which the attendees are ushered inside to tables where they enjoy a meal and some lofty words from the podium. Several glasses of wine with dinner serve to make both the banquet food and the speeches more palatable. Then it's awards time as plaques, trophies and accolades flow like water. Following the obligatory standing ovation, the top rep of the year says a few words into the microphone and cries while the cameras flash. When the last award has been handed out and the last hand shaken, a deejay (or band in a good year) strikes up YMCA and the bar reopens for several more hours of drinking and dancing.

People can do some strange things when put into this kind of pressure cooker. The nocturnal comings and goings and other evidences of human frailty are discussed with avid interest by all at breakfast the morning after and then quickly forgotten--because if it wasn't you this time, it might be you the next. Besides, the next day will have enough fresh and delicious stories of its own to dissect in glorious detail.

Teri has told me from the start that I won't really begin "The Best Year Ever" until my former colleagues convene for an August meeting without me in attendance for the first time in a very long time. She's right about that. Summer is the slowest time in a profession with cycles that have become a part of me over the decades. For a long time now, my new year has begun the moment the plane touched down in Tampa or wherever that year's summer meeting was being held, and not having that will certainly have some effect on my internal gyroscope.

It will be a little strange knowing they're going on without me next week. If you're out there, have a great time next week. And save some of the best stories for me when you get home.