Posts by Rob

Harlan, Judy and Vincent

Aug20
2008 Rob Written by Rob

This is turning into a good week around here. Kristi’s classes are starting to settle into routine, I’m feeling more creative and productive than I have in a long time, and the weather’s finally improved: after a week of 108 degrees, we’re back to the sleeping in the mid-sixties at night. So we’re both much better rested and ready to work.

Last few days or so, I’ve been feeling an inner shift – sort of a refocusing on priorities. Certain long term distractions are out of the picture now, leaving me free to really hunker down and get on with the business of creative production. It’s a good feeling. Right now I have on my desk some client work, a magazine article and a gradually developing short story, along with a novel outline that I continue to not be happy with. Now that summer is coming to an end, we’re both looking forward to a happy fall.

So, lately I’ve been punching up Harlan Ellison interviews on YouTube. Harlan’s one of my favorite writers, but aside that, he gives great interview. He’s opinionated, strident, and often angry. No one does the flying rant of righteous outrage the way Harlan does: once he gets rolling, you don’t want to be the guy he’s rolling at. I’ve often found writerly inspiration in not only his works, but in his fearless way of attack-dogging where other writers are content merely to document and record.

Anyway, I found this video of Harlan and just laughed. (Warning: Strong language.)

So last night I told Kristi about it. “I found this great Harlan Ellison rant, babe. He goes off on the morons who appear on Judge Judy, funny as hell. Then he says he only watches two TV shows, and one of them is Judge Judy.”

“Ha! What’s the other one?”

“Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Says Vincent D’Onofrio is the modern Sherlock Holmes.”

Kristi grinned wide.

“Mr. Ellison sounds like an intelligent and perceptive man of taste. You would do well to take notes.”

Hey, hey, hey. I tease you about your Vincent TV crush, I tell her, but I don’t have any real issue with Vincent D’Onofrio; he’s a decent actor. I just can’t stomach the awful writing on L&O, and you can thank Em for that: you know that the only TV police procedural drama I watch is The Closer. Which happens to be rolling through a really strong fourth season, by the way.

And while Law and Order certainly isn’t my first choice for TV entertainment, it still beats CSI:Miami by a thousand miles. I can’t even enjoy that show on the level of twisted comedic parody.

Posted in Everyday Life

A Good Morning

Aug18
2008 Rob Written by Rob

Last week was rough around here. Kristi went back into the classroom, to be greeted by an overpacked crowd of 170 students. I had some client and business issues that weren’t particularly pleasant. We also had an assortment of side dramas, some minor and others not so minor, that just seemed to sap our energy by the day. It was a week of stress, misunderstandings, exhaustion, irritability and 108 degree days.

Friday night, we both needed some us time, unplugged. So we went out and had a nice romantic Greek dinner over at Pappapavlos. Then on Saturday, we went book shopping, coming back in time help Kristi’s father put up the new wraparound kitchen shelves he made for us recently; they’re beautiful, and suddenly we have a lot more desperately needed storage space in the kitchen. Other than that, we mainly spent the weekend hanging out, enjoying some quiet time together and trying to reconnect after a very tough and long week.

I’m very lucky to have a loving wife who has the perceptiveness and patience to say, okay, it’s time to take a break.

Getting back to life this morning, things are so much better than on Friday. For one, the temperature finally broke, giving us an almost cold night that let us both sleep like the dead. We’re both having a good day, Kristi in her classroom and me sitting here at home getting some writing done. The coffee’s strong this morning. I’m actually feeling alert and creative for a change, ready to tackle the half dozen writing projects languishing on my desk (including new entries here and on Less Urban, my other blog).

You know, some days I wonder why I didn’t just become a plumber. You have a bad week as a plumber, you can still go to work and tighten pipe and put in your hours. As a writer, the only bad-day options you really have are to either write out the mood, whine and complain, or go play video games. Or some combination of all three.

On a related note, I’m loving Resistance: Fall of Man. 🙂

Note to the gang in Florida. We’ve been watching Tropical Storm Fay from here, and we’re hoping and praying that she leaves you all relatively unscathed. I know she’s a little girl – projected to hit Tampa as a Cat 1, and to downgrade well back into Tropical Storm territory before reaching Orlando – but 60mph winds can still pack a punch. Take care of yourselves.

Posted in Everyday Life, Romance

National Night Out

Aug06
2008 Rob Written by Rob

Here’s something else I’d never heard of – or, at least, never heard of anyone actually doing – when I lived in Orlando: National Night Out.

I come from Orlando, Florida, a city dramatically different from Modesto or anywhere else so far I’ve visited in California. Orlando’s always been a city of crime, transients and temporary living, and over the last ten years has gotten so much worse. Guns. Drugs. Gangs. A ridiculous number of rapes, murders and other violent crimes. People disappear with disturbing regularity. There are home invasions. Random violence. At least the serial killers tend to stick to the Daytona area.

You may have seen the ongoing media circus about Casey and Caylee Anthony. Orlando. What you’re not hearing is that this kind of stuff happens there every day. CQPress ranked Orlando as the 11th most dangerous city in the United States in 2007. Happiest place on Earth!

A huge part of the problem there is that very few people have any vested interest in where they live. It’s a fast food, Big Gulp, apartment rental, day labor town. People move there, stay for a few years, leave again. It’s an anonymous, faceless place of strangers. And so, when crime rolls into your neighborhood in Orlando, you mainly keep to yourself and just hope it stays out of your yard – which, with a little luck, it will long enough to let you move to one of the gated and walled enclaves of Lake Mary or Maitland.

I love living now where people actually know their neighbors. Where neighborhoods actually band together and fight back. Where people actually give a royal damn about where they live and whether it’ll be a decent place to live ten years from now – rather than just whether or not the local rat-themed amusement park is happy and profitable.

We went out for National Night Out last night, had a wonderful time hanging out with our neighbors. Ate food, joked. Compared notes and gossiped. The cops and fire department both came out to say hello and to let the kids play with the sirens.

National Night Out is a great idea. If more communities did it, we’d have less places like today’s Orlando.

Posted in Current Events, Everyday Life

Gatorade and Chicken Broth

Jul31
2008 Rob Written by Rob

Just wanted to let everyone know that I’m alive and getting better.

This thing came on me Tuesday morning, with what felt like a bad head cold. That afternoon, the stomach cramps started – intense stabbing spasms just below my ribcage, a new one every few minutes, getting worse as the day went on. We both spent the evening wondering if I’d end up in the hospital before the week was out. I didn’t have a fever or any other secondary symptoms of a serious problem, just the cramps, or else we would have been in the ER.

Yesterday wasn’t as bad. I still couldn’t eat anything without getting pounded with more cramps, but the cramps I had were shorter, less intense and farther in between. By early yesterday afternoon we were hoping I’d be good enough to still make it to my own birthday party over at the Jepsons’ that night, but when 4pm rolled around and I still couldn’t sit up for 15 minutes without doubling over again, we decided I needed to stay in bed.

Last night I started taking in Gatorade and chicken broth, more or less my first meal in 48 hours. No cramping. Then I had a good nights sleep and I’m on Gatorade this morning. My stomach still feels off, like it wants to cramp but hasn’t gotten around to it yet; I’m hoping to start graduating back to solid foods later today. But at least I’m up and more or less working again.. right now the general consensus is that I got some sort of stomach bug.

Thanks to everyone who passed along their concerns, worries, and most of all, good advice. And especially thanks to the wonderful woman I married, who hovered over me for the last few days to make sure I got back on the mend and didn’t do anything stupid. I love you, babe.

Posted in Everyday Life
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