Resolved

Instead of easily broken and quickly forgotten resolutions, I try to identify priorities for the coming year. The emphasis shifts to sticking with a plan rather than accomplishing specific goals. For 2011 I'm reverting back to resolutions. Instead of the dozens I could and should make, I have one: to finish my book.

My four-day write-a-thon has ended. Despite devoting more than sixty hours to it, I didn't make it to the end of the story. I did, however make significant progress in that direction.

Reading what I'd written before my little hiatus was more enjoyable than expected. Previous re-reads always resulted in significant revisions with massive rewrites and completely reorganized sections. This time I corrected a few typos, made some minor edits and that was it.

After reading the draft, most people comment on my amazing memory. I've blogged about my memory before. Since then I've come to appreciate that creating the illusion of detailed memories is part of the art of writing.

I do recall some things in vivid detail. But mostly not. Things that happened often like Christmas, family reunion picnics and school dances, get all mixed up together in my mind and are difficult to tie to specific years. I piece something together from my memories that feels real to me and move on.

Most details about my early life come from stories I heard over and over and over again. Friends from every stage of my life have been very helpful and often trigger new memories by asking about something I had until that moment forgotten all about. Readers ask questions that either trigger a memory or cause me to research the answer.

The amount of research required, even for a story about me, is astounding. The Internet helps a lot. Google provides the answer to most my questions. Sometimes Wikipedia is sufficient. If not, digging a little deeper often turns up links with historical information that comes in handy.

Ancestry.com has been surprisingly useful. Information provided by relatives about the dates some people were born or died turned out to be wrong. Except for my Aunt Mary, I was easily able to locate birth and death records that cleared up any confusion.

To make whatever part I'm working on make sense, I often go back and insert paragraphs in chapters I thought were done. Finding the right spot to insert the detail can be time consuming, but adds richness and texture to the story. The reader has no idea half the paragraphs were inserted after the chapter was already "finished". Just another way the illusion is created and fostered.

Besides getting to the end of the story, there's still work to do. One of the chapters is too long, several chapters end rather abruptly and a few don't really add anything to the story. Knowing chapters have a way of changing after I thought they were done, I'll wait until I make it to the end to deal with these issues.

But now it's back to my old journals. They're very useful for turning up little tidbits of information and for the sequence of events. Mostly they bore the hell out of me. No wonder I'm...

The Crotchety Old Man

Matters of Style

I started working on the book again today. More precisely I started reading the manuscript from page one with a pencil in my hand. Re-reading helps me to catch a lot of wrong-word problems (like right instead of rite) and typos.

I'm home alone for the next few days and am really hoping to get to the end. Given my goal to finish I'm paying a lot more attention to sentence structure and punctuation. Thanks to early drills, lots of reinforcement throughout my school years and tons of practice, my writing tends to be grammatically correct.

That I continue to write the way I was taught back in high school sometimes causes problems. Different publications use different rules. Having written in multiple universes, there are a few areas that are particularly problematic.

Do you go the park with Wendy, John, and Mary? Or did you go with Wendy, John and Mary? In my opinion, the first version with the comma after John is technically more correct. Most editors, however, prefer the version without the comma. I have it both ways in my manuscript.

I often beg to differ with editors about the placement of punctuation in relation to quotation marks. With few exceptions, I place the punctuation after the quotation mark rather than before. She went to the store to buy a copy of "Lord of the Rings".

If the quotation was a complete sentence rather than a phrase, I'd include the punctuation inside the quotation marks. "She went to the store to buy a book." Most editors always want the punctuation inside the quotation marks.

If everyone did it my way the world would be a better place. That they don't is just another reason I remain...

The Crotchety Old Man

Things I Never Learned in Driver's Ed

I see a lot of things on the road they never taught me in driver's education classes. The curriculum has likely been updated several times since I took the course nearly 40 years ago. Here's what younguns appear to be learning today.

1) To get to the McDonald's across the street from the gas station you're at now, it's perfectly acceptable to zip straight across six lanes of traffic. Safer options are too time consuming. With gas prices as they are, take the most direct route at all times.

2) When attempting to turn left from a side street or parking lot onto a busy road, roll on out into the road a little bit. Oncoming traffic will have to stop so you can make the turn. Performing this maneuver as often as possible saves hours and hours of time you'd otherwise spend waiting to make turns.

3) Leave at least two car lengths between you and the car in front of you when you stop for traffic lights and stop signs. The extra space will keep you from getting trapped in the event the vehicle in front of you breaks down. You'll also have more time to react should the person in front of you throw their vehicle into reverse for no apparent reason.

4) Instead of just nosing out when making a left turn onto a busy street in heavy traffic, pull all the way out. It's perfectly acceptable to block all the lanes between you and the lane you desire while you wait for an opening. Nobody minds. Those horns you hear are applause.

5) It's perfectly acceptable to wait to make a hopeless left turn out of a parking lot onto a busy road in 5:00 traffic from the only exit. Turning right makes no sense if that's not where you want to go. Patience is a virtue--just keep waiting.

6) You can change your mind about where you want to go. The fact you're in the right lane should never prevent you from hooking left across five lanes of traffic to hit Krispy Kreme while the red light is on. Anyone who's had a hot one will understand.

7) Turn signals are optional and nearly obsolete. Unless you're eating or putting on make-up, everyone knows you need one hand for the steering wheel and one for your cell phone. Besides, it's really nobody's business where I'm going.

8) On a traffic light, green means go and yellow means floor it. Red means stop, unless of course you've been waiting forever and should have had a turn a long time ago. Blinking lights of any color mean every man for himself.

9) At four-way stops, whoever has the biggest cahones goes first. If in doubt, it's safe to assume it's not you. Wait until you grow a set to move forward.

10) You can do whatever you want in a parking lot. Directional arrows on the pavement are just decorations. Unless you can pull through, always back into your parking space.

These are just a few of the tricks I've learned. Now I'm ready to offer offensive driving lessons. If you're interested, contact...

The Crotchety Old Man

Merry Christmas!

Strange Gifts

Yesterday I went through the drive-thru at Zaxby's for my regular grilled house salad with honey mustard dressing (two packs) and iced tea, half sweet and half unsweet. My waist would prefer unsweet with a splash of sweet but I figure that's asking a bit much. A wise man avoids pissing off the folks who feed him.

I pulled out my wallet and proceeded to the window. The friendly drive-thru guy handed me my food and told me to keep my money. All this week lunch is free for regulars. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Thanks!

A team of medical professionals keeps the Crotchety Old Man on this side of the grass. In a concurrence of appointments that happens even less often than this weeks' lunar eclipse, I had to see all but my proctologist this month. Talk about a pain in the ass.

First I saw the dermatologist. Poison ivy is one of the few things that doesn't irritate my skin. She refilled my prescriptions and wrote a new one for a foot cream that dissolves callouses. Two weeks later my feet feel like I just came from a pedicure. Thanks!

The next appointment was with my rotund regular doctor. I want to fire him but am having trouble finding a replacement I haven't already fired. The ice cold blood in my heartless body shrinks my veins and makes me hard to stick. I was thrilled the technician got the blood for lab work on the first stick. The results were good, too. Yay!

A dental crown popped off over the weekend. The dentist squeezed me in Monday afternoon to put it back on. His assistant talking about having bought gift cards at Kroger for the gas discount reminded me I had purchased enough for the discount and needed gas. My crown went back in without any problems and he didn't charge me for a visit. Thanks!

On the way home I stopped for gas. My Kroger purchases resulted in 40 cents off a gallon. Woo hoo! Driving over to the next county for gas only saves me 20 cents a gallon, so I was thrilled. Thanks!

Today I saw the retina specialist. I was hoping not to need another eye injection. I had to have one, but that my vision has improved significantly since my first appointment a few months ago made it easier to take. Vision is a great gift. Thanks!

I've got a reputation to uphold. All these strange gifts take some of the crotchety out of my sails. This time of year it's not easy being...

The Crotchety Old Man

Ring Cellphones Ring

When I was younger most my holiday shopping took place in the week before Christmas. Last minute shopping reduced the chances I'd spill the beans before the big day, but only so much. Keeping secrets has never been my forte.

In those days everyone on my gift list lived in Lexington. Now they're spread out across several states. Waiting until the last minute is no longer an option.

Except for a few items, I'm pretty sure I finished my shopping last week. To spare myself a day of wrapping hell, I've been wrapping as I go. The inability to remember what I bought forced me out into the last-minute frenzy.

I can go from zero to crotchety in a heartbeat. Any other time of the year, the traffic, crowded aisles, long check-out lines and absence of anything even vaguely resembling service would push all my buttons. Not this time of year. The Christmas spirit takes over and I'm the very picture of patience and goodwill.

Don't believe me? I don't blame you. So here's proof:

The slutty girl on the cellphone didn't bother me a bit. Her boyfriend REALLY screwed up this time. Hooking up with strangers is one thing, but sleeping with her room-mate was just trashy. I'd say it was almost as trashy as talking about it on your cellphone in the middle of a busy Target.

The girl that nearly ran me over in the Kroger parking lot didn't piss me off either. Yeah, I noticed she was talking on her cellphone and drinking a coke as she drove. I picked up my prescription and saw her trying to select a home pregnancy test. Merry Christmas honey.

I didn't bite the head off the old lady with too much make-up and a lop-sided wig, either. She blocked the aisle as she dug through a gianormous purse to find her ringing cellphone. After she finally found it, she reported on her gift selections for a seemingly endless stream of progeny and was totally oblivious to the gridlock she had created.

Without my glasses, I see better with a little distance. Women on cellphones came and stood between me and the display I was scoping out not less than half a dozen times. They didn't even acknowledge me. I didn't bitch-slap a single one.

I doubt I'll get a thank you note. I don't care. If that's not the Christmas spirit, then I'm not...

The Crotchety Old Man

Top Ten for 2010

Having spent much of the past week working on annual reports, I'm in a reflective mode. Year-end wrap-ups are in. Here are the 2010 top ten for me.

1) Last year we decided to spend the money redecorating instead of buying each other Christmas presents. Hated it. My disappointment with the holiday did, however, spur us to paint four rooms and resulted in a lot of presents under the tree this year.

2) I spent $85 for a watch battery. It's a long story. You can read about it here.

3) I started enforcing some boundaries. After finding out more than I wanted to know about some coworkers, I spent a weekend un-friending about 200 Facebook friends. Most of them know each other, which likely explains why only one or two have since sent friend requests.

4) Writing posts about my salad days was a blast. One post turned into two, and in no time I had written more than 30 (see Trauma Car Tales, the Prequel and the Elite Fleet). Since then I've been writing a book--something I never thought I could do.

5) My years-long craving for a supreme pizza from Sir Pizza was satisfied with an even better meat-lover's pizza during a whirlwind trip to Lexington. Reconnecting with friends I didn't know I had or hadn't seen for years was the highlight of the summer. For better and worse, people really don't change.

6) A year ago I didn't know a thing about my great grandparents. Since then I've spent countless hours clicking leaves to research my family tree. The records I'm examining now date back to the 12th and 13th centuries. Interesting stuff.

7) I bought some cool stuff. The rechargeable blower and trimmer/edger (two devices) are the greatest power tools I've ever owned. I also upgraded to a smartphone. Technology can be your friend.

8) The universe withstood my visit to church. It wasn't the right church for me, which I of course knew before going. Don't take it personally but I can promise your church is not the one for me either.

9) After a decades-long relationship, my news magazine dumped me. More honestly it's going out of print and will only be available online. Sorry, I'm not taking my laptop to the bathroom. The smartphone, well, that's a different story.

10) Even without Farmville, Cityville, Mafia Wars and the rest, I'm totally addicted to Facebook. Being in touch with people from every era of my life on a near daily basis is great. Thanks for being my constant companions.

I also went another year without punching anyone for saying Facebook wastes too much time. But don't push me. It's not nice to mess with...

The Crotchety Old Man