If It Didn't Suck....

Thank you for posting on my blog, but as of the last entry, there are many spam commenting, where you are advertising your own blog, which is all right, but you have got to stop putting so much text in the posting if it does not relate to my blog, or my entry. I appreciate the fact you feel that placing an ad for your site will be seen by people looking at my blog but please, none of the comments even relate.

While reading, as I sprawled out on my couch, I thought about a curious fact about my past. My mother was always told, by her mother, my grandmother, that she should have never been born. Back in 1940, my Grandmother when to get her tubes tied. I don't know how common the procedure was back then, but she had had one miscarriage and one still birth, and well, still wanted to have sex, but gave up on having a second child. (My aunt was her first) So she had the procedure done. I do not know if it was done correctly, nor do I know what the percentage rate was back then in regards to successful avoidance of unwanted pregnancies. I do know that by the end of that year she had gotten pregnant again, and in September of the following year, my mother was born.

So she was unwanted, and in fact, great pains were taken so there wouldn't be no more children but she was born anyway. She too had a still born child, my brother, who would have been older than me by ten years, with her first husband with whom she later had an annulment with.
My father, her second of three husbands, was supposedly practicing safe sex, but he was drunk much of the time, and an accident happened and I was born.

I wasn't the surprise of the year as my mother was, but I too was a mistake, so here I am a mistake, or someone who should never have been born. I wonder how many others there are like me who have similar backgrounds. I often wonder if this is why things are the way for me, am I the butt of a cosmic joke, because folks, if it didn't suck...

I drove into the city and around the city to get to visit with my friend and his parents. He lives away and was home to visit, and I was going to be treated to a home cooked meal. Not that my wife doesn't cook, but Italian food made by an Italian mother, well, that is something I could not resist. It was worth the driving around the city on a weekend for no if's and's or but's.

When they lived in Brooklyn I had seen them more often, and now that they lived in the city, and I in PA, the last time I had seen them was at my wedding 2 years ago. (though at times it feels like 20 years) They have been married for 38 years, and I wonder how they do it, but enough about me.

while I was there, for those few hours I realized how lucky my friend is to have parents like his. I wondered how I would have turned out if I had been as lucky as him to be raised in such a loving and supportive and respectful environment. I wonder not only would I be a happier, more well adjusted person, but I wonder if I would have been a better person.

This is a shot of me on my Senior trip back in the day, almost twenty years ago. Well only 18 but damn it sure is scary.

I guess it is unfair for those who do not know me as to guess who I am, after all my blog pic is one handsome devil, now what did he grow into, damn, I was a cute baby though. LoL

After reading over thirty novels over the summer thus far, yeah I know us overpaid teachers have too much time on our hands, I have come to a realization about my novel that I wrote a few years ago. I sucks.

Friends like it, my mother, while she was alive read it and liked it. (no not because she ws my mother she was the most hyper critical person I have ever known) So it had to be good right? Or so I thought.

First of all it is too short, at just over 62 thousand words it is about 20 thousand shy of the average and well, it is a bit corny on the whole.

I had sent it out before and been rejected, this summer I was going to make a concerted effort to sent it out to a lot of places and well it was rejected again. Somewhere between the 25th novel and the thirtieth I had an epiphany. My novel wasn't good. While there were no plot holes, there wasn't enough characterization, or description and the dramatic construct of the birth of the serial character was contrived at best.

I decided I needed to rewrite it. That realization did not come without some concerns. Could it be fixed, should I spend even more time on it? I decided the only thing to do was try.

After all writing is rewriting, and one famous writer once said you never truly finish a piece of writing, you merely abandon it and hope it makes its way in the world. My piece was but a foundling and it needed to be nurtured some more before I set it loose.

Here are just two shots of people who do comment on my blog. One of them is, well I will let them comment on who they are.

Our hotel was on Bourbon, the Inn on Bourbon to be exact, and when some friends like Maurice would tell me that Bourbon was where the action was well I just filed it away and forgot about, but he was right.

First of all, drinking is allowed in all areas of the public, open containers, cans, huge plastic alien tubes filled with 32 ounces of Hurricane power, all right on the sidewalks. Aside from that, each night the street is closed off to traffic so all the visitors and natives of NO walk through the sidewalks and streets drinking and having a good time. One would liken the scene to that of a feast or street festival that may occur once a year, here it is every night.

Another interesting fact, not so much that I could fully enjoy it with my wife in tow was that the street scene was reminicint of a scene out of those spring break videos that they hawk on the interent all the time. The balconies were crowded with people waving beads, and the crowd eager to get their hands on the dime store baubles would should and cheer and hope to get some. Then the crowd on the balconies would yell things to the effect of, "Show ups your tits" and surprisingly, they were obliged and the beads would rain down.....

Well, once again it is that time of year again, me and the little woman packed our bags and headed out on vacation. This time it was to the little berg of New Orleans, mostly the French Quarter. The airport, as usual, was a drag, though it was easier and faster than NEw York. We put the jeep in long term parking because one way with car service to the airport was 50 bucks. I thought NY prices were bad.

This was the second flight the wife and I were on together, the first was on our honeymoon to Miami. I thought the heat there was bad, boy was I mistaken, the heat and the humidity there in New Orleans made a good argument for the existence of spontaneous combustion. I probably sweat off a couple of pounds walking around the entire quarter, but it was worth it.

New Orleans was beautiful and the architecture and history was amazing. Not to mention the wonders of Bourbon Street......