"One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in." — Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Chapter XVII

I've always been a fan of Thoreau. Until recently, I owned five or six copies of Walden, including a fine hardcover version this terrific guy gave me, but my wife made me donate half of them. My interest in Thoreau began in high school, when every junior in America is required to read "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For," and while my classmates were rendered comatose by the 19th century prose, I was entranced. As a kid who had grown up in the countryside (first Maine, then rural New York), I spent ALL of my time in the woods. Finally I was reading about a guy who thoroughly embraced Nature, just like I did, and I was determined to learn more.

My interest in Thoreau was part of the reason why I decided to study philosophy and religion in college. The ideas of spirituality and harmony with nature that Thoreau touches upon in Walden excited my eager young mind. While still in school I started writing a play about him, as well as a biographical sketch for a humor book that was never published.

After college I was a reporter for my hometown newspaper, until one particularly vibrant autumn, when I once again felt the stirrings of Thoreau. I decided to quit my job so I could spend the entire season walking in the woods around Millbrook, learning the names of all the trees.

Sixteen years later, I'm still enamored of Thoreau, and I still enjoy walking in nature as much as I always did. Yesterday was the first non-winter day of the year, so I took a long walk to see what I could see. What I saw was the cusp of spring.

It was cold when I started out, and I was dressed in layers: T-shirt, Oxford shirt, heavy wool sweater and wool topcoat. A mile into my walk, the sun appeared at my back (to the southwest) and heated up my shoulders. I had to remove the coat and carry it, then remove the sweater, put the coat back on and carry the sweater.

The roads were dry—even the dirt ones I walked on—but the shoulder was a squishy mixture of mud and last fall's leaves, which actually made walking easier on the feet.

A waterfall in Glacier National Park.

I passed two waterfalls on my way out of the village, and both gushed as loudly as the ones I saw while hiking through Glacier National Park in March six years ago. Heavy, jagged icicles clung to the shaded corners of the falls, and I wondered how long they would last. The last signs of winter. Would they make it to April?

The snow has all melted, a fact that the squirrels were happy about. I observed a pair of them chasing each other around a fat oak, scolding me and each other, then racing into a knothole. Pheasants, one of the stupidest birds on the planet, strutted in the road at a nasty curve. As I approached, they flapped away and hid in the brush.

There is an alive stillness in the early spring. While crossing a meadow between two roads, I stopped, closed my eyes and listened. In winter you hear nothing but the wind or far-away traffic. But as the air begins to warm, you hear the first signs of life. If you listen really closely, you can almost make out the ground itself stretching, the grass readying itself for another growth spurt. This silence isn't clouded by the buzz of insects, which will be the case in another few weeks. It's a brief interval between the absolute nothingness of winter and the full-blown glory of spring.

I passed an old-timer who was pouring buckets of sap into a steaming vat beneath the trees, and I was carried back 25 years to when I helped my great-uncle Holland make maple syrup. The old man saw me staring and we shared a nod. It takes a hell of a lot of sap to make just a quart of syrup. I remember that well. I walked on.

Some Vermont kid back in my great-uncle's time making syrup.

The thoroughbreds in the fields were still wearing their horse blankets, and when I approached a fence, a couple of the bolder ones walked over, hoping I had a snack for them. I didn't. I patted their nuzzles and kept walking.

In the corner of a field, I spied a collection of beehives. Foolishly, I went over, squatted beside them and listened for any buzzing. It was faint, but it was there. Soon the bees would be zipping in and out of there all day long.

After a couple of hours, I reached one of my favorite spots along a nearby creek. It's a fallen log next to a bridge, where I like to sit down and eat my lunch. I had a corned beef and swiss sandwich, eating very little of the bread, as I looked out at the bare branches and the pristine sky. Spring was coming. It would be here, full-blown, within a couple of weeks. Breathing deeply of the clean, quiet air, I was glad I'd set out on this little walk, and gladder still for leaving the city behind and getting back to my Thoreauvian roots.

When I went into Staples the other day to try to replace my tattered doggie mousepad, if I weren't in the shape I'm in, I would have had a heart attack.

If I wanted a mousepad without the STAPLES logo burned into it (which I did), it would cost me a minimum of $9.98, plus tax. I left empty handed.

A lot of R&D has gone into mousepads, my friends,
which explains why they're so expensive.

The puppy on my current mousepad is looking more forlorn than usual. Maybe I don't even need the thing. Perhaps the pup would prefer life in a landfill to having a red laser light burning his ass all the time.

However, none of this explains why mousepads are so friggen expensive. I asked the kid at the register about it. As all young clerks are, he was extremely helpful.

"I dunno," he said. "Maybe it's the plastic?"

"Yeah, that must be it," I said. "'Cause nothing's made out of plastic."

"Maybe it's 'cause they know they got you," he said. "Like highway rest stops, why the gas costs so much."

"You're getting warmer," I said. "Do me a favor, will you?"

"What?"

He looked at me like I'd just asked him to compete in the Iditarod.

"Have your manager put in a formal complaint."

"We've got a form," he said. "Can you fill it out?"

"Yes, I can," I said. "But I won't. Goodbye."

And so I left, sans mousepad, and at this very moment the pup on my disintegrating one is staring back at me.

"You cheap bastard," he says. "Just buy a new one and let me rest. I'm tired."

A hungry ass stands between two piles of hay, both equally large and equally fresh. Because it has no rational reason to choose one over the other, it chooses neither, and as a result starves to death.

Although I consider myself a decisive person, I've thought about this problem a lot over the years and quite often find myself in similar situations. This morning, at the grocery store checkout, both registers were available, and both of the cashiers are equally pleasant, competent people, so I was frozen between the two for a few seconds. At the diner, I've faced with this problem when both of my preferred seats on either side of the diner were open, and the two waitresses were equally attractive. What usually happens is that I catch myself in an endless loop, like the old BASIC routine of

10 PRINT "I can't decide!"

20 GOTO 10

I mention this because lately I've been stuck on what I should be writing about. I have several equally interesting projects to choose from, all at the same point in their development, and for this reason I find myself, like the stupid ass, unable to choose any of them.

The cubbies where my piles of hay are stored.

Yet I won't be stuck like this forever. Ultimately I'll sense myself leaning towards one project more than another, and the farther I lean, the closer I'll be to that project and the more sense it will make to go with that one instead of the other.

While many philosophers have critiqued the problem of Buridan's Ass better than I ever could, the issue I've always had with it is that it fails to take into account the concept of entropy. Just about any system, if left alone for a while, will tend toward disorder, and the more disorderly a system becomes, the greater likelihood there is for imbalances—one option becoming more appealing than another.

In the meantime, I'll let myself be stuck, just like that ass.

Well, I promised you an update, and here it is.

Al, in complete shock after reading my latest novel.

For dramatic purposes, it would be more interesting to be able to report that Al had ripped the book to shreds or fawned over every word, but the truth is he did an excellent job as a reader. Not only did he catch missing articles and verbs (victims of the latest round of edits), he also was very clear about places in the book where he got confused.

I always believed my father would have been a great detective. In 25 years as a school principal, he became very good at piecing together "crimes" perpetrated by students; he is a master at seeing the result and reasoning back to the causes. I don't have this ability. I can weave ideas together, spin a yarn, but I can't figure these things out logically to save my life.

Al especially helped me regarding beefing up certain suspects' motives. He didn't buy into a couple of the suspects' reasons for potentially committing the crime, and in saying so, he will be helping me to fix it.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the Big Al Experiment. Contrary to what you might think, reading and going over the novel somehow brought us closer. I will definitely employ Al again as a reader. Even though, as a lefty, he can't write for shit.

Looks like I'm going to be crossing the street a lot to decipher his comments.

While having coffee at the Millbrook diner yesterday morning, an old-timer named Bill and I got talking about politics. Usually I refrain from these discussions, but I've learned that just about everyone agrees our current President is an idiot, so you can bash him in public and no one seems to mind.

Teenagers in this country have to take written and road tests to get their driver's licenses because the machines they're operating are dangerous. But for the the biggest, baddest machine of all—the United States government—there are no tests at all.

As our current situation proves, you can be a complete moron and still get to take out grandad's hot-rod for a spin. You can go off-road with it, do donuts and drive-bys, and you don't even have to put gas in it before you bring it back, because fuck it—it's the next guy's problem.

Which led me to the idea of Presidential Driver's Licenses. What if, to be the Leader of the Free World, you actually had to know stuff? Like, hmm...maybe U.S. history?

Ten years ago, I taught American Studies (history and English) at Freeport High School, in Freeport, Maine. The school's playing fields abutted the L.L. Bean parking lot, and yes, I would go over there during lunch sometimes to salivate over stuff I couldn't afford at the time.

I mention my experience teaching high school students because recently I dug up the multiple-choice portion of the final exam I gave my juniors in 1997, and I was shocked by how insanely difficult it was. There were 80 questions, all intricately worded. Here's a PDF of the exam so you can see for yourself.

Don't believe me? Here are just a few questions from the test:

4. During what years was the country engulfed in hysteria and suspicion?
A) 1613-15
B) 1691-93
C) 1901-03
D) 1977-79

(Bush and his cronies probably know the answer to the next one very well.)

9. Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 of the Constitution--the “elastic clause”--does what?
A) It gives Congress the power to do anything it wants
B) It allows Congress to do things it deems “necessary and proper” for executing the foregoing powers
C) It enables Congress to stretch the truth about what it intends to do
D) It provides Congress with a back-door way of getting what it wants

35. In the case McCullough (McCulloch) v. Maryland, the Supreme Court established which of the following precedents?
A) “separate but equal” facilities must be provided for blacks and whites
B) state governments reign over the federal government
C) “the power to tax is the power to destroy”
D) McCullough was considered property
E) the federal government is supreme to the state governments
F) none of the above

51. The Coal Mine Strike of 1901 and the Northern Securities Case of 1904 are important because they
established the precedent of
A) government looking out for its own interests
B) using government power to protect the interests of working people
C) laissez faire
D) Rugged Individualism

76. Below are several groups of events, movements, or events in American history. Choose the group that
makes the most sense in terms of chronological order.
A) The Civil Rights movement; the Civil War; Civil Disobedience
B) The American Revolution; Reconstruction; Westward expansion
C) The New Frontier; Watergate; the Gulf War
D) The Constitution; the Articles of Confederation; the Emancipation Proclamation
E) The Panama Canal; World War I; Prohibition
F) both A and D
G) B, C, and E
H) A, B, and E

As I recall, I had an exceptionally smart group of juniors that year, and most of them not only passed the test, but scored in the mid-80s. I'd like to see our current clown do that.

It's time to make these guys pass a driver's test before they get to tear around in our car.

I'm finally prepared to admit it. One year ago, I was hooked on the H.

Not a day went by that I didn't need my fix of this special brand of H—the LH.

I had to have it. I set up my life to get three doses a day: two in the morning, one at supper. 'Cause one thing I learned was, you can never get enough LH.

In case you're wondering what the hell LH is, it's Little House on the Prairie. Now don't laugh. That show had me hooked, I tell you. It started back when I was a kid in the late 70s and early 80s. Unbeknownst to anyone except my sisters, I watched reruns of LH between episodes of CHiPs and Magnum, P.I., and I never missed a show.

Charles and Caroline Ingalls. Or, just Pa & Ma to me, thank you.

All last winter, Alexas was unemployed, which honestly was a lot of fun. Every morning we'd rise at eight o'clock, or before dawn if there had been a storm during the night, and go out and shovel. (For Alexas, a California gal, shoveling snow was a novelty, and one I was glad to share with her.) Then we'd have breakfast— johnnycakes with maple syrup—and watch LH.

I'm something of a lay expert on LH, and I'll admit, I did my fair share of showing off to Alexas. At the outset of each episode, I would recite the plot—often within one minute. Mind you, I hadn't seen this show at all for 20-plus years.

I soon had my bride hooked on LH to the point that, if the evening cycle of episodes ended on a cliffhanger, she couldn't sleep that night. She had to know what happens. Invariably that's when the laptop came out and Alexas started trolling the internet for all things LH. Soon she longed for the meatier, conflict-laden episodes, just like her husband.

"Toad..." she'd say, using her pet name for me, "when does Mary go blind...?"

"Soon, Frog," I'd say. "Soon."

As chance would have it, we had just missed the "Mary goes blind" episodes and had to catch them when the cycle started over again. I know what you're thinking: this is a lot like waiting for a comet to return. But it did, and after the Part II of that episode, Alexas was content.

"That was awesome," she said.

"See?" I said.

I suppose you're wondering why I love LH so. Well, let me count the ways.

First, there's Pa, played by Michael Landon. As Alexas said, "He's SuperDad." That's right, Alexas, he's SuperDad. Pa works unbelievably hard to provide for his girls, once traveling 100 miles to find work. He's strong physically, mentally and spiritually. The guy can do anything—build a house, make furniture, transport blasting oil, split rock, raise a crop, and lead the church. But I think the facet of Pa's character that I admire the most is his Job-like faith. Despite all of the terrible things that happen to him, he never loses his faith, and somehow, everything turns out right in the end.

Then there's Ma, or SuperMa. Caroline Ingalls. Always fresh-faced and lovely, Ma bakes the best pies, sells the best eggs, makes the best dresses. And of course let's not forget the darling of LH, Laura. In the course of 203 episodes (not including the TV movies), we see "Half-Pint" evolve from a spunky tomboy into a feisty redheaded woman, all the while torturing squeaky Willie Olson and exacting revenge on evil Nellie.

But I think it's their trials that hooked me the most. The characters are consistently placed in tough situations and must perform at their highest capacities to overcome obstacles. In short, there's conflict in every show, and often high-stakes conflict. Will they lose the farm? Will Mary survive her operation? Will teenage Albert and Sylvia run away together? Will the children die in the blizzard?

I realize that many of the above conflicts have appeared in soap operas as well, but LH was much better than any soap opera. The writing was better, the acting was better, and the direction was infinitely better.

Landon wrote and directed most of the episodes, and the show bears his mark. As you probably know, before LH he was a TV icon for years on Bonanza, and he brought a lot of the Western sensibility to LH. In my opinion every LH show that he directed feels like a mini-movie. There is a great sense of story, and every scene heeds the advice of screenwriter William Goldman, who admonished creators to, "get into scenes as late as possible." In other words, cut all of the warm-up crap and just show the heart of the conflict.

Another thing that made the series great was something that I think can easily be overlooked, and that's Landon's use of establishing shots. This might sound trivial, but somehow over the course of 200+ episodes, Landon succeeded in never duplicating the same establishing shot twice. If you watch every episode closely, you'll see that he always shot from a slightly different angle or vantage point. The result is a tacit sense that no matter how well you think you know Walnut Grove, there are surprises around every corner.

The Little House collection by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Perfect for 10-year-old girls or tough yet sensitive
men in their 30s who long for simpler times.

Once Alexas realized how juiced I was for LH, she asked if I'd read the books by the real Laura Ingalls Wilder. I hadn't. In fact, the only children's books I remember reading were The Little Engine that Could and The Pokey Little Puppy. So, for my birthday last February, Alexas bought me the boxed set of the books that started it all.

For a week, I was enthralled. There were dozens of adventures that didn't appear in the TV version. My favorite of the set, without question, is The Long Winter. As the snow piled up outside, I read about the trials that Laura and her family faced in the Dakota Territory. Here's the jacket copy:

"The first terrible storm comes to the barren prairie in October. Then it snows almost without stopping until April. Snow has reached the rooftops, and no trains can get through with food or coal. The people of De Smet are starving, including Laura's family...."

And I thought I knew hardship, having to shovel my neighbor's walk and cut back on eating out. Meanwhile, during The Long Winter, Laura's family had to

• Braid hay together until their hands bled to make "firewood".
• Grind up seed wheat in a coffee grinder to make flavorless brown bread.
• Sleep in sub-zero cold during the night to conserve fuel.
• Tie a rope to themselves when they went out to the barn so they wouldn't get swallowed up by the latest blizzard.
• And much, much more!

So there you are, the winter I was hooked on LH. I'm not ashamed. Really I'm not. I think LH was a great show, and we could do well with a new family program with real story and morals behind it. Michael Landon created something special that has stood the test of time, and will continue to.

There are many drawbacks to being bipolar, but probably the most insidious is that when I'm on the cusp of, or in the midst of, a new manic cycle, I can become extremely irritable.

Petulant. Combustible.

When this happens, anything can set me off, and I have to exercise every fiber of self-restraint in me to keep from tearing people's throats out. I don't mean for this to happen, I honestly don't. I'll lash out at people and fifteen minutes later, like a summer thundershower, it passes and I don't know what I was so upset about. Like today with parking my car.

No Parking, biotch!

Since I moved back to my high school town of Millbrook, NY a year ago, I've been parking across the street in an empty spot behind my parents' building. It was convenient, and in exchange Alexas and I shoveled out the parking area that we shared with my parents and their elderly neighbors. A nice little arrangement.

Today when I returned home from the errands that a working writer/house husband does (speed grocery shopping, banking and office supply purchasing), I went to park my car and discovered another one in it. We've all had this experience. I hate fighting with people over knucklehead things like this, but I chose to confront the wrongdoers. I found out the vehicle belonged to a woman who works in a day salon across the street and went to their office and politely asked that the car be moved.

The woman said, as women have been wont to say to me from time to time, "Don't yell at me." I wanted to say, "Bitch, please...if I was yelling, honey—you'd know it." But Alexas has pointed out to me over the years that such behavior on my part is alienating and divisive, so I've worked hard at not doing that. Instead I just said (in an admittedly sharper tone), "Move the car."

The upshot was that the owner of the business, a usually pleasant enough woman, ran out and confronted me, stating that she had a commercial lease that entitled her to that spot behind the building. I replied that I found this interesting, given that I'd been parking there for over a year and during all of the blizzards last winter, I didn't see her once out there asserting her right to that spot by shoveling the parking area.

The bottom line here is, as soon as I cooled down below my melting point, I realized that she was right and immediately wrote an apology letter. But the first draft of the letter was only 10% apology and 90% "Take that, biotch!" I emailed the draft to Alexas for her thoughts, and as she pointed out with her always level head, the first draft would leave both of us feeling bad, and wasn't the idea to settle this amicably? Here's the 1st draft of the letter:

Dear Darlene,

I want to apologize for my confronting you about the parking behind the building. Now that I’ve had a chance to think about what you mentioned regarding your lease, I realize that you have rights to that spot.

My only wish is that you had said something a year ago, when my wife and I were out there, storm after storm, shoveling out that entire parking area (including your own spot closest to the back door). I find it interesting that when it was inconvenient (i.e., covered in a foot of snow), you didn’t make an issue about our parking there. But now that the weather is fine, well….

Now that we know you have rights to that spot, we will no longer be parking there. However, we won’t be shoveling any of it either. With the right comes the responsibility. Enjoy it.

Sincerely,

Chris Orcutt

Now the edited version:

Dear Darlene,

I want to apologize for my confronting you about the parking behind the building. Now that I’ve had a chance to think about what you mentioned regarding your lease, I realize that you have rights to that spot.

My only wish is that you had said something a year ago, when my wife and I were out there, storm after storm, shoveling out that entire parking area (including your own spot closest to the back door). I find it interesting that when it was inconvenient (i.e., covered in a foot of snow), you didn’t make an issue about our parking there. But now that the weather is fine, well….

Now that we know you have rights to that spot, we will no longer be parking there. However, we won’t be shoveling any of it either. With the right comes the responsibility. Enjoy it.

Sincerely,

Chris Orcutt

Whereas the first draft was the equivalent of taking a pup and pressing its face into its "accident" on the rug, the second draft was considerably toned-down. Which leads me to my point for this piece—the importance of always writing in drafts. It is very difficult to get it right the first time, and any piece of writing, even a lowly apology-complaint letter, benefits from a second pass.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go slash that bitch's tires order a fruit basket for my lovely neighbor.

It's raining today in Millbrook, New York. When I lived and worked in the Big City, I enjoyed rainy days because they gave you the feeling of, "Screw it—what else am I gonna do today? Might as well work. At least it's dry."

But when you live in the country, and you work at home, you've pretty much got three choices for places to go when it rains: the diner, the library and church. On dry days, I'll often hit all three during my daily walk, but when it's raining...well, I'm stuck inside.

Which leads me to the subject of this entry: Richard Scarry's Rainy Day Book. I loved it as a kid, and it's tough to believe that it's been around 30 years. I must have had one of the originals.

The rainy day savior by Richard Scarry

The Rainy Day Book I remember was chock-full of fun activities for a kid stuck in the house—especially a house in the country, like my grandparents' estate, which was in the sticks. Here is just a sample of all of the jolly activities offered in the book:

• Thank-you notes
• Greeting cards
• Finger puppets
• Color-mixing
• Connect-the-dots
• Valentine's cards
• Easy recipes (like "Mustard on Crackers!" Yum!)
• Making a model town

I'd love to see somebody come out with a Rainy Day Book for Grownups. As a writer I am infinitely imaginative when it comes to contriving ways of avoiding writing, but having an activity book would help.

Here is a sampling of the activities my "adult" Rainy Day Book would have:

• A Letter to the Editor "kit"—complain about local issues in five easy steps!
• Angelina Jolie & Johnny Depp cut-out finger-puppets (imagine the possibilities)
• Design your own Avatar!
• How to organize your closet
• Balance your checkbook
• Rate nude scenes from movies
• Prank phone call scripts
• Cocktail recipes (it's past noon someplace in the world!)
• An "Am I Depressed?" Questionnaire
• Stupid computer tricks
• And much more!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work.

Like a lot of writers, I'm a cinemaphile. I love everything about a good film—the characters, plot, setting, direction and pacing—but what I especially appreciate is the dialogue. I live for the great line.

I always know when I'm enchanted with a line because I'll quote it to myself or Alexas for days, sometimes weeks, afterwards. We all have our favorite lines, but not many of us have a list of them that we can't wait to use. I'm one of these freaks.

Trouble is, in order for these choice lines to work, everything must line up perfectly. The situations are so specific, and the conditions so rare, that the opportunity to use the line will probably never come. Still, the readiness is all...

Below are the lines I can't wait to use, along with the situation in the film and THE BAD NEWS—the reasons I'll probably never get to use the line in a real-life situation.

THE MOVIE: Chinatown

THE LINE: "Forget it, Jake—it's Chinatown."

THE SITUATION: In the film, Jake has just seen his lover, Mrs. Mulwray, shot and killed in Chinatown. The cops tell Jake to get lost, and his partner, attempting to drag him away, delivers the line.

THE BAD NEWS: The problem is there are too many variables. First, I'd need to be in a Chinatown someplace (New York is most realistic because it's closest to me, although San Francisco isn't unrealistic because my in-laws live there). Next, I'd have to be in Chinatown when something bad went down AND a good friend of mine or business partner is involved in it. Then, in order for the line to be effective, my friend's/business partner's name ideally would have to rhyme with Jake (not many names fit this criterion) or at the very least have a hard consonant at the end: "Forget it, Jack—it's Chinatown." Nope, never gonna happen.

THE MOVIE: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

THE LINE: "Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?"

THE SITUATION: In the film, Sundance chides partner Butch Cassidy for using so much dynamite to blow open a train safe that it ends up blowing up the entire boxcar.

THE BAD NEWS: First of all, while I do have a friend who knows how to use dynamite, I don't see myself tagging along anytime soon if he was using it to blow open something of value. And even if I did accompany him on such an adventure, because he knows what he's doing, I doubt he would use enough of it such that the item in question is completely blown to hell, thus making the line ironic. Finally, my friend is not named Butch. I don't know a Butch and am not likely to know one in the future, so this line, too, will never happen.

THE MOVIE: Dirty Harry

THE LINE: "Go on out and get some air, Fatso!"

THE SITUATION: In the film, Dirty Harry has cornered the Scorpio Killer in Kezar Stadium (in Golden Gate Park) when his partner, Frank DiGiorgio (a.k.a. "Fatso") asks if he needs any help. The implication is that Frank is trying to prevent Harry from doing something he'll regret—torturing the killer. As Harry marches toward the killer with his gun drawn, he yells back to his partner, "Go on out and get some air, Fatso!"

THE BAD NEWS: The big problem here is, I don't know anybody with the nickname "Fatso". I don't even know anybody fat enough to warrant such a nickname. Next, my "Fatso" would need to be my partner in something. I suppose it's possible that one day in the future, I could have a heavyset man as a writing partner on a screenplay, and the producer does something to piss me off. Brandishing my Mont Blanc, I head towards the producer's office. I see my partner following me, so I say, "Go on out and get some air, Fatso!" But I'm a realist. Chances are, this won't happen. However, if it does, I'll be ready.

THE MOVIE: Used Cars

THE LINE: "Now wait just a goddamn minute, what the hell is this? Is this a 1977 Mercedes SEL convertible for twenty-four thousand dollars? That's too fuckin' high!"

THE SITUATION: In the film, one of the used cars salesmen, Jeff, disguises himself in western garb, calls himself "Marshall Lucky" and, with the help of Lenny & Squiggy, interrupts a Presidential address to do a guerilla car commercial. Jeff then proceeds to shoot a bunch of cars on the competing lot across the strip, culminating in the above exclamation before blowing up a particularly overpriced automobile.

THE BAD NEWS: Lots of problems with this one. For starters, I don't sell used cars, and I never have. I dislike selling of any kind, so that's a major drawback. Second, even if I did sell used cars for a living, and even if I were willing to dress up as a mock "marshall" and jam a Presidential address for free airtime, I doubt I'd ever find a 1977 Mercedes SEL convertible for $24,000. And if I did happen to find such a gem at that price, I'd probably buy it, not blow it up. Finally, there's that dynamite issue again, which I don't see a way past.

THE MOVIE: The Natural

THE LINE: "You've got a gift, Roy, but it's not enough. You've got to develop yourself. Rely too much on your gift, and you'll fail."

THE SITUATION: In the film, Roy Hobbs's father is playing catch with him, and he sees his son's potential.

THE BAD NEWS: Besides the rub with the name again (Roy), in order for this line to really work, it needs to be used in the context of sports, not day-trading. And with sports, it would have to be a classic sport, not something like Jai-alai. Also, I don't plan on having children, so unless a "surprise" happens along, I wouldn't get to use this line in its most "natural" (ha-ha) context.

THE MOVIE: Goldfinger

THE LINE: "Ah, but you're forgetting one thing...if I fail to report, double-oh-eight replaces me."

THE SITUATION: In the film, Bond is strapped down to Goldfinger's laser-cutter and is desperately trying to give the villain a reason to release him.

THE BAD NEWS: Although my Social Security number starts with "007", even if I were one day captured by a megalomaniac, I doubt he would use my SSN as the means to identify me; and even if he did, he'd know how unlikely it was that my replacement's SSN would start with "008". You can't win.

THE MOVIE: The Untouchables

THE LINE: "You wanna get Capone? Here's how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue! That's the Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone!"

THE SITUATION: Malone, the beat cop played by Sean Connery, is instructing wet-behind-the-ears Treasury Officer Ness on the lengths he'll need to go to if he wants to get Capone. I love everything David Mamet has ever written, and the fact that he sets this short scene in a church makes it all the more ironic and delicious.

THE BAD NEWS: While it's certainly possible that an antagonist named Capone could surface in my life sometime in the future, it wouldn't make sense for me to say, "That's the Chicago way...," and without that part, the entire line loses its force. Mamet has constructed a tidy little self-referential argument here, and substituting another three-syllable place name like "Wash-ing-ton" or "Man-hat-tan" just wouldn't work.

THE MOVIE: The Empire Strikes Back

THE LINE: "We can still out maneuver 'em!"

THE SITUATION: Han Solo, Chewie and Princess Leia have just escaped from the ice planet Hoth when several star destroyers race in to intercept them. Han realizes he can't outrun the much larger space ships, but he can outmaneuver them, so he sends the Millennium Falcon into a dive. (Seconds later, as two star destroyers scrape against each other, the Admiral aboard one of them announces, "Take evasive action!")

THE BAD NEWS: Plain and simple, I don't have a space ship, and to my knowledge there is no Empire ruling over our galaxy with star destroyers either. The line doesn't work with smaller craft like boats or snowmobiles, so alas, I will never get to use it—at least with the full force of its meaning in the film.

I'm not sure why, but I do. I have a thing for Alices.

A little self-psychoanalysis here. I think my interest in Alice started as a child, when I first read Alice in Wonderland. I remember being a boy and admiring this cool girl and her amazing adventures and all of the great lines she had.

Years later, as an undergraduate philosophy major, in a course on logical fallacies, we read Lewis Carroll's story again, and I was even more amazed by the playful, brilliant mind of Alice. Here are just a few of her better lines:

"Curiouser and curiouser!"

"It was much pleasanter at home, when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits."

"It would be so nice if something made sense for a change."

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"

Then at some point as a child I saw the movie, and I remember being spellbound by Alice's hair and eyes. I'm quite sure that these features of hers, beyond her clever brain, are why she has been so popular among little girls for generations.

Women everywhere have forever wondered, "What
product is this bitch using to get a sheen like that?"

Boy or girl, how could you not fall in love with Alice?

Okay, so now it's back to college for the next Alice. Two Alices, actually.

While going to school in Boston, besides my share of girlfriends, I had three gal-pals. The great thing about gal-pals when you're a heterosexual guy is that your respect for them and your enjoyment of their company outweighs your desire to sleep with them. Billy Crystal's character in When Harry Met Sally is right when he says, "You pretty much want to nail them, too," but again, you quell this desire in the interest of friendship.

Even though the first two aren't Alices, I'd like to mention them. Number one was a woman named Kate, a pallid, goth-ish English major with a wonderfully wry sense of humor. And Margie was the second—a Southern belle (Georgia, land of Scarlett O'Hara) and fellow philosophy major. Since I was a multi-generational New Englander, we clashed beautifully. Margie and I loved to argue; we'd go to movies together and afterwards argue about the film, go to the MFA together and argue about the paintings, go for coffee at the ERC and argue about that, too. Last I heard, she's now a successful lawyer in Phoenix. You go, girl!

And then there was Alice, who was something of a bad influence.

Daisy Buchanan's on Newbury St. in Boston: Where
Alice and I tore it up many an afternoon.

Alice loved alcohol as much as I did, and senior year she frequently talked me into cutting class so we could go drinking. We drank Bud at Fenway, G&Ts at Daisy Buchanan's on Newbury Street, Murphy's Irish Red at Tommy Doyle's in Cambridge, Bushmills Irish Whiskey at my apartment while listening to The Doors, and, three or four times (I forget—I was drunk), Stoli shots at The Foxy Lady, a strip club in Providence, RI. (Alice was either bisexual or an undeclared lesbian. Characteristically coy, she would never say.)

To this day, I don't remember how we got to Providence and back; I think Alice drove, and probably while drunk at that. I ended up using Alice as the prototype for the femme fatale in my novel A REAL PIECE OF WORK. I considered briefly naming her Alice, as my homage to the original hell-raiser, but I went with Shay Connolly instead.

Another Alice that stirred my imagination in college appeared in the 35th Anniversary Edition of Playboy. Her name is Alice Denham, and she was the July 1956 Playmate.

Once again, however, it was more than her looks that interested me. Yes, she was a gorgeous redhead, and yes she had a figure that could make a blind man weep. But she was also a talented writer and the only woman, says Publishers Weekly, "whose fiction and breasts have appeared in the same issue."

Thank God we can't say the same of Norman Mailer.

Alice Denham, working on a story in her bare feet. HOT!

Alice, looking over her work. Two major turn-ons
for me: a hot woman in a pickup truck, and
a hot literary woman at a typewriter.

Alice Denham wrote other work, too, including a widely praised novel, My Darling from the Lions. She wrote for television for years, and recently she came out with a "kiss-and-tell" memoir entitled Sleeping with Bad Boys, in which she dishes the dirt on all of the literary and film stars of the fifties.

I really shouldn't be speaking of her in the past tense because, to my knowledge, she still writes and does readings in New York City from time to time. Alice, if you're out there and reading this, I'd love to meet you—maybe at a reading of my own in the future.

The final Alice for whom I've had a thing is the inimitable Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the unruly daughter of Theodore Roosevelt. Ever since I read this biography on Alice, I've had something of a crush on her.

Alice Roosevelt, TR's daughter, and
my love from another lifetime.

Alice Roosevelt was the original Paris Hilton, but
with an IQ 100 points higher and not at all slutty.

The woman was brilliant, witty, beautiful and irreverent. They named a color for her—Alice blue (similar to the color of postal uniforms). When her father forbade her from smoking cigarettes under the roof of the White House, she said "Fine," and went up on the roof to smoke.

When TR was leaving office in 1909, she made a voodoo doll of Taft and buried it on the White House lawn. And while on a Far East good will delegation for her father, she acquired so much free loot from heads of state that one member of the party wrote a satirical poem called, "Alice in Plunderland".

And with that, my story of Alices has come full-circle. Why do I have a thing for Alices? I'm still not sure, but I enjoyed sharing this with you.

Here's to Alices everywhere.

A cardinal rule among writers is that you NEVER let family members critique drafts of your work. Invariably they will either praise it beyond its worth or shred it (and you) to ribbons.

My father, Al Orcutt (a.k.a. "Big Al" and "Broken-Down Old Dad"), is a retired school principal and avid reader. Although most of his reading is in American history and contemporary politics, he does enjoy the occasional novel and is a rabid fan of one of my favorite writers, John Irving. Until recently, Al had a retiree dream job—"working" in the Millbrook paint store. Since foot traffic has never been overwhelming in the village, Al got a lot of reading done.

Dad posing at the paint store. I was going for the look of those
antique photographs, in which the proprietor is expressionless.

But Al got bored with it, and the woman he was working for, although a savvy businesswoman, has a reputation for annoying her employees over time. So, for the first time in his life, Al actually QUIT a job.

The trouble is, now Al doesn't have a lot to do during the day. If I drop by (we live in the same town, across the street from each other—purely coincidental), Al is usually ranting at CNN or MSNBC about some new "damn bullshiit thing that idiot Bush is doing." I'll sit with Al for half an hour or so, during which time each of us will test our blood pressure twice, then go home shaking my head. What's becoming of my poor old broken-down old dad?

So...I've decided to break the Prime Directive and give Al a copy of my latest novel to read and critique. He needs a project, and although I've had several readers, I need a reader of his type, somebody who will read it purely for the story and who will tell me if it bores him at any point.

Al's verdict on the book will likely be one of two exclamations (spoken with a thick Downeast Maine accent):

"Jeezus Christ, Chris—how do you do it? Jeezus, if I tried to come up with a story longer than a page, my goddamn eyeballs would explode."

"Jeezus Christ, Chris—it was good, but so many characters. I mean, Jeezus, how many of the fuckers do you need?"

I printed out a copy last night and will hand-deliver it to him this morning. While I'm over there, I'll test my blood pressure. I'll probably need it.

I'll report back to you in a couple of weeks, when I'm making this little project due.

Once upon a time, there was a writer. He lived in a small house in the country, and each day when he finished his work, he would walk his little town, saying hello to all of the wonderful people—the postman, the fireman, the doctor, the grocer. Life was very good for the writer.

Each day, when the writer edited that morning's work, he printed out the pages, put them on a clipboard and went through the material with a red pen. The red pen was a nasty throwback to his teaching days, but he liked it because he could always see marks made in red. The writer, you see, was slightly colorblind.

Merrily would the writer enter his edits into the computer. With each line he entered, the writer pressed CMD-S to save his work. Not that it mattered because the fancy computer also auto-saved his work every 2 minutes. And each day's work was saved with a suffix, thusly: MY_WRITING_MMDDYY.

At the end of each day, the writer would upload his finished work to his best friend's server. The best friend was profoundly generous and gave freely of his bounty of bandwidth and mass storage capability. And all the friend ever asked for in exchange was some cash when the writer had it and the occasional case of non-alcoholic Pinot Noir grape juice.

Nothing could impinge on the writer's world.

So the writer grew smug, smug in the belief that he had shielded himself from any possible disaster.

"Fires and floods and tornadoes and blizzards—blow, wrack and rage!" the writer yelled. "Fuck you all! I'm covered!"

Meanwhile, Zeus and his daughters, the Muses, did not take kindly to the writer's arrogance. For years they had immersed him in a delightful fog of never-ending inspiration. One of Zeus's daughters, a comely redhead, was especially hurt by the writer's haughtiness because she was the one who had been charged with ensuring the safety of the writer's work. And now for the writer to suggest that it was technology—mere flecks of silicon—that was protecting him....

The redheaded goddess seethed.

While dragging some files to the trash, unbeknownst to him the writer's mouse hand flinched ever so slightly, grabbing hold of that day's file. Because the writer prided himself on decisiveness, he emptied the trash immediately.

And at that exact moment, the writer realized what he had  done—deleted that day's work (at least 50 pages of edits) before he had backed it up to his best friend's server.

The writer was fucked.

So, the writer had to start over again, entering every single change into the computer.

From that day forward, the first thing the writer ensured at the start of every workday was that the backup drive was on and working.

Today the writer lives on, enjoying his snug little office and enjoying his work, but he died a little that day. A piece of the writer's heart was pierced and will never live again.




MORAL:  IF YOU HAVE A BACKUP DRIVE, MAKE SURE
              THE FUCKER IS TURNED ON.  ALWAYS.

Even though success with my own writing—my fiction—continues to elude me, I'm very fortunate in so many ways, and I know it.

I have my health. I have a terrific, supportive spouse, a nice place to live, food on the table, and I'm well-paid for my words. Even if it's writing speeches, scripts, websites and technical docs for now.

Oh, and there's one other thing I have to be thankful for: a new computer.

Make that the new iMac. Pure aluminum-encased hotness.

With the 24" screen, I can have two complete pages of text visible at once, which makes it a lot easier to see what you're working on. You also get a better sense of the flow in a chapter, scene or stretch of dialogue.

The Delicious New iMac Keyboard

Truly, it's a pleasure to sit down to work every day knowing that you won't have to fight with your tools. For the record, the keyboard is the best I've ever worked on. I can't explain why; just go to an Apple store and try it yourself and you'll see what I mean. I won't go into detail about the computer and all its features, but I will mention what writing software I'm using because I've discovered that so far these programs work flawlessly with the computer:

The workspace, before

The outer box containing the iMac box

A knife, to cut the box open

Cutting the outer box open

The first hint of the inner box

The inner box in all its glory

A groovy Styrofoam tray greets you

More boxes within boxes: the keyboard

The keyboard, revealed

The iMac assumes its new place on the desk

The iMac beside its outdated cousin, the eMac

Having trouble sleeping? Disenchanted with life, your writing, your sneakers? Are you between writing projects, suffering from a peculiar brand of postpartum depression that only writers of long works understand?

If so, you may suffer from In-Between Syndrome. Ask your doctor if alcohol, bipolar meds, or a gun may be right for you.

The other day I finished the fifth, and what I hope will be the last, draft of my newest novel and sent it off to my agent for her comments. Every time I finish a book, I find myself moping around for the next two weeks, saying things to my wife like, "I feel lost," or "What do I do now?"

Invariably, Alexas makes the mistake of trying to be rational with me. "You're always happiest when you're writing," she chirps. "Why not start a new project?"

Thanks for the tip, bitch.

The upside to In-Between Syndrome is that I have time to do some entries on my blogs (like this one) and update my websites in general. The downside is that I begin to wonder if shooting myself or being mauled by wild dogs would be so bad.

Regardless, I'm back for a while. At least until I start writing again.

First of all, for those of you who don't know what I mean by "THUHHHHHHHHH"—that's the way the announcer on the YES Network—the Yankees' station—says the word "the" when the Yankees win. It's obnoxious, so I'm using it here.

And as for "Sweet Fire"—that's a picturesque phrase used by (and I imagine, invented by) a fellow New Englander and one of my wife's friends, Amy Caron.

Anyway, from start to finish, our boys kicked ass. From Manny's swat against the Angels (I think that ball's on the Mass Pike somewhere) to Ellsbury's amazing performance to our dominating pitching, it was beautiful to watch. The entire season was incredible—my boys led from April to October and they never let up.

But as much as it joys me to see my team win, it also joys me to see Yankees' fans get served another helping of humble pie this season.

Back in July, I made the mistake of going to a Sox game at Yankee Stadium and seeing my boys lose there. I was surrounded by drunken, obnoxious Yankees fans, one of whom said to me as I left, "Your team sucks." Here's what I said in return:

"Wait until October."

If that moron was still alive this morning, I hope he woke up to find out the Sox SWEPT Colorado and then threw himself out a window. Not that I harbor grudges or anything.

At the beginning of this season, I said that if the Yankees didn't at least get to the Series, you would have to wonder what was going on with them. I'll tell you what's going on with them:

THE YANKEES ARE CURSED.

Remember "the Curse"? Remember the 86-year drought Red Sox fans endured before we won in 2004? Remember those stupid, homemade signs on bedsheets that Yankees fans would wave with the year "1918" on them? Well, it's my belief that when the Sox won in 2004, the Curse got transferred to the Yankees. I submit the following for your consideration:

* The Yankees' front office insulted Joe Torre (a manager that led them to 12 consecutive postseasons), resulting in his quitting.

* The Yankees' "superstar", Alex Rodriguez, is opting out of his contract; Hank Steinbrenner (as much an interpersonal relationships genius as his father) has said they don't want him anyway.

* Their catcher and one of their starting pitchers probably won't be returning.

* Their big-money acquisitions like Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens failed to come through when they needed them.

* Their once unhittable closer, Mariano Rivera, is very hittable now.

* One of their pitchers, Cory Lidle, crashed a plane into an Upper East Side building. I'm not happy about this; it's just another indication that they're the ones who are cursed now.

In short, the Yankees have imploded. THUHHHHHHHHH Yankees have imploded!

Now don't get me wrong, the Yankees have always been a great team. Some of the best players ever were New York Yankees. Also, the Red Sox only have 7 Championships to the Yankees' 26.

But what if—just as the Red Sox had an 86-year drought between 1918 and 2004—what IF the Yankees experienced a championship drought between 2000 (when they won against the Mets) and 2086?

What if the Sox won in all of the following years?

2004, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2027, 2029, 2035, 2040, 2044, 2046, 2049, 2052, 2059, 2060, 2063, 2066, 2077 (an 11-year drought), 2080, 2082, 2085

That's 30 championships to the Yankees' 26.

Hey, somebody's got to lose year after year, and since it's not the Sox anymore, it might as well be them.

Before I go, here is what two of our vaunted publications have to say about the Sox:

From the New York Times (Oct. 28):

"They have gone from exorcism to coronation in record time. The Boston Red Sox, who fought ghosts for most of the last century, are the premier team of the new millennium."

From Sports Illustrated (Oct. 29 issue):

"The Boston Red Sox have become the New York Yankees..."

I rest my case.

Back in 2004, I said that if the Red Sox won just that year, I could die a happy man. I said that they never had to win again and I'd be satisfied.

You know what? F--k that.

Here's to next year.