Epiphanette no. 1. Do not trust a woman who says she is depressive but laughs a lot.
About me. I'm 62, look younger. I'm single. Divorced twice. No children. I live in the US, east side, near Washington. I came from France in my early teens with my parents. They went back, I didn't.
I am a writer, a good one, trying to publish the fabled third book. I've done a bit of everything, worked for the Washington Post for several year, the World Bank for even more years, edited an in-line skating magazine and worked on the Time-Life How To series. You remember those--build your own house, wire your garage, add a closet for the old lady. Now I work from home. I run a small mail-order business. I write. I write songs. Mostly sad shitty ones. Since I have just had my heart broken by epiphanette no. 1, the songs right now are even sadder and possibly shittier.
Up until recently I played in a local band called Idylwood but that broke up last week. No more performing the sad shitty songs, at least for a while.
So epiphanette no. 2, never trust a part-time musician with a bad voice and high ambitions. No, no, not me. I actually have a pretty good voice. I am talking about Idylwood's co-founder who recently bailed and took the drummer and bass player with him leaving behind a very pretty female lead singer and... me.
What I plan to do with this blog is publish a book, page by page. It's a novel, a pretty good one, written some years ago when I got my head out of the bottle. Before every installment, and sometimes after, there will be some random thoughts, memories, needless bitching and occasionally whining. The name of the book is Wasted Miracles. Let me know what you think.
Wasted Miracles
Chapter 1
Prologue
It would be a good voyage. The Isadora’s captain, a tall graying man who looked like a captain and took full advantage of it, had a knack for knowing such things. His ship was five days out of Glasgow and he’d spent the better part of that time inspecting the passengers. Two meetings with his officers had confirmed there were no troublesome drunks aboard, no professional card sharks, no scam artists. At least, as far as anyone could tell.
The captain’s name was Roderick Stuart, never Rod, never Stu, and he detested everything about life on solid ground. Pathways, roads, paved surfaces, the very smell of soil, diminished him. His wife was a shrew, his two daughters seemed headed for a gloryless existence with dullard husbands and ugly, freckled children. Mr. Winfrey, the smug and sallow tenant they kept (at the insistence of his wife who felt safer with a man in the house when the Captain was at sea), was a local teacher whose presence often drove the Captain from his own living room. Now he was back where he belonged, aboard his real home, a place he could and did rule like the benevolent and smiling dictator of an unthreatened realm. Everything was in order and he basked in the familiar.
He loved his ship. He had recently celebrated his twentieth anniversary with the Royal Scottish Line--the company had given him an exquisite Vuiton watch with matching studs and cufflinks--and this would be his seventh world tour with the Isadora. He looked forward to the six weeks at sea; his last shore leave had been disastrous and from the moment he’d entered the ill-fitting house he and his wife maintained just outside Inverness, his only thought was how to cut his stay short.
From where he stood on the deck, he could see virtually the entire ship by merely turning his head. The sea was calm; the Isadora’s engines were a soft background hum. He could hear the faint booming of skeet shooters, the cawing of gulls, and the splashing of sweet saltwater against the massive bow. He looked forward to dressing for dinner, still anticipated with pleasure the time spent with that night’s properly awed guests at the captain’s table. He thought it marvelous that a man could spend a lifetime abovedeck of such a magnificent vessel and be paid handsomely for it. He was not a deeply religious man but the years at sea had granted him a certain spirituality, and rare was the day he did not give thanks for the life he was so fortunate to lead.
In a moment, the woman whom he had promoted to Director of Activities would come to his cabin. She was his mistress, he loved her deeply, believed she loved him as well, and she would have married him had he not already been another woman’s mate. They would spend an hour in bed together and after that share a small snifter of Grand Marnier. This they would do three times a week for the entire length of the voyage.
Life was good. He was blessed and he knew it.
***
Prologue
It would be a good voyage. The Isadora’s captain, a tall graying man who looked like a captain and took full advantage of it, had a knack for knowing such things. His ship was five days out of Glasgow and he’d spent the better part of that time inspecting the passengers. Two meetings with his officers had confirmed there were no troublesome drunks aboard, no professional card sharks, no scam artists. At least, as far as anyone could tell.
The captain’s name was Roderick Stuart, never Rod, never Stu, and he detested everything about life on solid ground. Pathways, roads, paved surfaces, the very smell of soil, diminished him. His wife was a shrew, his two daughters seemed headed for a gloryless existence with dullard husbands and ugly, freckled children. Mr. Winfrey, the smug and sallow tenant they kept (at the insistence of his wife who felt safer with a man in the house when the Captain was at sea), was a local teacher whose presence often drove the Captain from his own living room. Now he was back where he belonged, aboard his real home, a place he could and did rule like the benevolent and smiling dictator of an unthreatened realm. Everything was in order and he basked in the familiar.
He loved his ship. He had recently celebrated his twentieth anniversary with the Royal Scottish Line--the company had given him an exquisite Vuiton watch with matching studs and cufflinks--and this would be his seventh world tour with the Isadora. He looked forward to the six weeks at sea; his last shore leave had been disastrous and from the moment he’d entered the ill-fitting house he and his wife maintained just outside Inverness, his only thought was how to cut his stay short.
From where he stood on the deck, he could see virtually the entire ship by merely turning his head. The sea was calm; the Isadora’s engines were a soft background hum. He could hear the faint booming of skeet shooters, the cawing of gulls, and the splashing of sweet saltwater against the massive bow. He looked forward to dressing for dinner, still anticipated with pleasure the time spent with that night’s properly awed guests at the captain’s table. He thought it marvelous that a man could spend a lifetime abovedeck of such a magnificent vessel and be paid handsomely for it. He was not a deeply religious man but the years at sea had granted him a certain spirituality, and rare was the day he did not give thanks for the life he was so fortunate to lead.
In a moment, the woman whom he had promoted to Director of Activities would come to his cabin. She was his mistress, he loved her deeply, believed she loved him as well, and she would have married him had he not already been another woman’s mate. They would spend an hour in bed together and after that share a small snifter of Grand Marnier. This they would do three times a week for the entire length of the voyage.
Life was good. He was blessed and he knew it.
***
