Notable

I made a pact with the Los Angeles weather gods today. My interminable work day must be interrupted at lunch time with a stroll across the footbridges, broad sidewalks, and snaky short cuts of downtown's Bunker Hill district. So, at 12:30 I requested a light rain or no rain, for the next 65 minutes, as opposed to the torrential rains we've been getting lately. I got what I asked for and as my co-workers ate their tepid always-disappointing delivery Thai food, I felt a cool breeze slap me happily while eating black beans and brown rice, topped with the whitest of protein. And the rain that did fall out of the sky felt like a pleasant drip-drip shower one would choose to stand beneath in a Tuscan courtyard.

Is there anything worse than talking about the weather? About one's own lunch? About both? No. I'll change the subject to something cheery, a topic we can all get our teeth into: the selection of one of my short stories as one of 2004's 145 "notable" stories that were published online, according to StorySouth:

http://www.storysouth.com/millionwriters/2004notablestories.html.

Say prayers to busy gods and cross slippery fingers, so that I make it to the next round - that of the final 10, to be announced March 1.

It's a little strange being all happy about a story I actually wrote in 2002, a story that was actually accepted for publication in early 2003 but didn't find its way onto the internet until late 2003, remaining posted and available for reading until well into January, thus making it eligible for a 2004 award. I mean, this is a story I wrote while still living in Minneapolis, that Ghost City with its zombie fetishists and men and women of stately demeanor. And its parade of shaky bare trees, banished to leaflessness from November to April, clip-clopping a collective shrug of bony protected shoulders.

It's a story about homeless people and statues and cemeteries. Wish it luck.

I've never had a more emotionally draining 3-day weekend. But it wasn't all rough going. There was smoked trout and "Collateral" on DVD (very entertaining) and a new card game involving the vituperation of neighbors. We'll forget the Robin Williams film. And the constant rain. And the summit meetings. And the goddamn sword. Oh, that's a reference only I will ever know.