Big Driver

Stephen King. I am ambivalent about his work; however, I admire his output, quality, and political presence. Funny guy, if a bit macabre. His wording about writing is a simple blueprint for success. His oeuvre speaks for itself.

“Kramer, my friend recommended this, think you’ll like it, too…”

“Nothing neat about this one; this one was a huddled old creep-manse that could have been straight out of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. How life did imitate art, sometimes.” Page 132.

Twisted, revenge humor. Brilliant.

Nothing is scarier than real life.

Big Driver

The Ten-Year Affair

Intriguing premise, to me, as it starts with two characters meeting in a presumed baby group, mostly moms, but a heteronormative pair and the obvious, concomitant attractions. Right person, wrong lifetime, and an affair, of anything else, is out of the question.

But what happens in the imagination?

This novel brought up a singular remembrance, and I’ve alluded to this elsewhere, but I couldn’t find the point. I was at a “writers group” meet-up, nominally San Antonio mommy bloggers, and there was a child weaving in and around my legs. The kid belonged to the mom I was chatting with, and then, out of habit, having just been around my fishing buddy’s kids, I reached down, scooped the kid up and let it rest against my shoulder. Kid passed out. Kindred spirit, felt safe, and the mom had two others in tow, “If you want, you can take that one home with you…” I didn’t think it would go over well with my girlfriend, show up with a new grand baby in tow.

So far, in the novel, there are two parallel story lines. Or single line with two or more stories? In the real world, “IRL,” pop up those antiquated acronyms, in the novel’s real world, it is a chaste affair, but as a parallel reality, there’s a second plot line where the two characters are having a torrid affair.

The Ten-Year Affair

In my own work, and even in my own life, I’ve been faced with similar situations and that’s why it’s both comforting and uncomfortable at the same time.

In the story, the two characters are nearly the same age, and certainly the same station in life. In my own experience, it is usually, but not limited to, characters with a greater age discrepancy and from different positions, dissimilar backgrounds.

For the bulk of my own career, this has been about affairs of the heart. Again, comfortable yet uncomfortable.

The Ten-Year Affair

It takes time. Then? Always a baseball link?

“He was tan already and had a tattoo on his pec of the famous Citgo sign in Kenmore Square in Boston.” Page 70.

It’s a Fenway Park characteristic, done, I suppose with the overlay of a Boston (kind) of accent.

Difference, and intriguing as it crosses a decade, perhaps more, in less than two hundred novel pages.

Emotional without devolving into maudlin, real-life, without being too sappy, and the answers? Like life, messy and ambiguous.

The Ten-Year Affair

Good book. Really enjoyable novel.

Somers, Erin. The Ten-Year Affair. Simon & Schuster: NY, 2025.

A Daytimer

The other afternoon at the shop? My promoter and coordinator pulled out a classical “Daytimer,” in attractive leather. Sparked deep-seated memories for me.

“I’m only available one Tuesday in May and one Tuesday in June.”

I explained a schedule point.

“If I don’t write it down, I’ll forget it.”

True dat.

However, in our digital age, when a phone remembers so much of what we do? Location, time, listening into the conversations? Seeing an actual “Daytimer” brought back a flood of memories.

I had one more than four decades back. I spent lavishly at the time for that real leather binder, then filled it with the outlined pages. Names, addresses, phone numbers, a calendar of events, the months ahead, what was going on, and when. Who. Action lists, activities. Appointments.

As a sidebar note? Those action lists only work if one uses them.

A Daytimer

That “Daytimer” was a last gasp, desperate attempt at imposing order on a chaotic life.

Many years distant, I tired several other ways to keep track of dates, times, appointments, and so forth. As I’ve basically been self-employed since before college? I need a way to keep track of who, what, and when. Where, too.

Eventually, an electronic calendar fulfilled all my needs.

Like Sir Occam? The simplest answer is sometimes the right answer.

A Daytimer

But that “Warm Leatherette” Daytimer brought back a flood of unfulfilled desires, wishes, and sometime? The greatest gifts are wishes not granted.

the Portable Mercury Retrograde

portable mercury retrograde

The Ferryman and his Wife

There was a play, think it was Tom Stoppard, and while I have a copy of the script here, I can’t locate it at the moment.

Arcadia?

Might’ve been the title.

Saw the play on stage, at the National, in London. The premise, or part of the plots? Oscar Wilde was being rowed across the River Lethe, and the play was the conversation between Wilde and the ferryman, ostensibly, if memory serves, was Charon.

What I recall was the actor playing Wilde talking as a makeshift stage boat traversed a wet-looking expanse of stage.

The Ferryman and his Wife

Made me think of that play, years ago. More like an epistemological meditation on death and dying?

The Ferryman and his Wife

Glass

mrx alt astrofish.net is bottled in glass. Wild-caught live, it is never frozen or pasteurized insuring the freshest content. Most horoscopes use petroleum-based plastic packaging that is neither sustainable nor recyclable. Single-use plastic bottle and plastic-lined cans are problematic.

Glass

Plastic horoscopes are not fresh and can’t be sustainably recycled.

These horoscopes are packaged in recyclable, refillable glass. Glass is also better for flavor and freshness and better for the environment.

Served fresh, each week.

Kramer Wetzel’s little book of transits

Terms and conditions apply, see the fineprint.

book banner

Slip Stick

“Slip Stick” is an artifact from a bygone era. Not sure I can use it for calculations.

Slip Stick

Slip Stick

Raw Dog

In the spirit of the finest of Gonzo Journalism, the book talks through politics, leftists, liberals, personal history, and more. I mean, it’s about hot dogs, throughout the US.

It was a bookstore impulse buy. With no small admiration and appreciation for the art of the hot dog myself?

Raw Dog

Hotdog at the ballgame

Hotdog at the ballgame

Orioles Dogs • 3 Hot Dogs

Loftus, Jamie. Raw Dog. TOR, Forge, NY: 2025.