Mystery Mr. E

Mr. E says I'm asleep at the wheel, and if there is anyone we want to keep happy out there, it is Mr. E.

Mr. E (a name that is fun for two reasons. 1^st that's the guy's name. His last name starts with E, right on, right? Second, I won't disclose his real name so it is shrouded in mys-tery. Nice huh?)

There is less money here in Scottsdale. Or, perhaps more accurately, people are less willing to part with their money here than they were in Hawaii. I think that the idea on Maui is more of the "we've allotted a certain amount of money we'd like to just blatantly spend while here on this island, and that includes you, you well-kept and humorous server of the restaurant we are so wildly enjoying. Here, take our money and spend it on groceries, spend it on yourself, on others! We don't care, we just want to spend it!!"

Here, in Scottsdale it is like this:

"Back off, you're getting 12% because I have to pay for my Beamer and dammit, I can't afford that if I give you the other three dollars you deserve. Now go away you modern-food-slave-you."

But I won't be arguing about money. I just took 70 days off and dropped a number of dollars between 7,998 and 8,001 (I prefer anonymity when it comes to finances). Sure I'd love to get some of those dollars back, but Steve Wynn isn't returning my calls, emails, faxes or couriers.

What else is going on these days? The hibernation of my creative writing/fiction career is finally over and since I don't have any money to do anything specific or glorious, I gather change for a cup of coffee and write my fingers numb at whatever local coffee shop doesn't have a per hour consumption policy for their loiterers. The writing, in a somewhat serious note, is going quite well. I've switched methods recently and will be pursuing only one project at a time instead of twelve-hundred. This makes it easier for me to concentrate on tiny and rather significant idiosyncrasies that make good characters worth reading. It also cuts down on the number of times I have to scribble "What was it I was trying to do with this passage?" in the marginalia.

My lovely girlfriend has a work shirt that doesn't fit her very well. It is a uniform and because of this she has very little leeway with its alteration. If only the mediums were a little less tentish, a little more flattering, I think the men with the Beamers would up her right to 16% which is huge for a lot of these thirty-thousand-dollar-millionaires we have wandering the clubs at night putting $15 Cosmopolitans on their credit cards and binging on macaroni and cheese during the week.

The piece I'm currently working on involves a lot of second person narration, which isn't common. It would be as follows:

You are enjoying this blog because you can relate to tentish clothing. You once bought a shirt at a thrift store for the charming Chester Cheeto hand-stitched emblem on it only to take it home, wash the hell out of it, and realize it was a 4XL. You are not 4XL, despite what the mirror and the scale says every morning. You enjoy the occasional doughnut, sure, but you also own a racing bike that you can really make sing on those long down-hill rides to the all-you-can-eat buffet.

Anyhow - second person narrative - the YOU driven narrative - isn't common or (really) very popular. Imagine my surprise when I was over-caffeinated and stuck in the middle of writing a section of this piece and decided to ask the checkout person at Borders books for help.

"I need second person narrative fiction. You know, like Bright Lights, Big City or something"

"I don't know about that one, I haven't read it."

(The conversation went on VERY SIMILARLY until I pulled the bookstore equivalent of 'Hey look over there' and ducked behind another shelf full of books. But back to the conversation already in progress)

"Yeah, I'm sorry," she says. "I haven't even heard of that one."

"Harry Potter, the last one, that's what I need."

"Oh, you should have said something."

"Great."

"Right this way."