Being a writer, I understand the need for universiality, that feeling that the movie’s main message somehow applies to the lives of every family member. “Life As a House?” No problem. For the divorced couple it is about reconcilation. For a terminal or chronic patient, hope and living in the face of death. Teenagers? The angst of growing up. Even “EuroTrip”, a teen-grossout flick has some sense of applicability to life. “Making out with your sister is a bad thing,” it might say to the fifteen-year-old brother of a cheerleader on the Varsity squad.

I try not to find these little things when I watch a movie. But I simply cannot help it. Those who know me and my situation personally will understand why a friend of mine has taken to calling me “Peter Pan” after seeing the J. M. Barrie biopic “Finding Neverland” the other day. I certainly sympathized with Ray Charles’s need to tune out once in a while. We’re both artists, after all, who are focused on creating images and emotions with words. (Not the easiest task in the world.) But there it is. Movies. Forgive the pun, but movies can move us in ways that the written word cannot.

Yet I write fiction. Not screenplays, though I think that that is a format I would one day like to explore, but short stories. Novels, even. And recently, after three years (the last year and a half of which was torture), I completed my novel. Working endlessly, laboring at the keyboard over plot points as grand as “Should she die now, or later in chapter 33?” and as minute as “should this be a definitive article here or let the noun stand by itself?” I always made fun of my high school English teacher’s insistence that writers intended symbolism and thougth about details. After the last three years, I definitely understand how tremendously in error I stood.

Sol Stein once wrote that, to be a successful writer, one must be willing to open a vein and bleed onto the page. I thought that I had done this for three years. However, I gave a copy of my manuscript to a friend (perhaps a very good friend, if this rewrite works) to read and comment. When he finished, he passed me six pages of single-spaced, typed notes. And one stunning pronouncment: while the novel has a good story, it’s not an ‘adult’ novel but rather, young adult.

Genre.

Thus it is that I have set out on a rewrite — a massive rewrite — of my entire book. I project that it should be done by the end of the summer, but we’ll see. Over the next few weeks and months, I’m sure I’ll have interesting things to report from the world of publishing. And yes, I promise to post more regularly. Until next time, I’m at the keyboard writing.

So. There I was, sitting with my daughter in the restaurant, chatting. I mentioned something about something incidental and, like sometimes happens, the girl behind the bar chimed in. And that was okay.

I’d talked to her many times before. After all, I’ve only been going to her restaurant since it opened. I’ve always enjoyed her perky personality and sometimes-razor wit. She’s one of those intoxicating types of people that tend to lift the spirits of everyone around them. Thus it was we struck up a conversation about art. She’s a painter, I learn, and has an art show at a local coffeehouse. We make plans to go see said art show today, after which I will cook dinner. (She’s Vegan and thus cannot eat at many restaurants.)

Today, as per her request, I came by the restaurant on my lunch hour. She proceeds to give me instructions to her apartment and tells me what time I should pick her up. Once all of the details are arranged, and just as I’m leaving, one of the older waiters chimes in with a “I can’t believe you just gave someone your address!”

We’ll forego the mention of how easy it would be to find her address via, say, the internet, if I so chose. Forego it in favor of pointing out the absurdity of his fear. I mean do people really expect a serial killer or a stalker to show up at their place of employement and actually go through the motions of asking them out, talking to them, making plans, and bringing a kid along as a diversion? What about the secrecy stalking would require? Isn’t the thrill of stalking in the very essence of doing so while the stalkee doesn’t know the stalker is there? And what if I was a serial killer? How many stupid serial killers have you heard of? Nevermind that it is never the ones you *think* are the serial killers but always instead is the guy or girl who “just seemed so normal!”

Alas, MacGuiver there scared the girl away. We are set now for coffee ‘sometime later in the week’ — at which there will be a chaperone in the form of her younger coworker. (And where, please tell me, is the sense in that? A younger coworker would what, exactly? Fight off the machine gun fire? Distract so her friend could make a quick getaway?)

It just all points to the absurdity of dating in today’s world. How are two people supposed to get to know one another if they are afraid to go to a restaurant or a coffeeshop or to have dinner? I’m not so old that when I was coming up, a good first date was dinner at a restaurant. If you knew the person already, dinner at home was more than appropriate.

Oh well. I choose celibacy. All hail me! I proclaim myself Pope Pontifex Superfluous Maximus, minister to singletons everywhere.

(PS: Sorry for the long time away from the blog. I’ll explain why in a post tomorrow. For now, though, off to hear a choir sing.)