Bringing You Up To (Cough Cough Hack Hack Achoo!) Date

The Ladies' Home Journal says I have a cold.

I got it either at the movies last Tuesday when I saw Mud or Wednesday when I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and saw lots of pretty paintings and dresses. I don't recall being sneezed on at either place, but they are the most likely culprits.

I returned the favor by first noticing my sore throat at a showing of The Great Gatsby 3D (1 D too many for me- those 3 D movies give me eye strain), so who knows how many people I infected. My apologies to them, and I hope they don't blame it on spring allergies, the way I did before my Ladies' Home Journal consultation.

Whenever I get a cold, I ask myself if my mother would have made me go to school. I would have been able to convince her through yesterday that I'd be better off at home (lots of very impressive coughing yesterday), but today even I would have sent myself. So after running some errands, I returned to the computer for something more constructive than Freecell. Like bringing you up to date.

Monday, when I would have stayed home from school, I went to Poughkeepsie to participate in the Marist College Center for Lifetime Study Meet The Authors Day. Technically, I was one of the authors, and felt no particular need to meet me, but armed with cough drops and tissues, I went anyway.

The first author I met (although I didn't actually meet him, but I did hear him talk about Dwight David Eisenhower) was Michael Korda. His talk was very interesting, probably more interesting than Dwight David Eisenhower, who in my childhood perception, was one dull president (although he was the only president from Franklin Roosevelt on who had no daughters, a topic of endless fascination to me, albeit only me).

The second author I met was Steve Hamilton, who I did sort of meet, since we sat next to each other when we signed books. But more to the point, I went to his talk. In preparation, I'd read his novel, The Lock Artist , which I definitely enjoyed, even while sneezing and coughing.

After Mr. Hamilton spoke, he answered questions (that's what us writers do), so I raised my hand and got recognized, just as I would have in school, although the way I felt on Monday, I would have been able to convince my mother not to send me.

I very politely pointed out that according to my casual count, ten characters in The Lock Artist got slaughtered, and did Mr. Hamilton possibly think a book might be more powerful if only one or two characters got killed?

His answer was very interesting (to me at least- I didn't conduct a survey). He said he thought all the deaths were justifiable in terms of the plot, and that single murder books were the kind Agatha Christie wrote, and what he had cut down on was the use of what he called "the F bomb." Lots fewer "F bombs" in his books nowadays.

It was a very good thing that Mr. Hamilton hadn't read any of my books, because by my casual count, four named characters get slaughtered in The Shade Of The Moon, not to mention countless unnamed extras, whose bodies littered the streets whenever I felt like it. But I didn't drop a single "F bomb."

What I did drop was my old camera. Or technically it dropped me. I guess I took one cute picture of Scooter too many for it, because it simply stopped working.
The last cute Scooter picture my camera took
 So before infecting the entire audience of The Great Gatsby 3 D, I bought a new camera.

Scooter thinks that's just about as exciting as Dwight David Eisenhower!