WALKING IN DIAPERS FEELS OKAY

At Starbucks in Portland at 28th and Burnside, I'm dressed for the walk I just finished, and it was a chilly walk. Greater Portland Area is expecting maybe some few drops of snow mixed with rain during the next few days. Found some more interesting restaurants along 28th between Burnside and Sandy Blvd. Found Epif, a vegan restaurant with South American flair that has been advertising on PIFF screens. Tonight, however, I'm going to dine Italian. Saw a place with a vegetarian pasta dish...tomatoes, broccoli, you name it with zita pasta I think. Worked on rewrite of Ghoul World some little bit in early afternoon, and 70 people checked into this blog since yesterday. Thank you who are following my bucket list saga. Movie I'm seeing at PIFF tonight is Life After Life. Sent out a few more things recently to be considered for publication. I really don't do enough of the "sending out". Life is good, even in diapers. It's great walking the streets of a liberal modern city not caring if you poop your pants because it won't show through your diapers.

BEACH WALKS, CHAPTERS AHEAD, CLEAR SAILING FOR WEEKS

the beaches we walked

Over the weekend, in celebration of my 76 birthday (October 20th) my wife and I spent a weekend on Camano Island, north of Seattle, walking the beaches in fog and mist with nary a sign of sunshine, except in the love in our hearts for each other. That's all sunshine. Camano Island is stuck between Whidbey Island and the Washington Coast. Hardly an island at all, a couple of dump trucks of dirt would fill in the slough and creek that separates the mainland from Camano Island. We drove to La Conner, north of Camano Island for fried oysters. In fact, I broke so free of my vegan/vegetarian regime that I put on five pounds in two days of eating, but three disappeared as soon as we returned to Vancouver. Like magic. 

Today, I roughed out ideas for the next two or three chapters of Manning, adding several mysterious deaths that will puzzle Manning and, I hope the reader too. As I've said before, I see the ending, with only one decision to be made there, but getting to that ending should be all the fun of it for the reader.

SILENT BOOMER AND WIFE BEAT FEET ON MISSISSIPPI STREET

Did absolutely no writing today—except the limping poem below. Had I written, I'd certainly have dispatched Chapter Sixteen of Angie's Choice. I feel the thrill of the hunt as the end draws near for that rewrite with only 6 more chapters to go, but today is my wife's birthday. We've been having fun together, swapping spit and partying on Mississippi Street. We went to the Mississippi Street Fair and found another vegan place to eat, the Homegrown Smoker Food Cart at 4233 N. Mississippi Street. 
 
She munched down 
on a Macnocheeto Burrito 
while I chomped on
a Tempeh Rib Sammich very neeto.
Great sauce and greens,
that rhyme with yum,
and a side of BBQ beans
so good for the tumtum. 

The sea of people in the video was awesome. Mississippi Street slopes down toward downtown Portland. At first that river of people was a mirage. I didn't realize it was a river of people, then I got it, and my wife and I swam from one end to the other. A good two hour walk in the afternoon sunshine.

Back to the task on Monday. Humanists of Greater Portland tomorrow. 

SILENT BOOMER AT THE RED AND BLACK CAFE

Scenes from Red and Black Cafe

My cold's a thing of the past. Boring and repetitious as this news may be—I'm far into Chapter Twelve of the rewrite of Angie's Choice. This morning, I returned to a far flung planet in the Portland Galaxy to do the rewriting. Wife and I discovered the cafe on Sunday when we went looking for a vegan restaurant. I can't afford to cross the river very many days to work in The Red and Black Cafe, but I'll sure try to do it on occasion because of its purposes and its ambiance. It's a co-operative place, and it's owner/workers are members of the International Workers of the World (IWW). It's a few blocks south of Three Friends Coffee House which I've mentioned in the past. 

Last week the news was happily mixed as follows:

Thank you for querying BookEnds and giving me a chance to read your work. After giving careful consideration to your query, I'm afraid that it's not quite the right fit for our Agency. As you know, the publishing industry is very subjective. I evaluate queries based on my own interests—and the interests of the agents I work for—and what our agency is currently looking to acquire. Just because I didn't fall in love with your query doesn't mean that another agent or publisher won't. Keep writing, revising, and querying. Good luck! Best, Beth Campbell Literary Assistant  BookEnds, LLC. 

and

Hi George,
We'll publish your piece 6/24.
Keep up the good work!
team WORK

WORK LITERARY MAGAZINE:
You can read my work-related poem on that site.



Does anyone think my strategy of sharing rejections on this blog will be detrimental to my plan to get someone other than myself to publish one of my four novels? I do invite agents to read this blog occasionally.