I'm in Fort Lauderdale waiting for a flight and it's already been postponed to 8:10pm. Meaning I won't get to the hotel in Key West till nearly 10. This is after I got a call, yesterday, from the UHaul center in Key West telling me they don't have the size truck I wanted; I have to take a larger one. Drive it 160 miles up a two-lane bridge, tomorrow. What fun.
On top of that, this terminal does not offer power outlets for you to use, so one of my phones is about to die. I'm sort of charging it off my laptop, which has a really good battery, but it's not happy.
I read some of Robert Olen Butler's A Strange Scent From A Good Mountain on the flight down. It's a collection of short stories about the Vietnamese in Louisiana. He's got a lovely, tender style that whispers around you like a gentle trail of incense. I can see why he won a Pulitzer for it.
My favorite, so far, is the one called "Fairy Tale", about a former bar girl/prostitute in Saigon, Miss Noi, who now dances in New Orleans. She doesn't understand English, and the way it's written almost like he's channeling a woman trying to understand another language via her own language's thought processes. Its ending is just right and actually brought me to tears.
I will read more of his books, just to see how he works his verbal magic. I'm also going to read some other modern writers' works to expand on my basic grasp of English grammar. I've been too caught up in the classics for my own good. I try to make certain I've done the right thing as I write, but sometimes I'm not sure about when to end a paragraph or how to line up a sentence; I just do what feels right and let it go.
I guess I should reread Strunk & White, just to see.
On top of that, this terminal does not offer power outlets for you to use, so one of my phones is about to die. I'm sort of charging it off my laptop, which has a really good battery, but it's not happy.
I read some of Robert Olen Butler's A Strange Scent From A Good Mountain on the flight down. It's a collection of short stories about the Vietnamese in Louisiana. He's got a lovely, tender style that whispers around you like a gentle trail of incense. I can see why he won a Pulitzer for it.
My favorite, so far, is the one called "Fairy Tale", about a former bar girl/prostitute in Saigon, Miss Noi, who now dances in New Orleans. She doesn't understand English, and the way it's written almost like he's channeling a woman trying to understand another language via her own language's thought processes. Its ending is just right and actually brought me to tears.
I will read more of his books, just to see how he works his verbal magic. I'm also going to read some other modern writers' works to expand on my basic grasp of English grammar. I've been too caught up in the classics for my own good. I try to make certain I've done the right thing as I write, but sometimes I'm not sure about when to end a paragraph or how to line up a sentence; I just do what feels right and let it go.
I guess I should reread Strunk & White, just to see.
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