Slightly Off the Mark

 Seven years ago, I swore I would never, EVER drive in Chicago again.

Last Saturday, we drove to Chicago. Again.

It was for the same reason as last time, to see The Cure in concert. The Cure's music is ... well ... it's been called post-punk, gothic rock, new wave, and alternative. Robert Smith has fronted the band since the late 70s, so I assume it wasn't all that at the same time. Oddly, while I don't care for those types of music, I actually like The Cure. Not the way Emily does. Not "we have to go to Chicago to see them play". No, sir. But I love my wife, and proved yet again that I'm willing to put my life on the line for her.

The venue was different from last time, giving me the hope it wouldn't be as far into the city.

It wasn't as close. It was closer. We actually drove between the skyscrapers at one point. We experienced our version of "The Suicide Squad".

The place is called The United Center. As I understand it, some sports-ball team plays in it when concert season is over. The Bills, or the Bulls, or the Boobs, something like that.

We got the nosebleed seats, but I didn't realize how literal that was. Our seats were in the very last row of a stadium that seats 23,500 people (sold out), and to get there we had to buy rock climbing equipment and hire a sherpa. It never occured to me that anyone would put in sections so steep that your toes are at the level of the next fan's head, which I'm sure has caused a fight or two. The place had to have been built in the 50s--no way would authorities allow such a fall risk these days. If I'd slipped on the top step, I'd have kept tumbling until I bowled over the drummer.

(I checked: It opened in 1994. They probably had some celebratory hang gliders launch from our position that day.)

And the band? Well, the band was great, but I wish I'd brought my telescope. They looked like little Polly Pockets, if you remember those. Kind of micro-dolls. There were two big TV monitors beside the stage, but we could barely see those either, especially once the questionable smoke started to rise from the audience.

As you can see from the above photo, we actually had a seat right in the center. Cool, right? The crowd is shining their cell phones to bring the band back for an encore. I don't know what encores are in other places, but this was more like the halftime show.

The Cure started a little late, and after that "encore" we walked out to the parking lot, got in the car, and ... sat there. Driving to the venue had been a lot like the asteroid field in "Star Wars V: Crazy Drivers Strike Back". So we decided to let things clear a little, and the more we thought about it, the more we let things clear.

We were, in fact, the last car through the exit gate. On purpose.

 Surely, by well after midnight, both the concert crowd and regular traffic would have regained some measure of sanity, right? RIGHT?

Chicago driver are insane.

Not "bad". In fact, many of them are quite good in a NASCAR kind of a way. Sure, they may arrive with their cars covered in dents and scratches and pedestrians, at a speed that nets them a good 9 mpg gas mileage, but they'll get there fast.

Base, drums, amplifiers ... much calmer.

I had to drive 15 mph over the speed limit just to keep from being rear-ended. Even then, every few minutes something would streak around us like an F-15 doing a flyover. Then it would veer across three lanes, pass someone else, and dive back across the same three lanes without ever touching the brakes.

In heavy traffic. Well, it probably didn't seem heavy to them.

I'd like to speak specifically to everyone in the Chicago area who drives a Dodge Challenger. We saw the rear-end of several, because despite my instincts, I had to keep my eyes open. You people, you're crazy. Nuts. Looney-tunes. The fact that any of you survive is proof of guardian angels.

Typical Chicago Driver Enjoying the Mayhem.

As for us, there were only a few times when I had to stand on the brakes and swerve into another lane. Emily may have screamed, I don't know. I did. The rest of the time my death grip stayed on the steering wheel, my head on a swivel, and my stomach in my mouth.

We got home around 4 a.m., and after we stopped shaking slept most of the day. Then we woke up with a concert hangover. That's a real thing.

Then, the next day, Monday, my muscles remembered they'd spent six hours so tense you could bounce a quarter off them. Not to mention the three hours in the stadium seats, which were actually comfortable for the first hour. (Yeah, my ears popped on the way up, but nobody dropped a car on me.) Ironically, after all that sitting over the weekend, on Monday I couldn't get off the couch.

I'm glad Emily got to see her favorite band, and I'll take her again--if they ever come to Albion.

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Remember whenever you don't buy a book, another driver is born in Chicago. Oh, the humanity!

 Let me tell you all a story of improper editing, and how I left a path of scorched earth behind me that no army could hope to replicate.

The worst part is: It's all my fault. Try as I might, I can't blame anyone else, an idea that sets people (especially politicians and mid-level management) quaking in fear.

But you can learn from my fate, if you're a writer. Or even if you're not.

While a literary agent isn't an absolute requirement to be traditionally published, they can open doors and otherwise be a great help to an author's career. What agents want in their submission packages varies, as I've mentioned before. Generally they ask for a query letter, an author bio, the opening pages of your book (anywhere from five pages to several chapters), and a synopsis.

Writers hate the synopsis. You have to boil your (in this case) 82,000 word novel down into just a couple of pages, which should reveal all your major characters, plot, setting, and ending. That's all. How hard could it be?

For most writers, it's pretty hard.

I suppose Beowulf wonders why I keep taking photos of him while I'm writing. It's because he DISTRACTS ME.

Okay, so I had an outline for We Love Trouble, but it was too long to serve as a typical synopsis. After months of writing, revising, editing, and polishing the manuscript, I had to carve that outline down even more. I was exhausted. But the job wasn't over, so I by-gosh carved out that synopsis, finishing when it was so late even the dog was asleep.

The next day, confident I had everything ready, I started submitting.

Now, most literary agents accept simultaneous submissions. That is to say, they don't mind if you submit to more than one at a time. Most publishers have a problem with that: They want to be the only publisher that can see your manuscript for several months before they send you a form rejection letter. That becomes an incredibly stressful waiting game for writers.

Just the same, a good author-agent relationship is vital, so I carefully select which agents I'm going to query. The synopsis stays the same, of course. Imagine writing a new synopsis every time! Since I do the extra research, over the course of two weeks I only submitted to fourteen agents. They were ones I thought would make for a good fit.

Then I went on to other things: Writing, editing, submitting short stories, occasionally sleeping. Replies began to trickle in, all but one of them form rejections. It appeared that my careful targeting impressed no one.

A couple of months later I got time to send more submissions. I skimmed over my materials, just to make sure I didn't want to change anything. That's when I discovered I had whittled my outline down to a synopsis ...

But I didn't check that synopsis for errors.

"Oh, that? It's the dumpster fire that used to be my writing career. Move along."

I sent it on rife with typos, misplaced words, and ... well, no spelling errors, but otherwise it was a trian wrack. Just like that, my two weeks of submitting was cleared away like a tornado sucking up a trailer park. If those agents remember me at all, it will be with the kind of dislike people reserve for drivers who cut them off in traffic. No one's perfect, but this wasn't one error: This was as if FDR started off his famous Pearl Harbor speech by getting the date wrong.

"December 6th, 1942 ... a date that will ... no, wait ...."

Since corrected, of course, but that doesn't get those agents back on my possibilities list. E-mail addresses can be whitelisted to allow them through--mine has been blacklisted. I can only hope they aren't swapping stories about me at agent conventions.

Learn from my fate. Edit. Polish. But for crying out loud, if you have to revise, go back and polish again. Some people will tell you too much time can be spent on editing, but I'm living proof that the opposite is also true.

Ah, well ... I'm sure I'll laugh about this someday.

No. No, I won't.

I’ve been diagnosed with Acute Mechanical Back Syndrome.

Yeah, I hurt my back.

Chronic pain is different from acute pain, which isn’t cute at all. Years ago I spent several hours at a business fire, most of it with a steel breathing air tank on my back because I was a dumb rookie. You know those big external fuel tanks on the space shuttle? Like that, only on your back. The newer air tanks are lighter, but—too late.

Now my back hurts all the time more or less, but you get used to it. More or less. Chronic back pain is like members of Congress who just keep getting elected, and never quite go away.

Then there’s acute pain. One time at an accident scene I pulled a back muscle while helping to carry a body up an embankment. (Yeah.) I managed to crab-walk into the rescue truck, got home without whimpering too much, and died. This was back in the days when firefighters didn’t admit to pain, or to being without insurance.

That’s acute pain, which I don’t usually get in exciting ways. At fires I’ve had ceilings fall on me, faced venting propane tanks, been on burning roofs, and once I missed a step in a smoke-filled building and fell down a flight of stairs.  (I’ve also done that in buildings that weren’t burning, but I’d rather not talk about it.) Generally I’m a pretty dull person, but every now and then I get into a situation.

But when I really get hurt? Never an interesting story, unless I embellish. This time, for instance, I’ve been laid up for days with intense lower back pain. What did I do? Rescue a kitten from a bear? Put out a flaming cocktail bar? Yank on Chuck Norris’ cowboy hat?

Nope.

I jumped over a puddle.

Yep. Just did an extra-big scissor step over some water, and felt a “twang!” like an overstretched guitar string. Then came the acute pain.

“I’ll be better tomorrow,” I told my wife. I wasn’t. I hurt so bad I couldn’t even write. Luckily for me she’s an excellent nurse, although she did overdo it a bit on al the stuff she made me do. Heat, cold, pills, rest—sheesh. On Monday I crawled into the doctor’s office, and he prescribed some stuff that had me counting the little rainbows spinning around on the ceiling. Then he gave me possibly the best advise any man who wants to heal could possibly get:

“Do whatever your wife tells you to.”

Yeah, those breathing air tanks. I had more air and more hair.

I had to exchange the plug on my old dryer with the plug on my new one, which I bought for $25 at my mom's church. In other words, electrical work. There were plenty of online guides on how to do it, but here's the rub: They all explained how to replace a three point plug with a four point plug. But the dryer I bought is actually older than the one it's replacing -- I had to replace the newer plug with the older plug, not the other way around.

Very, very carefully, I took the old new plug apart, matched it with the connections on the new old plug, and put them together exactly as the old new one had been put in when it was new, not old. I double and triple checked, and then, making sure not to touch the dryer or any metal as I did so, I plugged the unit back in.

No sparks, explosion, fire. No singed mustache.Happy and incredulous after only a few hour's of work, I turned the dryer on to make sure it would actually dry stuff.

Nothing happened.

No power. No idea why.