Tag: creativity

Another day in, well, New York

OK, I have to start this off with a beef…

I can’t get a good cup of coffee.  I mean, for a country that is supposed to be renown for its coffee, so far the best I can say for it is, it tastes like bilge water.

So…

It seems that a standard cup of coffee with one shot is basically odd tasting milk.  A double shot, if they deign to give you one, tastes a little better.

A triple shot, well now we’re getting close to what a single shot tastes like where I come from in Australia.

I’m beginning to believe that what we call coffee in our country, would not be very acceptable here as it is too strong.

But…

The biggest problem I have is getting anyone who serves to understand what I want.  I ask for medium and I either get a small or a large.  I ask for a small, I get a large or a medium, and pointing directly at the cup I want gets no response whatsoever.

Is it because they cannot understand Australian?

I mean I speak English, but I’m resigned to the fact unless I make it myself, I’m going to give up.

And, just as a side note, Starbucks do not make coffee.  I’m still trying to work out what it was I got the last time I was there.

Now for the good stuff…

Public transport in this city is amazing.  I read a lot about the problems New Yorkers seem to have but for me, my experience couldn’t be better.

I had to go from 59th Street, Columbus Circle, to Penn Station Newark.  When we set out the only thing we knew was how to get to Columbus Circle.  There a very nice New Yorker helped us get underground tickets for the A-line.

At the other end, a Penn Station, a friendly policeman told us where we needed to go, and then a lady in the information center directed us to the platform.

The same happened on the way back.  I cannot speak more highly for the people in both New Jersey and New York in helping visitors.

All in all, an interesting day.

Experiences as inspiration

At what point does the journalist come out in a writer?

Quite often journalists become writers because of their vast experience in observing and writing about the news, sometimes in the category of ‘truth is stranger than fiction’.

I did journalism at University, and thought I would never get to use it.  I had to interview people, write articles, and act as an editor.  The hardest part was the headlines.

How much does that resemble the job of coming up with a title for your book?

Well, several opportunities arose over the last few months to dig out the journalist hat, put it on, and go to work.

Where?

Hospital.  I’ve had to go there a few times more in the last few months than I have in recent years.

And I’d forgotten just how hospitals are interesting places, especially the waiting room in Emergency.

After the second or third visit, I started to observe the people who were waiting, and ran through various scenarios as to the reason for their visit.  None may have been true, but it certainly was an exercise in creative writing, and would make an excellent article.

Similarly, once we got inside the inner sanctum, where the real work is done, there is any number of crises and operations going on, and plenty of material for when I might need to include a hospital scene in one of my stories.

Or I could write a volume in praise of the people who work there and what they have to endure.  Tending the sick, injured and badly injured is not a job for the faint hearted.

Research, if it could be called that, turns up in the unlikeliest of places.  Doctors who answer questions, not necessarily about the malady, nurses who tell you about what it’s like in Emergency on nights you really don’t want to be there, and other patients and their families, all of whom have a story to tell, or just wait patiently for a diagnoses and then treatment so they can go home.

We get to go this time about four in the morning.  Everyone is tired.  More people are waiting.  Outside it is cool and the first rays of light are coming over the horizon as dawn is about to break.

I ponder the question without an answer, a question one of the nurses asked a youngish doctor, tossed out in conversation, but was there a more intent to it; what he was doing on Saturday night.

He didn’t answer.  Another crisis, another patient.

I suspect he was on duty in Emergency.

Conversations with my cat – 1

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This is Chester.

Don’t be fooled by the benign expression, I’m getting the ‘your conversation better improve, and quickly’ look.

I guess it’s the talkative Tonkinese in him, tempered by the crabby Siamese part.

But …

We were talking about the state of the world, and he agrees it isn’t looking good, especially for travelers in Europe.  Of course, he is averse to either of us leaving him alone for any length of time, so he would say it was unsafe and we’d better stay at home.hat

I suppose that selfish part comes from the Burmese in him.

However …

I have scratched Germany, Austria, France and England off the list for the time being and consider it’s time to see a lot more of Italy.

We’ve been there several times, to Rome, in summer, to look at the Ancient ruins (Chester was rather impressed when I showed him a picture of the Collosseum), to Florence several times, just for the ambiance, and to Venice simply because we love it.

Then, we have also spent a few days in Tuscany, in an apartment very close to the town center of Greve in Chianti.

Chester, of course, was dismissive, but, he says, if we agree to take him with us …

 

 

It’s cold out there

But…

It is, but it isn’t.  Oddly enough after two weeks in temperatures ranging from -21 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, I think I’m finally used to it.

My early morning walk after leaving the hotel is both for exercise and exploring.

Looking for locations, observing people, watching and learning what it’s like to live, work, and hang out in a city like New York.

It’s so much more interesting than where I come from.  There it would be impossible to spin a story in such a small city.  You need to be able to hide in plain sight among millions of people over a very large area that encompasses Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and everything else in-between and beyond.

I was looking at going to a Walmart in Secaucus, about three and a half miles from my hotel in Manhattan.  Three and a half miles.  In my city that’s way beyond the limits of the city and in the outer suburbs.

Here I can spin a tale that could live within the confines of 35th street, 85th street, 2nd Avenue and 10th Avenue, and have so much material, I could probably write a trilogy.

Pity is, I won’t be here long enough to gather enough background.

Still, it’s like being in literary seventh heaven.

I’ve written one book based in New York, I’m sure another is currently writing itself in my head and will be on paper over the next year.

Then, maybe I’ll be back.

I’m back in the big apple

Only to find that no one calls New York that anymore.  Just goes to show you how far behind the times I am.

But…

Here I am, and loving it.

We’re staying in the middle of everything.  One way is Broadway, and down the road, Times Square.  Go the other way, and we’re in Fifth Avenue, looking in shops that I can’t possibly afford to buy anything.

Yet it feels good to think one day I might.

And to magnify the stress level through the roof, we hired a car from Avis whose office was in West 54th Street and then went ‘joy riding’ through the streets of New York on our way to the Lincoln Tunnel and further south to Philadelphia.

There’s something about being out in the minus 1 temperatures, dodging the rain, looking at the low mist, or clouds, hiding the high rise buildings.

It took us two days to find the Empire State Building.

We haven’t been to any museums yet, nor have I found a good bookshop, which is practically sacrilegious for me, but it’s now very high on the list of things to do.  There’s a Barnes and Noble in 5th Avenue, which is not far away.

But for the moment it’s dining at Ruby Tuesday where I had the best hamburger, simplicity in itself, and Cassidy’s Irish pub where I had some strange meat burger thing and vegetables which was delicious, and a slice of apple pie that would take three people to finish off.

And a bucket of beer.

Wow, are things done differently here.

What the hell time is it anyway?

And why is a coyote baying?

Oh, that’s right, were in Canada, and the ice hockey channel is running in the background while I’m trying to work.

Alright, we’ve arrived in Lake Louise from Kamloops, and there’s been a time change.  Being from Australi, we lost or gained so many hours I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.

Yes, I left on the 26th, traveled around half the planet, and it’s still the 26th, after a stopover in Shanghai where it was the 27th.

Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?

Today it is the 30th.  Yesterday was my wife’s birthday in Australia and we got a number of calls on the 29th, which was amusing, to say the least.

Now, we’ve gone from Kamloops to Lake Louise, and apparently now that we are in Alberta, it’s an hour later.

The rental car we’re driving didn’t get it, and we’re still an hour behind.

My phone didn’t get it, but it is understandable because I did not connect it to the Canadian network to give us internet connection because it will cost money.

It did on my wife’s phone which is connected to the network and it’s the only device we have that tells the correct time.

And why do we really need to know what time it is?

So we make the plane the day after tomorrow, from Calgary to Toronto.

I never realized that time was so important, and I wonder how people who travel the world remain sane with all the changes to the time zones.

I’m on the other side of the world

Currently, I’m in Canada, Kamloops to be precise, on the other side of the world.  It’s dark outside, we’ve just been driving through rain hail and snow from Vancouver on the Coquihalla Highway, a road that we’ve seen on TV.

We drove into a town called Hope, where from the first restaurant that was full, each succeeding one was just slightly less so, till we got to McDonald’s.  It was crowded, but not as bad as the others.

I guess there’s no getting away from mainstream fast food places.

It was raining, very very dull and gloomy, and it didn’t fill me with hope.  I was wondering whether the people who had got there, striking their way east, were just happy to get somewhere for a rest.  It certainly got bleaker and bleaker as we headed towards Kamloops.

Back home in Brisbane, it’s sometime after 3 in the afternoon, oddly enough, tomorrow afternoon.  How world time zones can throw you into a tizzy.

My wife’s birthday is tomorrow, no, hang on, if we were back home it would be today, so according to her it started today and will finish tomorrow.  Of course, it means two presents, two cakes, two parties, and two dinners.  How the quirks of time can work in your favor.

Tomorrow we strike on for Lake Louise, apparently about minus 16 degrees, and the same distance as it was today.  There is a far greater likelihood of driving in the snow and making slow progress.

I can hardly wait.

But, there’s always a silver lining, so many ice hockey games to watch, live!

Is it time to get on the plane yet?

What I wanted to say is the world is going to hell in a handbasket, but the truth is, it’s probably just me.

It’s the time of the year, and it’s the only time we can go away, and as we live in the southern hemisphere, it seems logical to go north.

OK, that’s probably not as rational as it sounded in my head a few seconds ago, because where we’re going it’s about minus 16 degrees.

Where on earth could it be that cold, other than the north pole?  Lake Louise.  Canada.  Somewhere up in the mountains.

Why are we going there?

Because it’s there.  Because we haven’t been there.  And, no doubt after we’ve been there in the dead of winter, we won’t want to go back?  Who knows.

But…

Oh, yes, there’s a but…

I need some good background for a story I’m writing, and if you’re going to do the winter thing, or the white Christmas thing, when your Christmases are usually 40 degrees Celcius in the shade, then Canada is the place to do it.

Aside from the fact, we might run into Murdoch in Toronto, and, definitely, the Maple Leafs, yes, I can see myself saying ‘go leafs go’, whilst sipping on a large glass of Molten beer.

Then, there’s New York for a week.  Perhaps everything will be shut down, but maybe not.  Hopefully, there will be snow in Central Park, or, if not, the squirrels, and if not them, perhaps a movie star or two walking their dog.

One can always hope.

While it still is called Christmas

I’ve been reading other blogs again.

Every morning I have a skim through the half million or so blog pieces that appear in my reader.  It has a number of recommended blogs which I sometimes follow because the piece added to the blog mini profile looks interesting.

To be honest, I have no idea how many blogs I follow, but there is always a lot of diversity in reading material.

At this time of year, the main subject is Christmas.

Thankfully we can still celebrate Christmas, and not offend the multitude of other religions that don’t, but I’m guessing that sometime in the future when some government decides to go overboard with political correctness, the word Christmas will be banned, and it will simply be ‘holidays’.

I guess my rights as a Christian will be trampled on, and there’ll be nothing I can do about it.  Perhaps in being not so devout about my religious convictions, I’ll let is pass as most people do when there’s nothing they can do about it.

It’s a bit like death and taxes really.

Maybe then the turkeys will only have to dread one day of the year!

I found a few travel pieces, one of which was walking around London in a day.  Not possible because I’ve tried it.  High Holborn to Hyde Park to Knightsbridge, and everything in between.  Trafalgar Square, Picaddilly Circus, Oxford Street, the Serpentine, just to name a few.  High tea in Selfridges was the highlight.

Memories of another lifetime.

Then there was the rant.  I love a good rant, especially when I agree with it.

People who have succeeded in their own individual way should keep it to themselves, and not try to ‘market’ these ideas as workable for the masses.  They just don’t work for everyone else.  What happens at a particular time in the universe for you is great, but to replicate it?

I don’t think these people get it.

Your own brand of success is yours.  You do a lot of work, spill a lot of blood and tears along the way.  Trying to find an easier way by emulating someone else’s success?  You and a million others are trying to get on a single bandwagon.

Oops, looks like I’m having a rant too.

Have a Merry Christmas while it still is Christmas, who knows what might happen in the future.

 

On the ground, not daring to move

For the moment the treasure hunt is off.

In another universe, our hero, or a fool, depending on what you think of him jumping out of a moving helicopter, is languishing in the sand.

 

Lying there, afraid to move, I honestly believed that was just the stupidest thing I’d ever done.

Aside from the fact I could see we were about to be blown to kingdom come by a rocket, I had that split second to decide if I wanted to be incinerated, or in possession of 206 broken bones.

I guess I was assuming I’d survive the landing. 

After all the helicopter was only about twenty to thirty feet above the ground and not moving very fast, in fact, it was slowing, and turning away, when the pilot saw the rocket launcher.

I could hear the crackling of fire not far from me, a result of the helicopter hitting the ground.  It wasn’t a large explosion, and certainly not accompanied by a hail of red-hot metal parts.

Not yet.

I moved and it hurt.  Understandable.  But there didn’t seem to be any broken bones, which was nothing short of a miracle.  I did try to affect a roll when landing as we were trained in parachute jumping, and maybe that had helped.

Enough time to recover, I rolled over and got to my knees.  Ok, that hurt, twinges in my lower back, a slight sprain in my right ankle.  No running then.

Then I heard the gears crunching, so sort an old Toyota pickup would make, followed by an over-revving engine.  A novice driver.  Or a man in a hurry.

Damn.

The pickup was coming back to check the wreckage.

And if there were any survivors.

No gun, lost that in the jump.  But, as luck would have it, an AK47 was lying on the ground between me and the burning wreckage.

Only one problem.  The pickup would be on me before I could get to it.

 

Is this the very definition of being between a rock and a hard place?