I had a fair day as a writer. I’d prefer if I could say the same about every day, but while fair days are a sign that perhaps I’m inching toward the fount of my subconscious creativity, where all of the best ideas hide, there are no guarantees I won’t lose my way and become mired in illusions. Great writing days are what writers strive for. Those hours when I find my way to the elusive zone of creativity where time and the world slip away, and there’s only the next sentence on a field of empty white, I am concentrating on creating something extraordinary: a paragraph of sentences that suddenly gels right in front of me. Then I realize this is why I need to work so hard, for one hour, or one day of writing worthy of arresting readers’ attention with the beauty and magic of words.
While I am busily inspecting every word of every sentence I have finished in first-draft form, my mind immediately begins mining its’ shadows for its next gem. I never lose sight of what I have yet to finish, working on it every day, but somewhere in my mind’s mine, a new strata of ideas are waiting to unearth their diabolical gleam. So that when I reach the saturation point at the mere sight of the story I am attempting to polish until it gleams like one gem in a night necklace of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, I can put it aside and begin mining that new diamond in the rough.
At this moment I recall my desire to add a third section to make a triad of slumgullion, a dish the Irish once favored of meat, onions, macaroni and cheese.
About that gorilla… A day bartender working in a posh bar on Broadway near Times Square, hasn’t had a customer all morning, when in walks a huge gorilla. The ape sits at the bar. The bartender, thinking this is New York City where anything is possible, sidles over to the gorilla and asks, “What’ll you have, sir?”
The gorilla looks at him, saying, “An extra dry martini, please, sir,” and pulls out a wad of cash that would choke a horse. The bartender shrugs off the fact that he’s talking to a gorilla, turns around, and, grabbing a cocktail shaker, adds the gin with a hint of vermouth over ice, shakes it vigorously, pours the contents of the drink to the brim in a birdbath martini glass, deftly impales three stuffed green olives on a plastic toothpick and places them in the glass. (Stop me if you’ve heard this…)
The bartender places the drink on a cocktail napkin and serves it to the gorilla. The big ape takes a sip, nods, and asks, “How much?”
The bartender scratches his head, thinking, ‘How much can a gorilla know about drink prices in New York? He’s carrying quite a wad of cash, too.’ He thinks a moment more and says, “Seventy-five dollars, sir.” If the gorilla gets pissed off, the bartender figures he can always lower the price. But the gorilla pays the exact amount in cash without even a scowl. The bartender fiddles with the cash register, but pockets the money as the gorilla sits decorously sipping his very expensive martini.
The bartender begins to feel guilty about cheating the gorilla, so with a little extra still in the cocktail shaker, he sidles over and pours the remnants into the gorilla’s glass.
“Thank you, sir,” the gorilla says and leaves the bartender a three-dollar tip on the bar apron. The bartender now feels even worse and decides he’ll make conversation with this gorilla.
“Is your drink okay?” he asks sheepishly.
“Yes,” the gorilla replies, “its fine.”
“Not too dry?”
“No, it’s just how I like a martini.”
Now the bartender really feels awful, and wants to be friendly. So he says, “You know, we really don’t get a lot of gorillas in here…”
The gorilla looks at him and says, “At seventy-five dollars a drink, I’m not surprised.”