The Writer's Life 2/9 - Snow Day

No one would argue that the divorce rate in the USA began to increase dramatically in the '70's. It was often said to be 50%, a figure that some statisticians say is grossly inflated. The good news is that the trend seems to be reversing. Where am I going with this? I came across a list at viralthread.com of celebrities who have been wed a long time. Here are the ten longest Hollywood marriages, which includes a three-way tie - by year - for ninth: Kevin Bacon & Kyra Sedgwick, Michael J. Fox & Tracy Pollan, Tom Hanks & Rita Wilson - all three couples tied the knot in '88; Sigourney Weaver '84; Denzell Washington '83; Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne '82 - she will be nominated for sainthood upon her death; Christopher Walken '69; Don Rickles '65; Bob Newhart '63; Jerry Stiller & the late Anne Meara from '53 until her death in 2015; Kirk Douglas 1954. Especially remarkable are the celebrity couples, where each spouse faces the myriad temptations fame provides.

Javier Lopez, a side-arming left-handed reliever has retired after 14 seasons in MLB. Who? He spent time with the Rockies, Diamondbacks, Red Sox, Pirates, and most notably the Giants, where he played a key role as a specialist and set up man on championship teams in 2010, 2012 and 2014. He also earned a ring in 2007 with Boston. Having lost a lot of interest in baseball since the dawn of the wild card era, I now note only the most obvious heroics. Although I'd never heard of Lopez, I say well done, sir. Many greats of the game were not members of a World Series winner.

Looking out my window, I see blue sky. The blizzard has moved out after having dropped perhaps ten inches of snow on Brooklyn. I left the house three times today: for my morning walk, when the snowfall was just beginning; to redeem recyclables, when the room was likely empty; and to clean off my car. The latter two ventures took me away from the computer. I spent several hours on the tedious task of resubmitting Close to the Edge to Create Space, all for the sake of eliminating a single glitch. When I resurrected the file from Google Docs and transferred it to the proper template, many line breaks occurred, and many paragraphs were not indented. I went through the file at least four times today. I hope I caught all the errors. I'll know once the book is approved and I order a copy. I was surprised that the number of pages shrank from 309 to 233. In looking over a current copy I see that the margins are wider than in my other CS books. I don't know how that happened. I should have realized something was not right from the start, given that the 5x8 1st Books/Authorhouse version had been 260 pages. A 6x9 should have been less. It now is. The best aspect of the move is that the Amazon (down from $11.50) and street price are now the same, $10. My profit margin on street sales will increase a bit. I'm hoping the floating book shop will be back in action Saturday. Traffic on the side streets may be treacherous in the AM after the overnight freeze. There was a thick layer of ice along East 13th. The major thoroughfares should be fine.
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