You Can Find Anything on the Internet

I’m at home now, recovering from open heart surgery. I know, it’s weird to write those words. It’s even weirder to be able to watch a video of a procedure similar to mine which you can see here. Although the surgery lasts about four hours, this video runs just under an hour. 

Highlights are: the sternum being opened (03:28), connecting the heart to the heart/lung machine (13:55), cooling the heart to stop it from beating (15:50), exposing the scarred septum tissue that will be cut away (19:05) and showing the section of scar that was removed (28:30). The rest of the video shows how they corrected the size of the mitral valve, which was not done in my case (my valve was partly replaced by a synthetic valve), closing after surgery, and restarting the heart (44:05).

You Gotta Have Heart

I’m going in for open heart surgery today. Yup. Despite leading a relatively clean life -- never smoking, never drinking, never using drugs (and barely using prescription drugs) -- I end up with a genetic heart defect that necessitates surgery. The bad news is that I’ll be out of commission for up to two months, if everything goes well; the good news is, despite what so many people have thought, I actually do have a heart. So there.

This odyssey began more than five years ago. I’ll spare you the details aside from saying that three years ago my cardiologist said my heart was fine and nothing was wrong; yet last year my general doctor was so concerned with my heart murmur that she suggested I go back to the cardiologist. Which I did. And that’s when they found it. Oh, well.

The surgery involves cracking open my sternum, cutting open my heart and shaving off part of the septum (the muscle that separates the left and right chambers of the heart) because it’s gotten too big and interferes with the flow of blood. It’s a relatively common surgery with a huge success and survival rate, so my odds are good. In addition, they’ll be replacing one of my heart valves and maybe installing a microwave oven, or a pacemaker, I forget which.

I’ll be adding updates to this blog as I can, but it might be a while before I’m back in the saddle again, so to speak.

Books I’m reading

Am reading this.

Just finished reading this.

When an Egg is More Than an Egg

When I was three or four, I remember waking up and finding my father on the couch in the living room. He wasn’t able to get up from the couch. He would have been about 30 or 31. Being so young, I didn’t understand what was going on, but it seems he had hurt his back at work the previous day and was trying to find a comfortable place to rest. Once he got down, he couldn’t get back up.

A little while later, the ambulance arrived to take him to the hospital. I screamed and wailed when the medical staff loaded him into the ambulance. Our next-door neighbor, the woman who baby sat me while my parents worked, had to strain to hold me back.

Eventually, I got to understand that he had gone to the hospital to have surgery on his back. The surgery was a success, but his back problems lingered for the rest of his life.

I only remember visiting him one time. It was Easter Sunday. The hospital was a big and incomprehensible place for me. My dad was in a bed, people were rushing around, wearing white. Other people were in bed. I brought my father some eggs I had colored. He told me to give one of the eggs to the man in the bed next to him, which I did. The man was very young and very nice. Turns out he was from Germany. I think he was in the hospital because of a car accident. He had no family in America. He seemed very happy to have me talk to him and give him an egg.

Many years later I was talking to my dad about this episode and he said "Remember the guy you gave the egg to in the bed next to me? He died the next day."

"Blackmail at Wrigley Field"

Yes, it's true: there are now FOUR James Murray Mysteries! (See link in the "My Books" section to your right.) 

James Murray is a young man with a dream -- he wants to be a writer just like his idol, Dashiell Hammett. He pens his first novel while working as a clerk at a swank downtown department store. He writes his second while working at a famous movie studio turning his first novel into a screenplay. His third novel chronicles his adventures trying to find a kidnapped scientist.

And now the fourth, and perhaps most dangerous adventure, brings him perilously close to someone who's blackmailing baseball players, threatening to take their money and expose their secrets. But James has other troubles: he’s not done very well since his girlfriend left him to pursue her own career. He’s fallen on difficult times and fallen hard. Can he help himself as he tries to help his new friends discover the identity of the blackmailers?

Blackmail at Wrigley Field -- like its predecessors Abduction at Griffith Observatory, Sabotage at RKO Studio and Murder at Eastern Columbia -- is unlike any other book you've read: Not a single novel, it's two parallel novels, featuring two heroes, working two mysteries in two different versions of 1930s Los Angeles. Join James and his alter ego as they each try to find the person behind the blackmail. His hard-boiled alter ego -- neither a private detective nor a police officer: just someone "who wants to help" -- needs to find out why ballplayers keep getting threatened and who might be behind it all.

Along the way, they encounter a rich cast of characters including a handsome young baseball player who’s been leading a secret life, a girl reporter with her own agenda, a hardworking man from China who lost his family in the influenza epidemic, a young deacon, a man with a drinking problem who might have the answer, a mysterious girl from Italy who harbors a tragic secret, an unsavory gangster with whom they have crossed paths before, and the beautiful girl who works at a boarding house who might be the one they’re looking for.

Blackmail at Wrigley Field is filled with twists and turns, leading to a final showdown in a spectacular mansion high above the city in the Hollywood Hills.

Come along for the ride in this, the fourth James Murray mystery: the story of a young man who dreams of something better.

The Shape of Things to Come

I wake up this morning happy to be alive and enumerating the many wonderful things in my life. I’m excited about all the changes coming this year. I already know some of the changes to come, and am eager to see the changes I don’t yet know will happen. I have a new novel coming out this month (my tenth book!) and am, believe it or not, starting my tenth year with this blog! I just finished celebrating the twentieth year with my spouse, Matt and look forward to another wonderful year with him.

Please stay tuned to this blog so we can share some of the wonderful, and not so wonderful, things to come.

The Other One

A few years before I met my spouse, Matt, I met the perfect man for me. It was a casual, work-related meeting that sent me spinning. He was gorgeous, smart, funny, loved theater as much as I did. We clicked immediately. I had been so busy with work, and so disappointed at the fish in the ocean, that he became the first guy I dated in about ten years.

We started seeing each other, going out, spending time together. He told me he loved me, he wanted to be with me, that I was the one for him. I felt exactly the same way. I thought this was it. For the first time ever, I thought this was the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

We dated a couple months, then one day, over lunch, he said the following: “I hope I haven’t said anything that would make you think we had a future together.” What do you say to that? I was devastated. I crashed so low I didn’t think I would ever get up again. I found out he had been dating someone else at the same time he was dating me. He invited me to their “wedding” in a couple weeks. They exchanged rings and had a commitment ceremony (sans me).

A while later, he called and told me they had broken up, and that he’d been thinking of me and wanted to see me. Well, what do you say to that? I told him I was genuinely sorry his other relationship had failed (I was), and for him to call me next week and we’d do lunch.

He never called.

A few years later I met Matt, who turned out to really be the perfect man for me.

Another Night Before Xmas*

'twas the night before xmas
in the year '68
When a young boy was eager
but forced to wait.

Xmas was around the corner
and presents were near
when suddenly a door bell
the boy did hear.

He raced to the door
"Was it Santa, perhaps?"
No, a chap in brown shirt
and matching brown pants.

"I'm looking for Christopher,
might you be he?"
I didn't at first realize
he was talking to me.

"Um, yes sir," I replied
always taught to be nice
"Sign here," he said,
I think he asked twice.

I signed the receipt,
and returned it to him.
He gave me a box
and a sly little grin.

"What could it be?"
I wondered aloud
and walked to the living room,
my mind in a cloud.

I opened the box,
it didn't say to delay,
and found twelve sea creatures
and a boat with which to play.

Requested so long before
I did nearly forget
from Nabisco I had ordered
his neat sea animal set.

I played with it for years,
in the bath and the pool
and on not a few occasions
was actually late to school!

So thanks to Nabisco,
and the UPS guy too,
my xmas was happy
and very special, too.

Here's wishing a wish
to you and you and you
that your special sea creatures
will arrive in time, too.

*this is a true story 

Crazy Dancin’ Christopher (No, Really)

I remember dancing at a very young age. As I grew up, I danced in theater, taught dance, and danced for recreation. I mean I danced a LOT. (You can see very early footage of just how crazy I was about dancing here.)

When I was young, our summer vacations always ended with a huge Labor Day picnic for the employees of the company where my father worked, Western Gillette -- sorta like the big company fete you see in the movie musical Pajama Game. It was always held in Paradise Valley (Arizona) at the Paradise Inn (pictured) -- a big, old, sprawling resort that opened in 1944 and had a real Western feel to it. It’s now long gone, with the Phoenician Resort sitting where it used to be. I loved those picnics because they had a big bar-be-que, games for the kids, drawings for prizes, swimming and lots of fun stuff.

One year, when I was about the same age as the above video, I entered a dance contest at one of the picnics. It was open only to kids, and there were many rounds where the winner worked his/her way up. Kinda like a March Madness of dancing. It was a tough slog that finally got down to me and this little blonde girl a couple years older than me. Well, I whooped ass and won! For my efforts, I got a huge box of chocolates.

The picnics -- and, really, my childhood -- ended sometime in the early or mid 1970s when Western Gillette was bought out by the Roadway company. I don't think they ever had company picnics again. If they did, I know I didn’t go to any. Isn't that sad?