Chapter 34 - Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been a Prostitute?

"Have you ever been a waitress before?"

"No."

"Have you ever been a maid?"

"No."

"Have you ever been a homemaker?"

"Do I look old enough to have a husband and kids?"

Happy shrugged as though the question were perfectly reasonable and continued the interview.  "So, why should I hire you over all of the other girls that have wandered in here?"  

Vera glanced at the woman who introduced herself as Flo earlier and thought that if Flo was a "girl," the best she could hope for was the status of newborn babe if not simply a fetus.  She kept her tone steady and unperturbed.  "I can play an instrument."

"Is that code for something?  I'm not into prostitution here." 

"Where are you into prostitution?"

After a brief look of confusion and then shock, the man attempted a smile, but with jowls that permanently pulled his face down, the best he could muster was a friendly sneer.  The name Happy was obviously an ironic moniker.  

"Are you a prostitute?" he blurted out, casting aside all aspersions of subtlety. This last line wasn't fashioned as a proposition but as a matter-of-fact statement to emphasize that the Happy Hour diner wasn't a place that condoned prostitution as a side business.

"No.  I play the trumpet."  Catching herself to put aside any mistaken double entendres, she added, "the actual trumpet."

"And why would that make you a good waitress?"

"At the very least, I could entertain the clientele."

Happy's jowls sagged a bit more in reluctance. "Are you sure..."

"Yup.  Still sure I'm not a prostitute.  You don't interact with many women do you?" She caught sight of Flo wandering distractedly in the distance.

"I'm still not certain that I should take a chance on someone with no experience."

"Well, combining the time I spent waiting for you to sit for this interview and the time that we've actually been conducting this interview, I've seen one customer enter in the past 30 minutes.  And he's obviously a regular."

"How do you know he's a regular?" Happy scowled skeptically.

"He's been sitting at the counter for 10 minutes, reading the paper, with no expectation of being served anytime soon."

"Well, it's past lunch rush," Happy blustered indignantly.

"It's 1 PM now.  Does everyone in this diner eat on East Coast time or am I missing what the concept of the word 'rush' means in this context?"

Happy, insulted by Vera's perception that his business plan hadn't yet met his expectations, continued.  "Do you have any other skills?"

"I'm good at math."

"Why would I need a waitress who's good at math?"

"So she doesn't short change you or the customers, for starters."

Happy's jowls sagged slightly less. "What else can you do?"

"I'm good at managing my time."

"Why does that matter?"

Vera sighed.  "It means I'm reliable when showing up for a shift.  It means that I can be flexible in scheduling when called upon.  It means that I'm taking this opportunity to better myself by attending college while also working what I expect will be a full-time job."

"Oh," Happy responded in a tone that some straddled the line between cheerful and morose.  "What will you be studying?"

"I haven't decided yet."

"I'm not sure I want a girl who isn't decisive."

"I'm going into engineering," she fired back.

Happy raised an eyebrow at this remark.

"What?  Now I'm sure I'm being too impulsive in deciding so quickly, right?"

Happy's jowls sagged again.

"Look.  There's really not a lot that you have to lose in giving me an opportunity.  You're not quite at the pinnacle of your fiduciary prowess yet, so it's not like I'm going to lose you any business if I'm initially slow on the uptake."  She glanced at Flo, who'd discovered lint somewhere in her hair and was now inspecting it thoroughly. "And I don't think the barrier to becoming a waitress here is particularly high."

Happy raised a finger, ready to issue an objection, but Vera cut him off.  "I'm happy assisting with management duties as well.  I can help you schedule the staff."  She looked toward Flo again who had the particular treasure from her coiffure pinned against the counter being slowly pulled apart.  "Hell, I can even help with the books and cook if needed."

"It's unbecoming of a lady to use that type of language."

"I'm not a lady.  I'm a prostitute."

"A-ha!" Happy's face lit up in the act of discovery as he prepared to launch into a speech he'd apparently been preparing the entire interview about the dangers of loose morales.

Vera sunk her face into her hands before meeting his gaze again evenly.  "I'm kidding."  The look of disappointment on Happy's face almost made her regret that she didn't let him give his speech before letting him off the hook.

"So, extra-curricular nightlife excursions aside, do I get the job?"

Happy munched on his lower lip, eyes cast downward. 

Vera glanced around at the diner.  Flo sat on a stool at the counter, staring at the wall.  The lone customer had fallen asleep amid his crumpled newspaper.  Somewhere in the distance, she thought she heard a lone crow caw.  "Well?"

"Ok," his tone had the timbre of a defeated parent giving into their child's whim for the latest toy spotted in a department store.  "But you need to be able to pull your weight."

Vera looked over at Flo, who had now also fallen asleep.  "Great!  I can help with recipes."

"Yeah?" his eyes shot suddenly upward.  "Do you know a good meatloaf recipe?  Mine has too much flour in it."

"I'm sure we can change it up a bit.  Maybe replace it with something exotic.  Like breadcrumbs.  Speaking of exotic, maybe we can add the occasional Continental dish for spice, like ratatouille or tuna niçoise.  We're in a big city.  People tend to be more cosmopolitan."  The customer at the counter let out a bellowing snore.

"Are you French?"

"No, I'm not French.  I grew up on a farm with access to a library nearby.  They had a few recipe books for French foods and I had access to produce, so I gave it a whirl."

"Do you have a recipe for spaghetti and meatballs?"

Vera put a finger to her lips in mock pensiveness.  "I'm sure I can dream something up."

"Good.  I don't want to start with anything too exotic.  And we have a pretty large Italian population in the city now, so I want them to feel at home."

Vera didn't have the heart to tell him that spaghetti and meatballs was invented in America.  Though, she suspected many of the "Italians" Happy was referring to were likely born here, so they wouldn't quibble too much at the distinction, as long as the food was decent.

Instead, she added, "Ok.  Also, I've got a great recipe for the best egg sandwich you've ever tasted."

[Author's Note:  If I do wind up short of my 50K word goal, I think my best option is to turn Vera loose to chew the scenery.  I hadn't intended to flush out her backstory more than the original piece, but she's not someone who shies away from further character exposition.  Today: 1156 words.  Total: 36466]

Chapter 33 - Click

Click. The lock yielded and Vera stood up, smoothing her skirt before peering inside.

[Author's Note: There.  I've opened the door in 14 words.  The book inches along at 35310.]

Chapter 32 - I Dabble

Vera and Spinoza bounded toward Loving's with a vibrancy not present in the first voyage.  Vera was energized with a new, promising sense of adventure while Spinoza was unencumbered by the same troubles - solving his partner's murder - that weighed down Tannehill in his trek to the bakery.

Shortly after exiting the diner, Spinoza questioned Vera with a sharp note of concern in his voice. "You're not worried about walking out on your employer during your shift?  Now's not exactly the best time to bet on continued employment."

"No, I'm not worried."  She kept pace three feet in front of him without looking back to explain further.

"Care to elaborate?"

She stopped and squared to face him, "the blackmail scheme I've enmeshed them in runs so deep that if you pulled any thread of it, the entire city would fall apart."

"Doubtful.  Especially not this city."

"Right, I forgot," she started walking again,  "You're the city's premier crime reporter.  Well, the real answer is more mundane.  In addition to simply serving customers, many of whom are creepy, middle-aged men who come in simply to ogle me, present company excluded..."

Spinoza harumphed something along the lines of "not being middle-aged" before Vera continued.

"...I also handle the books, manage the schedules, and provide recipes," and now she took her own turn to mutter under her breath "even though they butcher them."  She returned to normal volume, "I also provide them with the location of the latest hotspots for jazz when they want to try something new.  And, to be clear, I wouldn't walk out on Happy if I were worried he'd get buried during a rush.  He's good people."

"Wait, the owner's name actually is Happy? So it's his Hour?"

"Well, Stanislaw, but no one ever calls him that, just like no one apparently refers to your or your gumshoe friend by their proper, Christian names."

"I'm Jewish. You do accounting?"

"I dabble."

On the jaunt over, they continued to chat and found commonality in the novels they read in recent years and a shared appreciation of jazz.  They reached the door of Loving's in a vanishingly short time.  

"What do you think their specialty was, savory or sweet goods?" Spinoza asked distractedly.

"More like savory or sweet rodent," Vera crinkled her nose, perceiving movement deep in the bakery's kitchen.  

"Well, let's take a look around inside, shall we?"  Spinoza inched nearer toward the guillotine ledge.

"No thanks, I've already been on the tour once, I'll wait until your sojourn is over." There was no more movement in the kitchen - if there ever was - but she had no desire to buy into the betrayal of her lying eyes.

"Ok, I'll be back momentarily," he stepped on the ledge and was quickly swallowed in the semi-darkness of the store.  Vera watched eagerly as he waded through the shambles and exhaled a disinterested "huh" here and a half-hearted "hmm," there.  She lost sight of him momentarily as disappeared into the kitchen, listening intently for a blood-curdling scream or shout of pained surprise upon discovering a rat the size of a toy poodle.  No scream or shout issued forth.

"Confirmed.  There's nothing of value inside the joint," Spinoza exclaimed clambering back over the guillotine ledge into daylight.

"I think a cursory inspection of the outside would have clued anyone into that conclusion," Vera quipped.  "So, what now?"

"We're at the waterfront.  This is, quite literally, where everything entering the West Coast of the United States gets its ingress papers.   I think we have a few more leads we can chase down."

They walked around the side of the building to the splintered door in the back and surveyed the landscape from a vantage point near the heat-shrunk stagnant pool of water that so prominently warned off the adventurers the day before.

In front of them stood an imposing two-story gallery of wrought iron fencing and dark gray doors upon light gray cinder block, serving as a depressing motel structure for forgotten items.  Even the bright day permitted brief passage to a cloud scored black on its undercarriage as a foreshadowing acknowledgment of their discovery.  The gentle lapping of the ocean waves just behind the structure echoed quietly throughout the gallery, but the building's bleak design offered no evidence that just beyond it lay thousands of miles of sunlit expanse.

"Up or down?" Spinoza grunted matter-of-factly pointing to the gallery's bi-levels.

Vera glanced to her left at the winding spiral staircase beginning to rust in its near-marine environs.  Though the structure looked solid enough, a few tell-tale brown spots along the column urged her to take the safer bet.  "Down."

They wandered to the left, near the stairwell and climbed the three feet to platform, examining the first door the encountered.  Spinoza wiped some of the grime from the facade and examined the stenciling.  Though the salt air had taken its toll, they could clearly make out the back half of a crescent illuminating the lettering of niture.  

"Unless Loving's had a side business, we probably want to keep moving on." Spinoza wiped the grime on a nearby column and gestured for Vera to continue walking.  

They passed the next four doors with no lettering, aware that they may be embarking on a fool's errand of looking for the proverbial needle.  The fifth door had no lock, so they pressed their luck.  Vera opened the door and spotted two rats in an otherwise empty 10x12 space.  The rats squeaked in warning that they had sublet this particular unit first and Vera screamed in agreement, slammed the door with near-supernatural strength and kicked it twice as hard for emphasis.

"That could've been Loving's. It had the same demographic make-up I saw during my assessment of the bakery," Spinoza informed his wild-eyed, red-faced companion with a bemused twinkle in his eyes.  He could only make out her "...off" as she turned and began examining the other doors.  

They turned the corner of the gallery and now faced a row of doors opposite the back entrance of Loving's but separated by an imposing distance of about 30 yards.

They followed along this row of doors until finding another one with a hollowed-out lock.  Vera sighed, gulped, and tried the doorknob.  The door swung inward with little fanfare illuminating row upon row of poorly made fedoras stacked from floor to ceiling.

One row contained solid-colored water-stained hats for the large gentleman.  Others contained garish technicolor combinations for fashion trends yet to be.  Back rows leaned heavily on other back rows ashamed of the sartorial sins they represented en masse.  

"Well, let's see," Spinoza chuckled, "We've got rats and hats.  If the next unlocked door contains cats, then our first unlocked door problem will be solved."

"If you're going to make a joke, at least give it some effort," she exhaled.

"Could be bats," he continued ignoring her advice.

"Anyway, not Loving's" she responded, ignoring him in turn and continuing down the center walkway.

A few doors further, directly across from the battered back door of the bakery, they spotted "Loving's Bakery" in the typical semi-circle underlined with "Storage" to ensure that any confused would-be customers could discern the difference between the bakery behind them and the storage unit in front of them.  

Vera held out her hand.  "Key."

"I don't have it."  Vera pursed her lips and frowned at the man.  "What?  I was supposed to meet Tannehill at the diner.  He's got the key," he sniffed indignantly.

Vera muttered something else under her breath approximating "...a fine pair."  Slowly she reached into her hair and produced two bobby pins, letting her hair fall forward briefly and annoyingly in front of her eyes before pushing it back behind her ears.  She inched her skirt up above the knee to keep it from getting soiled and knelt down in front of the door.  She carefully straightened the pins and inserted them into the lock, beginning to work the tumblers.

"Where'd you learn to do that?!"  Spinoza couldn't tell if he was impressed, horrified, jealous or some combination of the three.

"Well, when the lord of the manor's away, one needs to be able to manipulate one's chastity belt for one's own needs and desires."

Vera could feel Spinoza's shocked response to her comment and her newly unearthed talent roll off her shoulders, but ignored him and continued her lock picking in earnest.

[Author's Note: At some point that door's going to open, but not in today's 1401 word edition.  After 32 chapters we're now at 35296 words.  I feel pretty confident I can hit 40000 words, but 50?  We'll see...Then again I didn't know I'd be able to get this far.  If I fall short, I've always got a few Quixotic tricks up my sleeve.]

Chapter 31 - The Greater Public Good

The trashcan in the alley was not simple trashcan tipping over of its own volition.  Nor a member of the gang that was targeted for the raid.  Nor one of the city's oversized raccoons looking to further fatten that night's haul of chicken bones and stale bread.

The trashcan was, in fact, a curious 8-year-old boy enamored by the brutal energy of the city.  Old enough to understand the dichotomy of good and evil, cops vs. robbers, but too young to understand the real costs of the morality play, he hounded his parents night after night to venture outside in search of cops on their heroic crusades.  Night after night, his parents refused, aware of the very real danger associated with his request.  Eventually, after sufficient pestering under the reasonable belief that, statistically, he'd be fine,  his parents had allowed him outside after hours, acquiescing to his desires to find some action via a major bust, a raid, or simply an arrest.  His desires did not disappoint.

After Tannehill fired into the alley, a couple of patrolmen lazily followed to inspect the events.  They found the boy, unmoving, covered under the refuse of the garbage can.  The common violence of so many previous raids come and gone caused them to simply shrug at the tragic scene that lay before them.  They nonchalantly mumbled something about the senseless tragedy of it all before informing Tannehill that he had gunned down a child.

Stunned and shaking, still more from the response to the loud noise that preceded the incident than from the realization yet of what occurred, he could only ask, "Is he dead?"

"Yup," one of the patrolmen answered laconically.  Everyone in the vicinity expected the typical platitudes before moving on with the night's work.  Someone else would be responsible for informing the child's parents and his name would fade into the annals of history.

"Good," was all Tannehill could blurt out.  His emotional response had outstripped his verbal acuity and his intent was to signal that at least the boy hadn't suffered or, worse, faced the prospect of suffering for the next several decades if he were unlucky enough to have been hit in spine or head and still survive.

However, the faces of all the men turned toward him indicated that they didn't pick up on his intent, only on his literal exclamation.

Some looked on in horror.  Others in self-satisfied disgust.  Here was one of the department's golden boys, Johnny College, the cop too good to accept a little fiduciary thank you on a public servant's salary, gloating over the death of a child.  None of them bothered to look at their own cavalier attitude toward the accident, only at their superior standing toward Tannehill's seemingly depraved response.

It was this combination of jealousy and repugnance that led to the events that followed.  The bootleggers, already nervous about their small-time role as the fall guys on the big-time stage, had begun packing up the critical infrastructure and cash when they heard the trashcan crash to the ground and only hastened their effort after the gunshot, assuming they would likely be on the receiving end of the next round.  By the time the raiding party had regrouped, the bootleggers had put two full city blocks between themselves and their former establishment. 

On first briefings, the politicians and department heads thought nothing more of the night's events.  This wasn't the first child who'd been caught in the crossfire in the pursuit of law and order, and this certainly wasn't the first busted raid that netted no positive propaganda for the city.  

However, some of the patrolmen on the raid had correctly surmised the city's diminishing tolerance of violence in the name of a movement they couldn't increasingly understand nor support.  Those same patrolmen used the opportunity to drag the department's standard-bearer through the mud and found a willing confederate in Phil Spinoza.

Spinoza saw his opportunity to effect change in the city's standard operating procedure, and, if he had to sacrifice a former friend on what was likely hearsay and, even, outright mendacity from his sources, then it was worth it for the greater public good.

It wasn't as if the department and the city weren't rotten to the core and that the lies for one particular incident weren't stand-ins for the likely horrors and mistruths they covered up on every other raid.  It wasn't as if Tannehill, his former friend, even if not an active participant in the corruption, wasn't a willing accomplice in their cover-ups.  He, their Golden Boy, stood in front of a podium day in and day out championing their methods while knowing full-well the bloodstains on their collective hands.  He, their Golden Boy, who had been shipped off as part of the infantry but somehow, miraculously, saw no action.  Wasn't he supposed to be the most likely to die in the trenches?  Instead, Spinoza had to see the horrors of war day in and day out while Tannehill remained safe.  He, their Golden Boy, who had to face one event - albeit horrific - of an ill-placed mortar, while Spinoza viewed the results of several ill-placed mortars and had to comfort the maimed and dying in languages he couldn't completely understand.  He, their Golden Boy, who was spared the ravages of the Spanish Influenza, while Spinoza's entire family was gutted.  He, their Golden Boy, who could cower behind a desk, ducking at every sharp noise and still receive a hero's welcome, while Spinoza covered every grizzly maneuver in the city night after night.

Putting his biases aside, Spinoza decided that whatever his feelings for Tannehill, positive or negative, and whatever dubious sources abound around this particular incident and its happenings, this was the story that could finally shine a light on a corrupt department led by the guidance of a corrupt polity.  This was the way forward for change.  The means may not be the straightest method of accounting for the night's events, but they would ultimately be justified by the greater civic ends.  

Spinoza worked feverishly to compile the facts over the days following the raid and ensured that he was able to publish his story before a cynical public began to assume that another child lost to the war on crime was just the price to pay to live in a large American city.

[Author's Note: Today's edition weighs in at 1059 words and contributes to a grand total of 33895 for the (now, actually) novel (or at least novella).  This also marks the first time since January that I've published multiple chapters in a month.  Given my renewed energy and a solid week left in mid-summer, there's even an opportunity I may be able to get another chapter finished before August.]

Well, What Do I Do Now?

The invariable question came up from one of my friends the other day that, if my ability to support myself via blogging (or some other independent means) becomes a reality, what would I do all day?  It struck me as a bit of an odd question, since the underlying assumption that writing a blog is passive income requiring little effort.  The reality, as espoused on many of the reality-check sites about Making $8 Gazillion a Year through a Blog is that blogging isn't as easy as it first appears.  

First, you need to generate a lot of content.  If the research highlighted in my previous posts is to be believed, it's approximately 1400 words per day.  I'll assume that's per workday, so that winds up being 100,000 words every 70 or so days. How daunting is this number?  That's approximately a 400-page novel every three months (accounting for the ~20 days of weekends over 3 months).

Then, once you have content, you have to make sure that it's something that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) algorithms (Google and the like - well mostly just Google) can find.  Before doing further research, it's my understanding that by producing enough rich (whatever that means) content, your blog posts don't require SEO tweaking.  SEO tweaking is its own beast that essentially means you have to structure your writing with enough (TikTok) popular (GenZ) words (social distancing) that search engines will pick up on hot topics and move them to the top of search results.  Search engines are also smart enough to realize when you're attempting to game the system.  So, no matter how many times I repeat TikTok here, I'm not getting to the top of the search results page.  And therein lies the definition of rich content (sort of) - what would you rather read?  A page that just simply lists the words TikTok 1000 times or this page (don't answer that).

Then, once you've got SEO-friendly content, you need to continue to cultivate a user base that actually finds your posts at least somewhat captivating.  Otherwise, advertisers aren't likely to care much about paying you for eyeballs if those eyeballs are disinterested or looking elsewhere.

Then, you have to hope that some other medium - like TikTok - doesn't completely erase your business plan based on blogging.  This one is a bit of fear-mongering on my part, since, despite all calls that so-called newer generations have shorter attention spans, humans will be humans for several thousand years to come and will also likely continue to read.

So, blogging isn't necessarily easy, unless you simply want to write useless tripe that gets written out regardless of whether or not anyone's reading it (ahem!).  But let's set those assumptions aside, and pretend for a moment that the blogging business is easy.  

As of this moment, would I have enough to do to keep myself from succumbing to boredom?  Let's make a list.  I'm going to assume that I'm replacing an 8 hour day and, that the things I already do outside of that 8 hours now are either expanded (playing guitar) or not considered (I'm lucky enough to make sufficient time for exercise now, so that's not something I'd do with extra time).

• Blog writing and editing.  As I mentioned in previous posts, at 1400 words with no research needed, this will still require about 2 hours of my day.
• The business of blogging.  I'm not entirely certain what this entails, but I'm sure it will require some comment moderation, probably checking in ads and affiliate links, working to tweak some SEO, etc.  For now, let's assume its 1 hour.
• Research.  This could take up an additional 2 hours per day, easily.
• Guitar.  Typically, I try to devote 15 minutes of my day to practice.  An additional 1 hour would certainly be nice.
• Cooking.  I do devote time to this already, but certainly having an extra hour in the kitchen would open up possibilities.

We're already at 7 hours.  If you're in a knowledge worker type field - like I am - then you've pretty much already reached your daily limit (unless you're seriously self-deluded and think you work without respite for 10 hours a day. And, no, meetings don't count).  I'm sticking to knowledge worker as my paradigm, because there's usually a lot of downtime at a typical office job that doesn't apply to other positions.

And that's just the opening salvo.  I can always add more reading, more exercise, mild software consulting, more foreign language learning and a lot of other things into the mix.  These are all things I've been doing for years and things I'm not likely to burn out on.  And many of these things can be income generating (making music, language tutoring, and consulting) even if it's only $50 or $100 a month.

Now, you may look at all of this and scoff.  "Those aren't really things you can rely on to keep yourself busy," or "that isn't real work."  Maybe.  But certainly between writing full-time and attempting to indulge myself in something creative and, potentially, helping out with programming projects sure seems like a productive use of time to me.

If you're the type that swings a hammer or is on your feet all day, and you're one of the scoffers, I get it.  In one form or another, I've had to do those jobs for limited amounts of time.  If you want to talk about work with a capital 'W', those are the types of jobs that definitely qualify.  If you're someone who's a software engineer, or office manager, or derivatives trader and tell me I'm either being lazy or pissing my life away, we'll you're wrong, since it's very hard to define what peak productivity is for those positions.

We've generally been conditioned as a society to tie our self-worth to our jobs, our income, and, worst of all, the hours we work.  We never actually stop to think about what we're doing and why we're doing it other than to say something distractedly about "wanting the entire experience" or "living our best life" or "gotta power through."  People who don't live up to our ideals of work, we label as lazy or inconsequential.  This is somewhat ironic, given the workers' movements to reduce work hours to something reasonable and John Maynard Keynes's concern about what we'd be bored silly when we eventually succumbed to the 15-hour workweek (which is nowhere in sight for most of the population).

So, if I do, by some fashion - most likely through a fair amount of hard work - have the ability to begin to earn income via my blogging activities, and you're someone who finds that trite, then take heart.  I've got the self-direction and career arc I've been craving for a while, and you can wallow in the glory of knowing I'm lucky, listless, fool.  If I fail in my travails, you can wallow in the glory of knowing I'm simply a fool, and I can be proud that I made an effort at a task I genuinely enjoy, was able to improve my craft, and likely add new perspectives to future situations simply by jotting my thoughts down.  Either way, we both win!

Chapter 30 - Is Myrna Loy With You?

"Are you William Powell?" Vera stood over Spinoza, pencil tucked firmly behind her ear and a nearly illegible note in hand. Spinoza occupied the same booth Tannehill always sat in.  What is it with these middle-aged men and their penchants for booths near the door?  Did age so ravage them that walking a few steps further down the counter would leave them breathless?  He was sopping up the final drippings of a late lunch by stabbing pointedly at the last potato on his plate.

"No," Spinoza drawled.

"Have you ever been mistaken for William Powell?"

"Possibly from a distance and by someone with poor eyesight.  Never for acting ability."

Vera squinted. "You're relatively tall, thin, and kind of cute in a Powell-esque way."

Spinoza blushed.  "You know The Thin Man wasn't named after the detect..."

"Detective.  Yes, I know.  It's named after the victim.  I've seen the film," she shifted the weight of her feet with a change in topic, "are you here to buy me a pastry?"

"I'm sorry?" Spinoza's eyes widened.  

"No?"

"No, I'm sorry...no."

"Perplexed by this whole exchange?"

"I'd be lying if I admitted otherwise," Spinoza stuttered but began to relax now that he realized he wasn't dealing with a lunatic.

"You're not the only one, buddy" Vera continued, beaming.

Confusion continued to reign in Spinoza's eyes.  Vera thrust the note on the table.  Misplaced drippings from his afternoon offering began to soak into the paper.  However, Spinoza could clearly make out that Can't come! William Powell - bye you a cake at bakery was clearly inscribed on the dry portion of the note. He looked up from the note, no further elucidated with the recent exchange than when she first skipped over to his table.

"It's a note from our other waitress, Flo.  She's not the most, um, literary type.  So, Mr. Powell, would you care to inform me why you plan on giving me a farewell pastry?"

"I don't think I'm the William Powell you're looking for."

"I don't think the real William Powell is likely to venture this far north and hang out near the docks."

"As flattered as I am to think that I should be waiting for someone as lovely as you, I'm waiting for a friend who's late."

Vera ignored the compliment.  "Who?"

"A private investigator."  Spinoza braced for a flurry of intrusive and prosaic questions about the nature of mysteries and the hard-boiled life.

"Tannehill?" was the only one he received.

Spinoza's response changed from confusion to shock.  His body sunk further into the leather upholstery of the booth in sympathy.

"And you're headed off to Loving's Bakery?"

Spinoza nodded, still stunned.  "How did you know?"

"My psychic powers amaze and impress."  

Spinoza harumphed at this response.  

"No?  Well, how about this Watson?  You've been tapping your fork impatiently for the last 15 minutes I've been here.  I made an educated guess that you were expecting Tannehill, because he's the nearest PI to this wonderful culinary establishment.  When Tannehill was in here last, he had a dusting a confectioner's sugar on his shirt cuff.  It's obvious from his attire and demeanor that he doesn't bake on the side, as his suit is rumpled and indicative of a cramped apartment.  And, when he was last here, he seemed distracted, so his excursion to Loving's wasn't likely successful, so it's elementary that he'd attempt another journey."

Spinoza's mouth dropped open.  "You were able to deduce all of that?"

"No, of course not."  Spinoza once again exchanged surprise for perplexity.

Vera sighed.  "What is obvious is that he didn't tell you he brought along a charming, debonaire waitress from The Happy Hour Diner to accompany him on his adventure to Loving's.  So," she drew out her exhale, "when I see someone I'm supposed to meet who's supposed to look like William Powell, who, in fact, does look like William Powell, it's not hard to begin putting some of the pieces together with the occasional direct question."

"Go on," Spinoza's gaze finally settled again on impressed.

"Well, it's not hard to tell you're annoyed about something, because you have been tapping your fork impatiently for the last 15 minutes that I've been here.  You should really carry around a novel to keep yourself occupied.  What do you do for a living?"

"Journalist."

"Oh, nevermind then, wordplay wouldn't be up your alley."  Vera continued before Spinoza could retort.  "Then you confirmed you had a late friend who's a PI, so I made an educated guess that it was Tannehill, since this ain't The Thin Man and there isn't a PI on every corner.  Once I pieced that one together, I was able to work through Flo's literary license and figure the rest out.  My guess is the message was intended to read something like 'I can't make it.  Please have Vera accompany a man who looks like William Powell to Loving's for another try at finding something significant.'"

"Then why didn't he say that?"

"He probably did, but you've seen the note and can likely use your own deductive powers to guess the state of the author's mental acuity."  What was left of the note had now consumed all of the gravy left on the table.  The word bye waving goodbye before turning brown.

"Good point, but how did he know that you'd be here if you're not even on shift yet, and it's 1:45?  I was supposed to meet him at 1."

Vera shrugged, "lucky for you, I got out of class early and you're a slow eater. While I greatly like and respect our mutual friend, he occasionally glosses over details.  But hey, he's a PI, they're to details what journalists are to words."

"Give him a break, you don't know his entire backstory.  It's been rough."

"True.  It's not the life of a 1930s woman working as a waitress at Capital City's most epicurean hotspot while attending school part-time." She extended her hand, "I'm Vera."

Spinoza took it, "I'm Phil.  Everyone calls me by my last name though."

"Which is?"

"Spinoza"

"Oh, you're the crime beat reporter.  Maybe next go around you can stick with something more rewarding like philosophy," she pulled him up by his arm and extended the crook of her elbow, "shall we?"

Before he could acquiesce, she shouted to the kitchen in back, "I'm leaving, I'll be back in about an hour."

A harsh, bellowing voice shouted back, "Vera, your shift is about to start.  What if we get a rush?"

She looked around, one customer was asleep in the booth farthest from the door.  Another was sitting at the counter savoring a three-day-old jelly donut.

"Wait, was this the month we were supposed to get a rush?"

A brief pause, "fine, but I'm docking your pay for the hour," the voice shouted back.

"No, you're not."

Another brief pause and then quieter, "no, I'm not."

She dragged Spinoza toward the door.  "Be honest, you were hoping I was just another cute waitress flirting with you."

Spinoza colored again,  "so are you a film buff?"  Spinoza asked, eager to change the subject.

"I know the secrets of the film industry better than I should," she mumbled as they exited the diner and stepped into the sunlit afternoon.

[Author's Note: Today's post is 1212 words and probably the fastest I've cranked out a chapter.  Whenever Vera's involved, I find her eager to chew the scenery, so I just let her go.  The current running total for the book is 32836.  This is beginning to look like it could be something real.]

The Tyranny of Choice

My problem in starting up a blog won't be the lack of topics, it'll be that I'll have too many.  Since pitching the idea of monetizing my blog to my eager investors (myself), I've come up with at least the following ideas (at least meaning I've probably forgotten at least two ideas and probably will forget another couple - or add a couple - before even finishing this section):

• A post on the fundamentals of starting to monetize a blog.
• A primer on distributed systems for non-tech folk and why monetizing a blog at scale shouldn't be prohibitively expensive.
• A discourse on the benefits and ailments of socialism and capitalism (though the two aren't diametrically opposed, but in today's world they sure seem to be).
• How to travel virtually.
• Getting started playing guitar (this is actually something I've been meaning to write for a long time).
• What are the next big things that civilization should tackle and in what order?
• A short story on someone hanging out in the Roman Forum a few years after the collapse of the Roman Empire.
• What steps can we do to simplify our lives?  I have an aching feeling I've written on this before, but it's probably worth a longer refresh with a new perspective.

I haven't yet done much research on the number of topics a blog should cover, but if I were a betting man (and I'm not), I'd bet that the conventional wisdom would likely state that I should focus on one or two topics to ensure a core audience.

The problem with that is that I'm more of a renaissance type of individual.  Or, more aptly, a jack of all trades and master of none.  If writing may be my talent, it's not necessarily delving into a deep topic.

This is not to say that one cannot plumb the depths of a seemingly narrow topic if given the desire and the will.  One of the most powerful quotes (really paraphrases, because I've searched high and low for the source but can't find it, because I can neither remember the exact quote nor can I remember the exact book) that I'll remember for the rest of my lucid life found me while I was considering applying to grad school.

A friend of mine had a book about getting into grad school and all of the typical pitfalls that occur while applying and attending school.  He was kind enough to let me borrow it, so I thumbed through it to peruse various sections relevant to me.  I'd been thinking for some time about what I'd want to write my thesis on if I made it into grad school.  One of the supposedly daunting issues of writing a thesis is that the work you do needs to be original research - as in, no one else in the field has ever developed a solution for the problem you're addressing.  For the longest time, I always assumed this meant I had to come up with something on par with Newton's discovery of gravitational principles, Einstein's theories of relativity, or Shakespeare's masterful use of iambic pentameter.  The book addressed the topic of thesis selection in some depth before ultimately stating something along the following lines:

Don't worry about picking a topic or about how broad or deep your provisional research topic may be.  Once you find something you're marginally interested in, ask the instructor - assuming you've learned about the topic through the courses you're taking - if you can assist with their current efforts.  Humans are amazingly adept at taking a topic that's seemingly boring or of narrow scope and turning it into a flourishing endeavor.

I followed that advice, and shortly after finishing either my first or second class on state automata in computer science, I bounded up to the professor at the end of the lecture and asked if there's any topic I could be of assistance with as a new grad student.  Turns out there was.  Shortly thereafter I began my journey learning about cellular automata, heading toward the only "A-ha!" moment of my life (when I woke-up from a light afternoon nap on the couch and figured out the principal sticking point to the problem I was tasked with), performing the elusive original research, and getting published as an author in a couple of academic journals.

So, to recap, the problem won't be that I have too few topics to write about, it's that I may try to research the world or astound you with my own navel-gazing abilities.  To that end, I've now written approximately 3 posts in the past four days about thinking about getting serious about my blog.  Those posts are north of 3,000 words already with further depths to plumb on the topic, if I so choose.

Regardless of whether or not I think this particular exercise is useful, I guess it's more important to ask, if I'm even remotely interested in increasing readership - are you entertained?