The temptation was to call this entry “Galley Slave,” but I fell back on my favorite line from His Girl Friday.
Walter (Cary Grant): What about Hildy’s old age? Think of Hildy. I can see her now. White-haired, lavender and old lace. Can’t you see her, Bruce?
Bruce (Ralph Bellamy): Yes, yes, I can.
Walter: She’s old, isn’t she?
It helps to know the spin that Cary Grant gives that last line.
At any rate, I am feeling quite elderly this morning because I am going over the galleys for, lord help me, the 10th anniversary edition of Baltimore Blues. For those joining me late — that is, for the five or six people who weren’t there at the beginning, when Baltimore Blues was published in 1997 — it was a paperback original, as were my three next books. It was great for my career, but hell on the library copies. So Morrow is bringing out a 10th anniversary version in hardcover and I’m trying to track down the errors brought to my attention over the years. At last, Crow will get Poe’s birthplace right.
Quickly: Where were you ten years ago? And where did you think you would be in 2006? Because I’m pretty shocked at how this whole adventure turned out. The last time I held galleys of Baltimore Blues, I was in a rental car en route to Chicago, where I was going to write features about the Democratic National Convention and take my dog to a White Sox game. (The latter was one of the best scams I ever concocted in twenty years as a reporter. The former was the price I paid for getting to do the latter.)
Ten years ago I was 41, planning our move to Texas from Wisconsin, excited about moving to a big, brand new house, and feeling like I was about to move to the right place for the first time in my life!
Today, we are planning our move to what we are referring to as the CLH (Cozy Little House), much smaller, lessy yuppy neighborhood, overjoyed that the kids are (mostly) gone, and wishing they would finally get completely out of our hair so we could move to Maine!
Oh, and thanks, Laura, for the Beany Malone references. For years I thought I was the only one who read those books. I am happy to know I am not alone.
Ten years ago I was just starting my first semester at McGill University, trying to get the hang of living away from home at the first time, a crazy schedule of calculus, biology, physics and chemistry and harboring vague dreams of maybe, maybe trying to make it as a professional singer of the operatic variety.
Oh, and I had just discovered romance novels.
Yeah, I’d say things changed a hell of a lot in the last 10 years.
10 years ago I was in my senior year of high school, planning to major in Broadcasting with a minor in theater (God help us) and totally crazy about a boy whose name rhymed with mine. The only name on the PLANET that would rhyme with mine. That’s right = I dated a Tristan. Tristan and Christin. How tragic.
In some ways my life/family/ideals are the same. In others they are completely upside down.
congrats on the book! Fabulous.
Ten years ago I was 37, working at the same job, living in the same house, married to the same woman I am today. The job and the woman had been the same 10 years before that, as well. But nine years ago next month . . . . we were preparing to board a plane to Moscow, and then on to Ekaterinburg, to adopt our 6 month old daughter from a Russian orphanage. She came home and joined our two older sons, and our lives have been immeasurably enriched since.
Ten years ago I was at the end of my first marriage and the beginning of starting a new business. So much has happened in between and I guess it’s true for most people that we have no idea that we’d end up where we are ten years later. Now I am living in California, re-married (never thought I’d do that again) and expecting my first child.
Ouch-everybody here is so young! Ten years ago I was happily living in Baltimore and unsuspectingly engaged and planning a Nov. wedding to a man who 2 years later had what I think of as a mid-life crisis and wanted to go live in the mountains. (Both of us had lived in Baltimore our entire lives-who gives up Baltimore for the mountains?)! The good news: I was practicing law then and I’m not now; the bad news: I’m not living in Baltimore.
I’ve been reading this journal for a while, but never commented. It’s a great question, though. Some of you have travelled far personally or professionally! I wonder what the next ten years will bring.
Ten years ago I was 25, about 1 year into my PhD at Queen’s University. I never dreamed that I would post doc in New York City, nor that I would take an industry job in the US. Ten years ago I thought I would end up a professor somewhere, but now I’m doing scale organic synthesis and *liking* it.
I was reading mystery and crime fiction, but hadn’t discovered many of the fabulous contemporary mystery writers.
Susan
Wow… ten years ago? I was 33, living in Boulder, Colorado, and working freelance as THE BOULDER WEEKLY’s restaurant critic. My kids were not yet two years old.
Congratulations, Laura, on the anniversary edition–that is so cool!
I was 18, about 2 weeks into my time studying environmental engineering at university and harboured absolutely no ambitions, skills or talents in any way connected with writing.
These days, it’s all different. I have the ambitions.
Longhaired, living in Venice, doing music for Norton Utilities, and waiting for <i>Show Control</i> to come out.
I was sixteen, in the throes of my first love, and I thought I knew everything.
Of course, I didn’t know anything. I still don’t, but at least I recognize it.
Ten years ago I was here, in Ocean City. 20 years old and trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. I started working as a sales associate (so P.C.) at a small surf shop the year before, wondering if, when, and where I was going back to school.
I was also debating over moving to North Carolina with my family the next year or moving back to Baltimore to be with my friends and everyone I left behind.
And I was ITCHING to turn 21 so that I could finally start going out with all of my friends!
I never imagined myself, ten years later, still living in Ocean City, married to a great guy, and running the additional store my employers opened up. I manage the shop and do all of the buying for it, which takes me to a few cool trade shows throughout the year.
I also never imagined I would begin to write, like I had once dreamed about, win an award for it, and finally get all of those ‘you shoulders’ off my back!
John’s memory made me go in search of this bit of dialogue from Imitation of Life, which was on TCM this weekend. (And which I strongly recommend for anyone who liked FAR FROM HEAVEN. Or didn’t.)
Now all I wanna do is
get pictures like this
in The Museum of Modern Art.
Oh, you’re aiming high.
Why not? It doesn’t cost anymore.
(Eighteen! Sixteen! I _am_ old.)
Well after seeing all the “I was 18… 16 .. 20″ I have decided that even 10 years ago i was too old to comment on this.
I’m going to look for gray hairs now.
P.S. I’m relieved to discover that I had Hank Greenberg playing for the Detroit Tigers. For years, I thought I had put him on the Boston Red Sox by mistake.
Keith, we’ve “known” each other for nine years, since meeting on DorothyL. That’s a milestone I’m happy to celebrate.
I was in Ocean City Maryland going through probably the worst year of my life. The marriage was over but he was still there and the emotional trauma was such that I really thought I would physically collapse at any time.
From who I was then, to who I am now is still amazing to me. I truly believe the saying of von Goethe, “what does not kill you, makes you stronger”.
Ten years later, I am very happy inside and out. (Big thank you to my children for hanging in there)
I never thought I would find someone who could make me so happy just being who he is.
Ten years ago I had just turned 40, and hadn’t yet taken my first trip to Paris. As a matter of fact, at that point in my life I was refusing to fly.
I tend not to look very far into the future, but I do remember thinking that the idea of a whole new millennium, and of turning 50, was a bit weird. I couldn’t imagine it. And I sure didn’t think I’d be getting on planes to go places like Paris – and Madison.
I had my first real job with a master’s degree as a corporate librarian. Today I’m unemployed and unemployable.
Laura, I’m happy to celebrate that too!
Though I think I got my timeline wrong. 10 years ago today, <i>Show Control</i> had just come out, and I was in St. Paul for my first Bouchercon.
Ten years ago I was still just barely in my favorite decade. I was 49 and single and living in Laguna Beach and loving life. I lived there for 18 years. It was shortly after entering my fifth decade that I remarried. When I finish typing this, I�m returning to my packing. I�m facing divorce #2 and moving to Monteagle, TN. Life sure has been an interesting journey for me.
Hell, I’m so old, I can’t remember much from 10 years ago.
PS congrats on the 10th anniversary. Baltimore Blues is still one of my favorite books.
Lessie. 10 years ago I was 30, two weeks away from being laid off at a Y2K startup, but it didn’t matter. I worked in IT, and in ten years, I was gonna be rich, baby! Rich!
I’ve sort of lowered my expectations of the technology field since then.
I was beginning my journay as a recipient of a transplanted kidney and am happy to be celebrating anything. So, Laura, 1996 was a very good year. It wasn’t long after that I read Baltimore Blues. And then I met you at the Virginia Book Seminar in Charlottesville and I was hooked.
Probably getting ready for my first real date with the woman who became my wife.
I was plugging along in the corporate world doing tech editing. Now I’m plugging along doing freelance copyediting at home. Yeah! And I’m writing, because let’s face it, I ain’t getting any younger.
You’re quite the inspiration, Laura! 10th anniversary of a great book! YEAH!!! I love all of your books.
In 1996 I was working in the same job I’d had since 1981 and hating every minute of it. I’d been married for 4 years and had just moved into our current home, a place I never thought I’d end up, a tri-level tract house on a cul-de-sac in a subdivision! I didn’t read Baltimore Blues until a couple of years later when someone on the Lenora Mattingly Weber listserve mentioned that you put Beany Malone references in your books. I got the first 3 and read them and was so proud of my self for finding the Beany references after they smacked me in the face. I met Laura when she came to Bouchercon in Denver and snuck us into the sales area so that we could buy some books. It was so cool because I got to meet Martha Lawarence (who I wish would right more) and Hugh Holton.
What a great question. Ten years ago, I was 24, about to leave my first job (as a fact/checker then writer at Philadelphia Magazine) to work for Men’s Health, which meant I was preparing to move out of Philadelphia for the first time… ever. I had spent the previous summer playing around with a truly awful science fiction/action novel that sputtered to a bloody halt after 100 pages. I had also just started dating a beautiful redhead named Meredith Paul, the woman who would eventually become The Bride. Ten years ago, my life was about to change completely (for the better), and the funny thing is, I had no freakin’ idea.
Wait a minute — she dropped “Paul” for Swierczynski? Man, that is true love.
Zelda, there is a Beany reference in the forthcoming WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, a line about preferring brunettes with blue eyes “put in with a dirty finger.”
Tell me about it. I wanted to take *her* name.
Congratulations on Baltimore Blues anniversary!
10 years ago? My husband and I had just started our homestudy so we could adopt our daughter from China. I was working nights on the copy desk, he was working days as a reporter. I had just finished the book I wrote before Sacred Cows, and it will never see the light of day because there is a learning curve.
Eight months pregnant, feeling smug because Madonna had to have a C-section and I knew I’d be able to give birth the old-fashioned way, like a champ. Which was the first and last time I ever compared my body favorably to Madonna’s.
Although my baby’s cuter.
Ten years ago I was sharing a corner rowhouse in downtown Washington with my three best friends, across the street from a crack house. I was working myself to death at a silly job, spending way too much time on the road, and eating my heart out over yet another Mr. Wrong.
But I did have an inkling — just an inkling — of what I wanted my life to be like, and I have to say that right here, right now is pretty close to what I imagined.
Ten years ago, I was finally finishing my BA after 30 years and needed one more class and took a poetry writing workshop. Changed my life although the world should be grateful that I gave up poetry. Or maybe not.
10 years ago I was working at my job of 27 years and arranging my retirement. My 2 grown daughters were single, I had no grandkids… A big bore. But from my present peak of 71 years, I was soooo young!
Nowadays I’ve adapted to a nice way of life, reading, discovering new authors such as that Lippman girl, knitting a bit for my grandchildren and trying to do a trip or two per year. I’m healthy and my brain is ticking every day. Life is good, even if I’m old.
Susy,
Welcome. I’m thrilled to know that the posts here span at least fifty years. Makes it all the richer.