SF writers and fans are so cool...

Excuse my for being a grumpy old bastard, but I absolutely refuse to spell that word as 'kewel'. I mean, come on, kids, what's up with that? And while I'm ranting here, why do you young doofuses all wear your baseball caps backwards? To show what nonconformists you are? (That's called 'irony'. Look it up..)

Anyway, today I had an actual hugo-nominated SF writer in my cab, one Cathrynne M. Valente. I've fallen out of touch with much of modern SF, and I'm sad to say I hadn't heard of her before, but after talking to her (briefly), I googled her, and I'll probably wind up being a fan. Her novella sounds very intriguing, and she was a very nice person.

And she mentioned my name in her Twitter feed. How ccol is that?

(I must confess--I don't really "get" Twitter... But I digress...)

Anyway, how could I not be  a fan?

And speaking of fans, just last Sunday (Father's Day), I picked up a woman in Flat Rock going into Hendersonville to visit her dad at a rest home. I happened to mention that I was thinking of getting my brother a copy of the John Carter DVD for Father's Day, and we wound up having a pretty far-reaching conversation that touched on E. E. Smith as well as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert A. Heinlein, and Andre Norton.

I don't usually get to have too many literary conversations in the cab, but that's two in less than a week...

Pretty damn cool...

Once a cab driver, always a cab driver?

Short answer: No. Driving a cab is something you do, it's not something you are.

Long answer: I wouldn't mind if the answer was yes.

And that's enough with the philosophy for now.

In practical terms, I've been playing the role of an Asheville cabbie for about 5 or 6 weeks now.  It's been an ongoing adventure, and for the most part I've enjoyed it. I was able to pay my first month's rent at the RV Park where I reside just a couple of days ago, and today I bought an old Dell Windows XP laptop at a pawnshop for $155--and I still have enough money left in my wallet to make change for a twenty!  Life is good.

I wanted the laptop because I also write science fiction and suspense/thriller fiction (and I reserve the right to branch out into writing westerns or romances if the notion takes me), and I'm self-publishing on the internet--and I need to be able to upload my work in a timely manner.

You know what I mean... Smashwords...  Amazon... yada yada yada...

More about all of that later. This post is about cab driving!

I got my first cab driving job in 1972 when I was 18 years old, fresh out of high school, driving for City Cab in Tallahassee, Florida. Which company was shortly thereafter bought by Yellow Cabs of Tallahassee. Those were good years.

Ah, well, that's enough for now. Stay tuned for more.