Rock of the Marne Race Report: September 19, 2010

Allen and I headed up to Savannah, Georgia on September 19^th to race the Rock of the Marne Sprint Triathlon.  I am turning in my race report today.

Rock of the Marne Triathlon Race Report

Fifteen Good Reasons, and One Excellent Reason, Why Rock of the Marne is My New Favorite Triathlon

1.  The name:  “Rock of the Marne Triathlon.”  Even if you didn’t know that “Rock of the Marne” is the nickname of the Army’s 3^rd Infantry Division, how cool is that for a triathlon name?

2.  It’s the oldest triathlon on the US Mainland. First raced in 1979, as a half-Ironman, by a few guys who got together to swim a little, bike a little, drink a little, then run a little.  Apparently, in that order.

3.  Beer.

4.  From a bottle.

5. Served in a glass.

6.  At 9 in the morning.

7.  It was fun watching Allen try to balance his bike and gear on the way to the car after he had his two beers.

8.  It’s a deep water start in Savannah’s Forest River.  And you get to jump off a dock to get into it.

9.  It’s a flat, fast bike course around the perimeter of Hunter Army Air Field.  And it’s a pretty nice tour of the base, too (and, at the speed I go, the bike really is a “tour” for me).

10.  I got to chat it up in the beer line with a bunch of hottie male triathletes (triathletes get better as they age- grrrrr….).

11.  I beat Allen in the swim- again- even though the last time that I swam was about a month ago (but he whips my ass in everything else, including transition).

12. The race director instructed us not to park in the church parking lot across the street (it’s Sunday) – or you will be “struck DEAD!”

13.  There was no pressure to attempt to place in my age group after I saw the Team USA uniforms on a number of the athletes there, and realized that they just got back from the World Championships….

14. I actually beat the girl on the beach cruiser.

15. We parked at the mall across from the base. It doesn’t get any better than that:  triathlon and shopping.

The Most Excellent Reason:

 It really got me, and I got choked up, when the race director announced, after I crossed the finish line, that I was”… racing in honor of her son-in-law (to be), Sgt Charles Gaines, 3^rd Infantry Division, Iraq.”

Race Report: Georgia Veterans' Triathlon 2010

Meanwhile, back at the Woman’s Triathlon….

The Georgia Veterans’ Triathlon is held, appropriately, in Georgia Veterans’ State Park, in Cordele, Georgia: up the road from Tifton, and down the road from Macon on I-75.

The park is fabulous- we’ve camped there twice, in a huge campsite, and stayed at the Lodge once, in a beautiful room (in which I proceeded to put black marks on the wall with my bike- they came off, thank goodness). The park is on Lake Blackshear, and sports both a regular gold course and a disc golf course (giving me two different opportunities to suck at golf). There’s a great museum with some great military memorabilia, a swimming beach and a couple of great restaurants. So, once you’ve finished your morning workout, and have eaten your post-race sausage dog provided by Stripling’s General Store, and take your nap, there are lots of things to do.

As for the race itself- it’s one of my faves.

The swim is a 500 yard beach start in the very nice warm water of Lake Blackshear. The bike course is rolling and a little technical, following the road that follows the edge of Lake Blackshear. The run covers 3.1 miles of park road (and is sometimes brutally hot).
It’s a well-organized, fairly small, laid back race.

The women started in the last couple of waves, so it was basically a Woman’s Triathlon later on the course. This is a very good thing.

I believe that I’ve discussed the phenomenon in other blog posts. An all-woman triathlon is very different from a co-ed triathlon. . I over-generalize, I know- we do have very assertive and aggressive riders in my gender- but there’s a different vibe there, especially amongst us back-of-the-pack female athletes. Although Cordele is, of course, a co-ed triathlon, our starting position created a Virtual Woman’s Triathlon.

Two classic examples of Woman’s Triathlon behavior from the race:

I Had to Use the Mom Voice.

As a rule, I do not mind young people racing triathlon alongside me. There are some excellent young triathletes out there. The kid that I had to deal with on the bike course, that day, was another story entirely.

Kid was an absolute nuisance on the bike. I caught up to him a couple miles into the bike, on one of the more treacherous turns in the course. He was weaving all over the road; he’d call “on your left,” start to pass, change his mind and nearly ride into another cyclist. When someone tried to pass him, he looked over at them and sped up. He drafted. He blocked.

But when Kid finally started riding to the left of the center line, I had about enough. It was time for the Mom Voice.

“You need to get on the right side of the lane NOW! You are breaking the rules, and you are going to get hit by a car and then you won’t grow up to be a pro triathlete (actually, I pray that you don’t grow up to be a pro triathlete, period).”

The Mom Voice worked- at least, long enough to get around the little monster and get some distance between us.

[At this point in the report, I would really like to climb up on my soapbox and express my views about Kid’s participation in this triathlon. But, for the sake of brevity, I will refrain. Perhaps another time. Soon.]

No, No: You Go On. I’m Not Competing Today.

I was, thankfully, past Kid and on the final couple of miles of the bike course. I was thinking about passing the woman in front of me when, suddenly and inexplicably, she flew over her handlebars and lands, faces first, on the ground.

I unclipped and dropped my bike on the grass.

The poor girl was trying to sit up. There was blood dripping from her chin, and she had somehow woven herself into the bike when she crashed. One of her feet had lodged itself in the spokes of the front wheel, of all places. I wiggled her foot out of her shoe to free her, as there seemed to be no way in hell that I could free her shoe from inside of the spokes. We used the sock to put pressure on the gash in her chin, which was now dripping blood steadily onto the asphalt.

No fewer than 4 other women stopped, jumped off their bikes, and came over to help. Another woman slowed down to talk to us.

“Are any of you girls competing today? ‘Cause, if you are, you can go ahead, and I’ll stay with her.”

We all insisted “no, no, we’re fine. You go ahead and go. We’ll stay with her.”

And we all did, until a passing truck driver offered to carry her and her mangled bike back to transition. One of the girls helped her to the truck; another loaded her bike on to the bed of the truck; another loaded her own bike onto the truck and rode with them.

I got on my bike and rode out onto a now empty course. I wasn’t disappointed about the loss of a lot of time in the race, but I really didn’t want people to think that I was last in because I was an incredibly slow pathetic biker. This is also a very classic Woman’s Triathlon attitude: we are pathologically afraid of finishing last, because everyone will laugh at you and point and you will be completely humiliated and never do another triathlon again, if you ever do one to begin with, because what’s the point in doing a triathlon if that’s going to happen to you? This is why, of course, our beloved Sally Edwards always volunteers to be the Final Finisher in her Woman’s Triathlons.



Surprisingly, I was not dead last that day. I did manage to pass a few people on the run. Everything else ended fine. Kid disappeared before I could throw him (and his parents) in Time Out; the injured triathlete, I heard, needed stitches on her chin, but that was about it.

I had my sausage dog, and my nap, and then played a very bad game of disc golf. And I remembered, even though I don’t race as much as I want to, how awesome this sport is—and how awesome women triathletes are.

Trek Women's Triathlon Race Report and Assorted Musings

My first triathlon, ever, was the Danskin Women’s Triathlon at Walt Disney World, in May of 2003. I was absolutely terrified.

When my feet stopped touching the bottom of Bay Lake, and I was suddenly swimming under my own power, I panicked. I couldn’t breathe. The fumes from the motor boats standing by were overwhelming me. I flailed around and turned back and started heading back to shore. But I turned around again, caught my breath and swam on.

The medal from that race reads “the woman who starts the race is not the same one who finishes the race.” I totally agree with that. When the announcer called out my name at that race, congratulating me, and saying the words “you are a triathlete!”—that memory is even more precious to me than Mike Reilly calling out “you are an Ironman!”

Wow. I wasn’t just a runner anymore. Do you see that word, ‘-athlete’-- in the word ‘triathlete’? I was an athlete. I never thought that I’d consider be one, but here I am today.

Not only athlete, but triathlete. And now, not only triathlete, but Ironman.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a women’s-only triathlon: a few years ago, before I became an Ironman for the second time.

The last women’s-only race I did, the Danskin Women’s Triathlon in 2005, was a super huge big deal for me. I was lucky to be racing at all at that point, in the midst of divorce drama. I had to jump through hoops just to get to the start line at that race. I tore it up that year, too—I was a serious bad-ass.

“How do you like me now?” I thought to myself back then. “Two years ago I thought that I was about to drown in Bay Lake— now, I’m flying out of the water and onto the aerobars, whizzing through the turns in the back lot of the Magic Kingdom, nearly puking as I hit the finish line after the run (that’s when you know you’ve had a real good run)”.



I wasn’t feeling like such a bad-ass at the Trek Women’s Triathlon a few weeks ago. I had plantar fasciitis. I had a sprained ankle from a motor scooter crash; my leg was still scabbed over, and now I’d developed a fear of two-wheeled things. I was fighting a pretty significant weight gain, secondary to the conditions described above.

And I was scared. Scared? Me, a two-time Ironman, afraid to race an all-women’s sprint triathlon? At Walt Disney World, of all places? How much more benign could it be?

My training has been nowhere near what it used to be, and my races have been few and far between. So I began to imagine all kinds of horrific race-day scenarios.

Would I get too tired on the swim, and have to backstroke to catch my breath (this would be almost too embarrassing for words to describe for me)? Would I bust my ankle running to transition? Would I clip in wrong on my bike-- and crash-- or touch wheels with someone--and crash--or take a corner too sharp--and crash? Would my left leg finally give out and refuse to support my excess body weight and cause me to collapse in a heap in the middle of the run course?

So there I was, with a very nervous stomach, standing on the shore of the lake shortly before the race start. I felt dumpy in my Ironman tri suit. I felt like I didn’t deserve that pink m-dot tattoo on my right shoulder.

And then I was in the chute with the rest of the purple caps. And there was Sally Edwards, always my heroine, giving us our Magic Words: “I am a gorgeous swimmer”. We repeated it, with the accompanying swimming motions: “I (stroke) am (stroke) a (stroke) gorgeous (stroke) swimmer!” (Husband says that a girl came running out of transition with her bike, proclaiming “I am sexy!” I can guess what her magic phrase was….) Lib and her friend practiced this for the rest of the weekend in the Fort Wilderness swimming pool: “All together now: ‘I (stroke) am (stroke) a (stroke) gorgeous (stroke) swimmer!’”

The Magic Words did the trick. I relaxed, and high-fived Sally, as I had seven (wow, seven) seasons ago, and hit the lake.

Bay Lake was beautiful, as Disney lakes always are. The water was a translucent green, and warm. It even tasted good, when you end up with a mouthful full of it from the girl flailing around and trying to breaststroke next to you.

It started to get fun for me again. I decided that I wanted to simply finish the race today, the same as my goal seven seasons ago.



My favorite part of all-women’s triathlons is the swim. No one swims over you; you don’t get your goggles knocked off, or get a foot upside your head. What you do get is a woman who bumps into you, stops swimming, and says “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do that! Are you ok?” Your reply: “Yes, thank you very much. I’m fine. Are you all right? Go on ahead of me, ok?”

The swim is usually the scariest part of the race for newbies. For a ‘seasoned veteran’ (I use the term loosely) like me, it’s the damned bike leg. Especially in a race full of newbies, like this one, the bike leg is hairy (even if our legs are not).

You call out “on your left!”, and that’s immediately the direction that they aim their bike. They ride two abreast; three abreast. They ride on the left. They block. They swerve. You name it. Add to it the usual treacherous segments of every Disney triathlon—the back lots, heading out into the open road—and I always have visions of potential disaster.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t so bad this year. I found only one pair of women riding side-by-side—which I (not so) gently attempted to remedy.

I made it back in without incident, always grateful to have my feet on solid ground (if you know me at all, that is my triathlon philosophy: just get your feet moving back on solid ground, not kicking them or peddling them, and you’re home free).

My run was a combination hobble-hop-jog affair, but it sort of resembled a run. I surprised myself. I understood the fact that this would lead to some pretty severe pain within the next few hours—but I was running, by God.

My cheering throng of supporters (all three of them) was waiting for me at the corner of the finisher’s chute. The announcer got my name wrong, which happens approximately 93% of the time when I cross the finish line. The finisher’s medal, this year, was a silver-plated chain and tag, which also doubled as a really nice piece of jewelry (smart race directors), and which I wore with pretty much everything the rest of the weekend.

I didn’t pay much attention to my finishing time-- I finished around the middle of the pack. My swim time was… what my swim time always is, and always will be. My bike time was lousy, which I attribute to being a chicken-shit on my tri-bike, and taking the corners too slowly (I hadn’t ridden the Cannondale in a while, and forgot that tri-bikes are meant to go in a straight line). My run time really wasn’t too bad, considering everything.

(All right. I will admit it. You caught me. I told you that I didn’t care much about my finishing time and my splits, but I was really checking them on my BlackBerry a couple of hours later, on the ferry boat, on the way to lunch. Come on- I am a triathlete, after all.)


It’s good to be at races like these, these women’s triathlons full of novice triathletes. When you see the final finishers limp in, but still beaming from ear to ear, you remember why you do this in the first place: triathlon is fun. Triathlon demonstrates to those nervous and insecure women that they really are more capable than they believe themselves to be. Triathlons like these remind us ‘seasoned veterans’ how far we’ve come, and how much farther we can still go.

And women’s triathlons like these help me to remember that I still am “gorgeous” and “sexy”, even though I think that everyone is watching the cellulite jiggle on my thighs, and snickering that my butt looks really big in all of that Lycra.

Lycra does make your butt look big.

So what?

Lycra’s comfortable. It dries really fast, so you don’t get on your bike dripping wet after you come out of the water after not actually drowning, like you knew that you were going to do when you thought about it before the race.

And Lycra goes really well with that shiny new triathlon finisher’s medal that you’re wearing around your neck, and those race numbers on the back of your calf that you are going to “accidentally” forget to wash off until after you stride into work on Monday in your skirt and high heels.

More and Harder?

Awesome article in the Wall Street Journal today. The article focused mainly on over-50 athletes who struggle to balance their competitiveness and the effects of aging on the body. That need to stay competitive often times leads to overtraining, which leads to increased stress on the body and injury—and I would add that it becomes a vicious circle after a while. Your performance declines as you age; you train as hard as you can to try to fight the decline; you over train and get sick and injured; you train even harder, until you end up a burnt-out mess.

Lots of other good stuff in the article, and a plug for Mark Allen and Brant Secunda’s book, Fit Soul, Fit Body. I’d like to read that.

I have not reached the aforementioned milestone age quite yet, but the article did get me thinking about my own fitness life. This one comment caught my attention in particular:

“A study published last year in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine reinforced other recent research showing that intensity tends to diminish the view of physical activity as pleasant.”

I suppose that it’s a no-brainer: suffering sucks. It hurts. It’s no fun.

It really hit home for me the other day, out for a quick 24 mile ride in the late afternoon. I always seem to be in training for something or another; therefore, I need to push it, to work, to get that lactate threshold up. It was beautiful out in the park- the sun was beginning to set, the air was cooling- and I was in freaking high Zone 3.

I realized that it was getting old, fast—the sufferfest that triathlon training often is. I wanted to slow down, to enjoy the air, to enjoy the feeling of my body in motion. I just wanted the ride to not suck.

I’ve been a triathlete for a number of years now. I have wanted to train hard, to set high goals for myself, to PR, to finish another Ironman, to score an age-group award. But the overuse injuries have begun to creep in, namely, a really bad case of plantar fasciitis. I get really tired of hurting during workouts.

And I think that the hurting leads to burnout. The “view of physical activity as pleasant” is very much diminished.

Here’s my confession: the burnout is beginning in my own life. It’s my own vicious circle: I have a burning need to be competitive. I am not a natural athlete. I have to work my butt off to be competitive. I get injured because I work my butt off. Training starts to suck. I have to back off. It gets even harder to be competitive, because now I’ve gained weight and lost fitness. So I have to work even harder. I get frustrated, and fatigued, and the injuries linger—and the burnout begins.

And, of course, I am a triathlete: you know, “Swim. Bike. Run. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.” This is what I know; this is what I do. Without that structure in my life, and in my fitness, I lose my bearings. And I end up doing a whole lot of nothing.

So there it is. I’m burning out.

But, like every obsessive Type A overachiever triathlete out there—I have a plan. I am going to actually synthesize the points in that article and embark upon a new course of action. Here it is:

1. I am going to take to heart Allen’s credo: “It’s not my day job.”
2. I am going to stop racing and training in pain, and address the overuse injuries.
3. I am going to try to be a participant for a while—not a competitor.
4. I am going to try to branch out from “swim/bike/run”—even if it’s just “swim/mountain bike/trail run.” Hey- it’s a start.
5. When it’s fun again, I will set reasonable triathlon goals for myself, and be competitive to the best of my abilities.

And I’m going to learn to have fun just moving again—belly dancing, hooping, jumping rope with the kids, hiking….

My favorite Nike running shirt says “Walking is not an option.” After careful consideration, I am going to rethink that assertion. Maybe I’ll just put on my running shoes and take a walk, and see what’s going on in the world today.

Your Kid's First Tri: Do's and Don'ts

Ben did his first triathlon this weekend: 75 yards in the Y pool, four laps around the ¼ mile track on his bike, and then 2 more laps running. He rocked. He was proud of himself. He got a medal, as did all of the other kids who finished the race.

After the race, he ate lots of bananas and claimed to be too tired to do anything other than watch TV the rest of the day.

The New York Times website ran an article today on kids’ triathlons, examining their increasing popularity and their associated risks (discussing their benefits: not so much).

Judy Berman, a contributor to Salon.com’s “Broadsheet”, commented on the Times’ article in today’s blog. One of the gems in the commentary was the following:

“…There is something distinctly disturbing about inducting preschool-aged children into a sport that, according to the Times, saw 14 deaths in official USA Triathlon-sponsored events between January 2006 and September 2008.”

I will discuss this assertion, as well as others contained within the articles, in a subsequent post, after I have finished gluing my head back on, because it’s about to blow off the rest of my body.

As pissed off as I am about the misinformation and erroneous conclusions contained within these articles, I do have to agree with some of the observations about The Triathlon Parent . These are triathlon’s equivalent of The Stage Parent. These are the parents that ruin it for the rest of us, and give our sport its sometimes bad rep.

From the Times:

“Robert Jones, race director of the Silicon Valley event, got an e-mail message two years ago from the mother of an 18-month-old, asking if her child could take part in the triathlon. He refused..”

I have witnessed years of egregious behavior from parents at kids’ triathlon. Sadly, I have committed a sin or two myself before I saw the light.

So, Multisport Parents: for the benefit of your little newbie triathletes, and to preserve the reputation of the sport in general, I present to you a list of the Do’s and Don’ts for your kid’s triathlon. I shouldn’t have to be telling you this stuff, but I understand that we just can’t help ourselves sometimes, and that we have to be reminded that we are behaving like idiot poser loser parents who are living their unfulfilled lives through their children.


Don’t show up with the tri bike tricked out with aerobars, a disc wheel and a set of Speedplays.

Do bring the bike with the streamers and the playing cards in the wheels.

Don’t call out split times, how many minutes he’s behind the leader in the 8-10 year old division, or how far he’s behind his brother.

Do leave your watch in the car.

Don’t unrack his bike, re-rack his bike, or tie his shoes—stay the hell out of transition altogether.

Do let him do it himself, even if transition takes twenty minutes and he leaves with his helmet and shirt both on backwards.

Don’t run with him, because you don’t think that he can do it alone. Trust me. He can. He should.

Do jump up and down, cheer, holler, take pictures, hold signs and wave pom poms-- by the side of the road.

Don’t critique his performance. No tips on how to improve his swim technique, transition time or run split. Period.

Do make sure he wears his medal to school on Monday. And try not to wash off the body marking, when you wash off the dirt.

Don’t immediately start him on a training program for a sprint triathlon. Kids’ triathlons exist for a reason. It’s because they are too young to do adult triathlons, and kids shouldn’t be “in training” for shit.

Do make sure he chills out and has fun. Triathlon is a big accomplishment, sure, but it’s also supposed to be fun- yes? It’s why you do it- I hope? You’re encouraging your kids to tri to get them off the couch and moving and running around with their friends and fostering a life long love of the outdoors and health and fitness- right?

I hope that you are nodding your head in agreement-- you agree that triathlon should be fun. If you, however, feel that your kid should learn that triathlon is a metaphor for life and is an exercise in discipline and the pathway to a glorious athletic future—kiss my ass, you idiot poser loser parent.

And a message to your kids from me: get out there, have a blast, get sweaty, get dirty, get a medal, and stick all of the leftover bananas at the refreshment table in your pants for later.

The Meaning of Tri

As far as triathlon goes, I am in what I like to call a “rebuilding year.” I have plantar fasciitis, and my foot needs some serious rebuilding before I can continue comfortably in the sport. My training and racing this year has been minimal.

My love of the sport, and the triathlon lifestyle, remains, even as I sit on the sidelines. Triathlon, for me and for many others, has its own mystique.

Why the mystique? It’s a question that I’ve often considered. What is it about the sport that attracts us? Why do we do it?

The easy answer, of course, is that most of us in triathlon are uncommonly driven, and the extreme endurance needed for the sport provides the challenge that we crave. But there’s more to it. Tennis is challenging; swimming is challenging. But what is it about triathlon, specifically the race itself that catches our attention and imagination so much?

In short, for me, triathlon has been about celebration and commemoration. The extremeness of the sport, besides attracting us Type A’s, leads athletes to ascribe special meaning to the endeavor. We use it to celebrate life and important milestones in our life; we use it to punctuate and commemorate special moments.

This very subject was also of interest to the people at Mindset Triathlon. They sponsored an essay contest on The Meaning of Tri, exploring the topic. The winning essays were posted in an e-book by the same name. Somehow, my take on the topic was selected as the winning entry. It’s also been published on the USA Triathlon website, if you want to take a look.

Fortune Cookie

I have to confess: I am not a big fan of Chinese restaurants. Especially the kind of Chinese restaurants that proliferate here in the South. Buffets laden with fried-whatever layered in sweet or salty-whatever sauce and served up with a big bowl of starch. Although very satisfying after the hard Ironman workout, the Chinese buffet, for a not-currently-in-training triathlete like me, is poison.

However, I do like fortune cookies. I reason that fortune cookies are the healthiest choice on the Chinese food menu. And unlike many people, I do actually eat the fortune cookie. And I usually eat everyone else’s fortune cookies after they get their fortunes, too. They are probably flavored pieces of cardboard shaped into a “C”, but they taste just fine to me.

I am usually more concerned with eating my fortune cookie than actually looking at the fortune inside. They rarely seem insightful to me. I do, however, enjoy the adult party game of adding “… in bed.” to the end of a fortune cookie fortune.

But I have been thinking about the fortune that I saved recently. It ended up in the pocket of my shorts and, amazingly, didn’t get incinerated in the dryer.

“You could prosper in the field of entertainment.”

If you add “…in bed” to the back of that one, I suppose it suggests that I should make a career move to adult entertainment.

The fortune is tacked up on my desk at work. I don’t even remember when I tacked it up. I noticed it when I was attempting, with little luck, to think of a name for this blog. I wasn’t getting anywhere. But I looked at my bulletin board and, there it was, pinned on top of all of the doctors’ phone numbers and other notes that I keep handy.

“You could prosper in the field of entertainment.” For some reason, the stupid little piece of paper with the winning lottery numbers on the back has caught my attention.

So, as all good scientists do, we will place this fortune under a microscope to ascertain its hidden meaning.

One of the definitions of “entertainment” in The Random House Dictionary is “an agreeable occupation for the mind.” Well, for me, the most “agreeable occupation for the mind” is writing.

I have been writing ever since I could hold a pencil. I wrote my first “Dear Diary” entry at the age of seven. January 1st detailed that I was happy to receive the little white leather diary, with “Diary” written on the cover in gold letters, for Christmas. (I was really more excited about my new white figure skates, though, because I believed that I was destined to be an Olympic figure skater like my heroine Dorothy Hamill.)
I’ve filled notebook after notebook with journal entries, poems, short stories, essays.
That stuff was mostly for my amusement. Few eyes other than mine ever saw it. It’s been an avocation for thirty-odd years now.

So, obviously, this “entertainment” business must be about writing. Ok. We have it half figured out now. Back to the dictionary.

We now analyze the word “prosper:” “to be successful or fortunate, esp. in financial respects; thrive; flourish.”

Another confession: it is my not-so-secret wish to quit my day job and make a gazillion dollars writing for a living.

So, obviously, this fortune is good news for me and I should send in my resignation and get comfortable in my pajamas at my desk at home.

However, being a scientist, I am a skeptic. I’ll keep the day job for now.

My belief is that fortune cookies, like Tarot cards and horoscopes and palm reading, are little windows into the psyche. Through them, we view our wishes and our worries.

“You could prosper in the field of entertainment.” I really don’t want to be a gazillionaire novelist. I just want to put the words out there. Thrive and flourish in my “agreeable occupation of the mind.”

Here is my fortune cookie.