What do you think?

I need your opinion. Or, condemnation as you see fit.

I'm working on a memoir about me and my wife. It covers from when we first met, and continues recounting how our first seven years together were actually spent living apart in separate countries. Crazy, I know - SEVEN years. But, true. Anyway, so far I've given this story the title Together 7 Years Apart. It's possible I might also go with 2555 Days Is Up (i.e. 365 days a year multiplied by 7 years) or 364 Weeks (you guessed it - 52 weeks a year multiplied by 7 years. 2555 Days Is Up could be too lengthy as a title).

Your mission - should you be arsed thinking about it - is to report back to me with your valuable opinion of the above titles. You could just leave me a comment at the end of this post. You could broadcast your thoughts via any of Rupert Murdoch's reliable media outlets (sorry about that noise, a bunch of people suddenly burst out laughing - some are actually sobbing). So, thanks if you do! And, of course, no worries if you don't (I'll simply ignore you at the book signing).

Here's a little snippet of the story...

Russian Caravan tea

Some weeks ago I explained that I would stop posting snippets of my own work - fearing it counted against any efforts of mine to become seriously published anywhere. Well, things do change don't they? And we change our minds. At the moment I don't exactly find myself with  a huge following. So, to hell with it - I'm posting a snippet here. This one is taken from the memoir Together 7 Years Apart, a story about me and my wife. Do you have any similar stories as this one below?:

Erin and I did not get on like a house on fire. No. We got on like a whole row of houses up in flames. The fire burnt for a good two or so hours, abundantly fueled with relaxed conversation. I told Erin some boring story about how Russian Caravan tea had traditionally been taken with the addition of strawberry jam mixed in for sweetness. I shouldn’t have bothered but the words had irrevocably sprung forward from inside of me, and it would have appeared even lamer to have stopped myself mid-way. I was drinking Russian Caravan tea at the time and, with the jam, so at least I had the aid of distracting props. Some nights later Erin told me that she had actually found the little story quite endearing. She was putting me at ease so early in our relationship. Either that or I had a remarkable talent for utilizing table-sized props.

Slow down and hurry up about it

The bus pulled into its stop at the QueenVictoria Building like a pebble is pulled down a giant shoreline under the sucking force of the ocean. Modern life itself was the force dragging the bus toward the tyre-blackened kerb. The busy people with their schedules and their tasks, the complicit bus schedule pushing to deliver loads of shoppers and workers, the monotonous traffic lights blindly and unwittingly winking two and four-wheeled machines across overcrowded asphalt pathways and the blurry black and white buildings are all symptomatic of today’s everyday pace. The blurry black and white monuments – like Queen Victoria sitting quietly and perseveringly as if no one has remembered her reign. These buildings and monuments are blurry and black and white because everyone is much too rushed and tunnel-visioned to discern them. All that money and all those advertising ideas and the time spent to place all these signs scattered all over the cityscape, only to become merely a blur as well, rushing past and escaping our senses in a single streak. Look up in the sky! It’s a catchy slogan! It’s a distracting image! It’s a…sorry, you’ve lost me. I’m too busy to read your sign. 

I slow down and take it all in. I purposely slow down and observe the details in the buildings, this window arch here and that appealing detail there. Hello, Queen Victoria. I am looking at her and acknowledge her expression and the staff she is holding, the tilt of her head and cold expression in her fixed eyes. What are you pondering? Is it sadness for what has become? I slow it all down. I saw her move. I have turned the slow cooker dial to the on position, I’ve jettisoned the Big Mac and now properly seep in the details of life and actually absorb all that is around me. I am in notice-mode now, but you are too hastened to notice my notice-mode. Nature skips out from its lonely corners to greet me with a smile – the sun’s golden hues, an infiltrating breeze and the newly painted sky embrace me and I’m at one with this trio in a brief moment of worship, the bus seat my pew. 

I slow it all down.  

I should slow it all down quickly, though, as I have to get off at the next bus stop and hurry to work or risk arriving late.