11/4/2010 – I admit, as I begin, there isn’t much of a plot. Bill Andrews has essentially given up on life and isolated himself from relationships, burying his loneliness in music, marijuana and sex (when he can get it). He has a seizure due to a brain tumor … even the young woman he’s with abandons him after dutifully calling 911 … and as ex-wives, acquaintances an colleagues fail to visit him in the hospital … or come once … he begins to see how alone he is. I think he ends up for an extended stay in a convalescent home with people he’s always called old fogeys. In the end, this changes him for the better. But how? Hopefully, he’ll tell me as we go along. We’ll outline a plot here as it develops. Does it make me nervous to have so little at this point? You betcha!
12/17/2010 – I guess you could call this the back story. Bill Andrews has been married four times. His first marriage, at 18 years old to his high school sweetheart lasted exactly 3 month. His second to his college sweetheart lasted ten excruciating years of arguments, marriage counseling and infidelity … as well as a daughter who hates him. After five years, he met Sheila, who not only became the love of his life, but brought him to God as a born-again Christian. They had two children, a boy and a girl. After fifteen years, Sheila is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passes away in a month. Bitter and lonely, Bill rejects God and marries, Beverly, a much younger woman he works with a year later, alienating his son by Sheila. His daughter by Sheila sees her mission as bringing him back to Jesus. When he loses his job two years later, receiving a golden parachute that makes him a wealthy man, he decides to retire and travel with Beverly. Beverly, however, has other plans and divorces him, taking his house, car and half of his assets. He ends up at Pacific Grove Mobile Home Park, interested only in rock and roll, getting stoned and getting laid. His uncomplicated life is interrupted, however, when a tumor grows in his brain beneath his right temple, bringing nightmares that seem to predict the future. When the tumor causes a grand mal seizure, Bill finds himself in the hospital, scared and alone. As he goes through diagnosis, surgery and rehabilitation, he gets to re-examine his life.
