Journal: 05/11/06

The motel is still slow. High gas prices are stemming the flow of visitors to the peninsula and it looks like this will be a slow summer for the local tourism industry. This is good news to me—bad to the owners—because it gives me more time to get creative in pursuit of alternate money sources and the holy grail of book writing. I’ve begun ruminating on what direction to take the "book," though its already been written, it is a mess and I think I want refocus it around Joann’s death and this blog. More on that at a later date.

Getting Joann Published

Now that Joann’s obituary is finished and published on the web in this blog, I discussed with Bill whether I should publish it in the paper. His take on it was that Joann lived on the Monterey Peninsula for thirty years and I agreed with this. Publishing Joann’s obituary would be a nice way to let her old acquaintances know that she had passed away. I thought placing it in the newspaper for three days; Friday, Saturday and Sunday would be the best coverage.

Just like the whole mess with getting Joann cremated, this too would also prove to be another fecalith. I called the Monterey Herald’s obituary office to check prices and after sending an email with the obit, they quoted me a price of more than $220.00 to run it on a weekday, and over $360.00 for Sunday. After hearing the quote, I knew that publishing her obit in the paper just wasn’t within reach. I don’t currently have that much in the bank to run it for even one day.

For the moment, Joann’s obituary is enshrined on the web in this blog, and that’s where it will have to stay. Maybe next year I’ll have the money to run it, in a different form, on the anniversary of her death. Or, maybe not.