Updates: What I've Been Doing the Last Six Months

My Facebook updates for the last six months. It is an interesting discipline to cram the peak moment from a questionable novel I didn't have to write into a ridiculously short space. I note a fair amount of swordplay, sinking submarines, flailing airplanes, chases, tense literary moments. What does it all mean?


Jamie parried the Archduke's sword-thrust with a minor portrait by Van Eyck, oil on an oak board, smashing one aristocrat's face with another.

Jamie batted out the fire on his racing leathers, leaving the Buell's wreckage behind him. His Ducati, afire but screaming smooth, was just 5 seconds from the line.

Jamie put the siren on the '68 Fastback Mustang. He cursed- yet another gun-blazing high-speed hill chase in San Francisco, and he'd just fixed the shocks.

Jamie stood before the gathered physicists. "It's too late and this asteroid is too heavy. We'll need super-astronauts and more A-bombs than bimbos at a car show.

Jamie yelled "Speed! The cliff is there- the glider needs 50!"But the tank driver bailed, ropes yet binding the plane. He sawed furiously, Doom introducing itself.

Jamie ,commanding the Barbarian hoardes,his armor clanking, marched up to Pious and John,and cut off Pious's head. As it rolled, he pointed to John: "Now, you Pope!"

Jamie held his finger on the pin on the grenade as Hemmingway ducked. "Silence. It is a patrol, nothing more. Let them pass- they shall have nothing to report."

Jamie released legions of specially trained adorable kittens in a high-stakes operation against Al-Qaida.

Jamie hacked away the vine. Behind, huge ruby eyes glowing, sat the stone face of their god, Tonaanatu, and his rival, Dr. DeChuse, impaled on granite teeth

Jamie kept a foot on the plummeting Space Shuttle wheel and inserted a trach tube into Jones' neck, trusting his gum to hold the heat tile as fire licked the windows.

Jamie said "Bearers! You are dismissed! From here on is the land of the Foiokanatoo. Your very heads would prove but fine broth; yet I hold the Idol,and so press on!"

Jamie would not let it stand unchallenged. "Sartre, I reject your premise, as WELL as Malraux's. Also, I am compelled to inform you that I'm seeing Simone."

Jamie fought on with the scuba knife, the giant squid biting a small hole in the air hose just as he heard the Russian Sub Smolensk open her atomic torpedo doors.

Jamie crested the ridge, unslinging the Winchester, peering across the valley to a Turkman fortress. A bullet took his horse, the report echoing in lonely terror.

Jamie urged the grey horse along the deadly pass through the Urals, saddlebags bursting with the hoarde of rubies, fatigued, one hand on the Navy Colt.

Jamie teased the power in the spitting Bleriot to gain altitude, but the icy Channel wind whipped the scarf to blind him, wingtip catching a wave, frame shuddering.

Jamie stared down the Cosmonaut: "Demetri! Ox Tank B is venting out to effin' Pluto! The ship is shorting out like a midget beauty pageant! NOT time for crapski!"

Jamie has ordered the 747-Mounted High Energy Schaudenfreudenator to fire a direct blast at the Republican National Committee.

Jamie drew his sword, the mad scupltor Cellini tossing a crucible of molten bronze - a warm dispute over Ciecherella Borgia, illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander.

Jamie cocked an eyebrow at the preening Archduke: "Your impudence, Sir, is just exceeded by your malodorousness!" Damn the consequences- winter is good for artillery.

Jamie leapt up the barricades, flag aloft in the cannon smoke. "Liberty shall not die gasping for her life at our feet! Today, we grant our lives for her salvation!"

Jamie eyed a galleon limping for port. "Send a runner, Aflonoso! She's laden with spice; I claim her cargo as Marcovaldo's debt to me! That or his spleen!"

Jamie stopped the piano, taunting Lady Astor: "I'd say one Yankee 'Charleston' is worth a half dozen dreary 'Pomp and Circumstances!' Oh, you kid! 23 Ski-DOO!!"

Jamie , with a grim smile, unveiled the tramp steamer's .20mm cannon, now trained on a couple of ornery Messerschmitts - returning only to arrange their own funerals.

Jamie ,resplendent in the ancient vestment and orb, ordered the shaman to free the sacrifices and send to the scattered people the tribute of the outsiders.

Jamie raised his furrowed sword to the villanous Lascar Pirates who in desperate greed had boarded the treasure-laden dhow, smiting them each in terrible silence.

Jamie rode a Bactrian camel across the Arabian desert, past trade roads dispersing to Palmyra, Samarkland, and Shiraz, only to board ship and cross the Bab el Madeb.

Jamie declined the Sultan's gift: Island of Al-Baka-Sar, 53 servants, the great Saphire of Sudan. "A ham sandwich, freedom for lovely Ibtihaj of N'Djamen!" "Ham?"

Jamie hide in shrub. Wait long. Mammoth come. I stick him in belly with spear. You help!

Jamie ,angered, lifted the cement truck which trapped the box of frightened husky puppies, holding it in one hand. Was this destiny? Was he, in fact, CAPTAIN DESTINY?

Jamie be clearing fer action and running out the guns, to bring the Spaniards the taste o' good English iron!

Jamie waited as massive Persian army lead Xerxes the Great by, and as the King passed, he deftly affixed a small piece of paper to his back which read, "Kick Me."

Jamie spat at Soapy Sam- "You're a consarned, four-flushing claim-jumper, Sam! I'm a-gitting my double-ought, and for lunch you can 'spect a belly full of lead!"

Jamie fired the rockets, sending the X-1 shaking in the blue, the mach reading at .96, .97, .98, the gauge cracking, the shudder in his bones, only the stars beyond.

Jamie bethought himself the hardy Hygelac-thane of his boast at evening: up he bounded, grasped firm his foe Grendel, whose fingers cracked.

Jamie , holding the sceptre of the mighty Space League power, turned to his Electron Ship crew and gave the order: "Starship Commander, Stop the Flow of Time!"

Jamie brushed the ice from his beard, cresting the ridge. He and the Sherpas looked down the misty valley, somewhat amazed at Shangrila's lesser twin, Prettygoodgrila.

Jamie wheeled the Maserati, engine screaming, tires smoking. Gunfire from the Mercedes went wild, exploding the chlorine factory. Now to Zurich, the "package" intact.

Jamie drained the mead from the cup of Rothlegaar, son of Rotraag. "Ha! Attend to the spoils, Friends!! By Frida's toes, we shall have gold enough for ballast!"

Jamie steamed away as 70 below winds whipped stinging ice crystals into the counter at 27,000 ft. Odd how a Starbucks on Everest once seemed like brilliance.

Jamie steamed away as 70 below winds whipped stinging ice crystals into the counter at 27,000 ft. Odd how a Starbucks on Everest once seemed like brilliance.

Jamie reckoned Dr. Klopkins weren't up to no good, hangin' round with them Nazis sniffin' round the uranium mine.

Jamie motioned to shut off the microsurgical laser."But doctor, the risks.""Damn the Risks! The world's greatest ukelele player will not be silenced on my table!"

Jamie rolled the rock, regretting that not only had he stolen the secret of fire, he forgot to bring a stick with which to prop up the rock.

Jamie triumphantly held the tiny black hole with the atomic tweezers. The CERN physicists applauded. "Now..uh..where can I put this?"

Jamie shot back directly at the tiny but intimidating Picasso. "Dora has left you, and we are happy." "Mais pourqoui?" "She has sensed your new irrelevance."

Jamie tensed as the Diplomat wavered then inked the accord: Peace in the Middle East. "Well, thank goodnesss we solved that one," Jamie said, to uproarious laughter.

Jamie fought the stick as the 747 plunged toward the icy Pacific, its cargo of endangered Koalas screaming. Then, as no.4 engine died, he snipped the bomb's red wire.

Jamie blanched as the grizzly swatted at his only defense, a roll of tinfoil. Then he bit it, wincing in agony. Jamie's gamble that the bear had dental work paid off.

Jamie swam through fire and rising seawater, struggling to close the valve. The sub rose drunkenly like a wino ordered to move along."Not today, Death..not today."

Jamie knew something of the polar region. "I would be honored Sir Shackleton, if you would take my Primus Stove. I have a sense that it may prove efficacious to you."

Jamie raised his Gladius in one hand, the head of Germanicus Caesar in the other. The rosy fingers of dawn alit the roaring legions.Mars had smiled on his vengence.

Jamie , his pistols emptied, parried the Duke of Glouster's traitorous attack with the cutlass, leaping for the Galleon as her sails filled in the squall.

Jamie squared against the raging rhinocerous and the omnipresent absurdity was suspended in the naked mortality, the thunderous charge, the raising of red dust.

Jamie considered the fat Cossack General, and spat on his boots. "You will beg for death," said Dimtri. "Only if I have to keep smelling that cologne," he retorted.

Jamie walked to the waiting helicopter. "But what will we do without you?," pleaded the President. "The Library:Jefferson, Franklin, Roosevelt. You don't need me."

Jamie nodded with grim satisfaction as the rogue missle submarine slid into the Baltic Sea: Katyana, her Gucci purse full of C-4, had worked her magic.

Jamie ignored her attempt to defuse the tension. He gazed at her with searching eyes, cooly finishing his single malt. Entranced, she lowered the sniper rifle.

Jamie Grabbed the atomic detonator from Tatiana, shuddering with her betrayal as they struggled with the parachute harness. Who would die first? Them, or Helsinki?