My novel, “An Elfy on the Loose,” Is Now Available
It’s been a long time in coming, but my first novel, AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE (now with a subtitle of “Book One of the ELFY duology”) is now available at Amazon.com and will be available soon at all major e-book retailers.
**Edited to add: AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE has also “gone live” at BN.com (Barnes and Noble’s website), as Paul Howard told me in the comments. If you have a Nook and want to read AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, now’s your chance!
Now back to our regularly scheduled post.**
I’m very pleased that AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE is now out, even though I hadn’t expected it to “go live” on Amazon tonight, of all nights — but as it has, I figured I’d best skedaddle and get a blog post up, pronto.
For those of you who want a sample, please go here and read the first five chapters of AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE . . . then, I hope you’ll go to Amazon and get the e-book, as it’s on sale for a limited time at the low price of $3.99.
Because I’m a new author, and because I’m decidedly not well known, it is anyone’s guess as to whether or not AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE will do well enough to warrant an actual “dead tree” edition (that is, a paper edition).
For all I know, this e-book copy is all that we’re likely to get. So I hope you’ll enjoy it in the spirit intended.
In other words, if you want to read my novel because you’ve been intrigued about Bruno the Elfy and Sarah his human companion and want to know all about Sarah’s house (which is an Elfy trap of major proportions), or if you want to figure out why a Dark Elf would go to Northern California, or if you even want to know why Bruno’s mentor Roberto is worth saving despite being more than a bit of an butthead sometimes, now’s your chance.
I also hope that if you read and enjoy AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, you won’t be averse to letting people know my book exists. Because I need all the help I can get . . . and I’m not shy about saying so.
Guest Blog About the Elements of Romance Is Up
Folks, I’m pleased to tell you about today’s guest blog over at Stephanie Osborn’s blogsite, Comet Tales. The subject I wrote on is the Elements of Romance in Modern Storytelling, which is part of an ongoing series that has featured writers Osborn, Aaron Paul Lazar, and Christine Amsden before me; other authors planning to write blogs for this series include Katharine Eliska Kimbriel and Dina von Lowenkraft, so there’s plenty more to read in this series if you are so inclined.
Because we were allowed to talk about anything regarding romance and what it means to us as storytellers, I decided to talk about it from a historical perspective. Here’s a brief sample of that:
So how did romance as a thing actually come to be? Well, feelings and hormones aside, the lot of women from early on was probably none too good in most societies. Being bartered in marriage was by far the least of these ancient women’s worries. But as our world matured and societies became more stable, there was more leisure time available – especially in the upper classes – and people started to think.
Why couldn’t marriages be made where both people respected and liked each other? Why, if everything else was equal, couldn’t a suitor actually romantically care about his proposed wife? Wouldn’t that be beneficial to all concerned?
Later in the guest blog, I talked a little bit about some of my favorite contemporary authors (including Osborn, Kimbriel, and Rosemary Edghill), and how they use romance — or don’t — in their writing.
So do go take a look at it . . . I promise you, it’s not like any other guest blog you’ve ever read, at least not on this subject.
And enjoy!
Odds and Ends, April 2014 Version
Well, folks, as usual, I’ve been so busy the past week that I have barely had enough time to turn around.
Whenever I get this busy, I don’t blog much, I don’t do much other than what must be done first — editing, in this case, and glad to have the work — and everything else basically takes a backseat.
This is why I didn’t review anything last week at Shiny Book Review (SBR).
This is why I didn’t write a follow-up blog regarding the two elections that the Koch Brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity group threw a lot of money into . . . and it’s also why, despite the Milwaukee Brewers’ impressive sweep of the Boston Red Sox, I didn’t get back here to write about that, either.
That being said, here’s a few quick hits regarding the odds and ends I left open last week:
- The elections in Iron County, WI, and in Kenosha County for the Kenosha Unified School Board seemed to be largely unaffected by the huge amount of money Americans for Prosperity threw into the races. The folks in Iron County basically said in a number of televised interviews that they disliked interference from people who didn’t live in Iron County — so the money that AFP threw into the election seems to have gone by the boards. And the people in Kenosha County didn’t change their minds regarding their candidates, either . . . so it does appear, as my late friend Jeff Wilson once put it, that there is a monetary ceiling to an election where a group (or groups) can spend whatever they like, but after a certain point, people just tune out.
- The Brewers going into Boston and sweeping the Red Sox was completely unanticipated, at least by me. After only scoring four runs in three games and losing two out of three at home in the Brewers’ own opening series, it was particularly impressive that the Brewers could go into Boston, win all three games (including an 11th inning thriller), and actually have some clutch hits in games that mattered.
- What a shame that Wisconsin lost to Kentucky in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I’m glad the Badgers did so well and got to the Final Four — that’s the one thing I got right in my NCAA bracket — but I wish they’d have had just one more game in them. (C’est la vie.)
- Normally after turning in a really big edit — as I did on Saturday morning — I’d take a few days off. Right now, I can’t, because I’m looking over my master file for AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE. There is a reason for that: The e-book will be up on Amazon and most other major dealers on April 15 — so if you’ve ever wanted to find out what the deal is with regards to my Elfyverse or my character Bruno the Elfy, now’s your chance to set your clocks.
Later in the week, I should have at least a bit of time to get a review or two in over at SBR, and I hope to be able to talk more about baseball, or politics, or maybe even the recent decision by the NLRB arbitrator in Chicago who ruled that Northwestern University’s football players should be able to form a union, as they are employees like any other (as that last really intrigues me, but I haven’t had enough time to do justice to the subject as of yet).
But for now, all I can do is please ask you to let people know that AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE is coming soon . . . and if you think anyone will be interested (or even if they aren’t), tell them that my late husband Michael B. Caffrey’s two stories of military science fiction about his excellent character Joey Maverick, a quiet and responsible man who is nonetheless every bit a hero, are available now at Amazon (here and here).
Even with my own novel coming out, it still matters a great deal to me that Michael’s stories find their audience, especially as, years ago, Michael had hundreds of people who said they wanted to buy them as soon as he was willing to put them out. (I don’t know where these people went, mind you. But maybe at least a few of them are still alive, and if so, perhaps they’ll discover the stories one of these years. Hope springs eternal, and all that.)
Milwaukee Brewers Opening Series — Heartbreaking, in More Ways than One
The Milwaukee Brewers “Opening Series” has ended after the Brewers lost today, 1-0, against the Atlanta Braves. Today’s loss means the Braves take the series, 2-1, and that the Brewers scored only four runs in three games.
Yep. You read that right.
Four runs. In three games.
Terrible.
What’s sad about today’s game is that Brewers right-hander Matt Garza took a no-hitter into the seventh inning. Garza only lost it after giving up a home run to Atlanta Braves third baseman Chris Johnson at the 6 and 2/3 innings mark — but that was all the Braves needed due to the impressive performance of Aaron Harang (who took his own no-hit bid into the sixth also) and the relievers who followed him.
Now, could the Brewers have scored some runs today? Yes, they could have. But they had only two innings in which to do so — the third, where Lyle Overbay stood on second base and Carlos Gomez had a chance to drive him in (but didn’t), and the seventh, where Ryan Braun stood on third with Aramis Ramirez on first with only one out. Jonathan Lucroy, the Brewers best clutch hitter after Ramirez and Braun, couldn’t even hit the ball into the outfield for a sacrifice fly, instead popping it up weakly to the second baseman (infield fly rule) — then, with two outs, Ron Roenicke sent up Rickie Weeks as a pinch-hitter for Scooter Gennett, and Weeks promptly struck out.
What Roenicke needed to have the Brewers do in the seventh was this: Bunt. A suicide squeeze might’ve tied that game up, and the way the Brewers pitchers were going, we might be in extra innings right now. Gennett was the right guy to get that done, as he has speed and his bat control last year was excellent.
Instead, Roenicke sent up Weeks. The results were predictable. Weeks did what Weeks generally does: he struck out, albeit on seven pitches. (He nearly took a walk. But nearly doesn’t count.)
Mind you, if Roenicke had just made out his lineup card slightly differently, and had put Overbay sixth instead of eighth, Overbay would’ve been up instead of Gennett (or Weeks) in the seventh. And there was a good chance that Overbay, unlike Weeks or Gennett, would’ve been able to successfully take a walk and extend the inning. With the bases loaded, anything could’ve happened.
But that’s water under the bridge, considering Roenicke for whatever reason decided to use Gennett instead of Overbay in the six spot.
What’s frustrating to me as a Brewers fan is that just a few, small changes would’ve won today’s game.
Granted, it’s much easier to manage a team from an armchair — I will admit this freely — but I do not understand why anyone would put Weeks into a clutch situation. Weeks has clearly lost his speed, he can’t catch up to the fastball, and his situational hitting skills are atrocious. He’s the last guy you want up in a 1-0 game with two guys on and two outs.
In fact, I’d rather have had a pitcher come in to try for a suicide squeeze — someone like Kyle Lohse, last night’s starter (who pitched more than well enough to win, providing the Brewers had just managed to score a few more runs) — than sent Weeks up there to strike out.
One thing is clear. The Brewers are not hitting yet.
But if they don’t start hitting, and soon, it’s going to be a very, very long year. No matter how good the starting pitchers are.
Why Voting is Important — Especially in Local Elections
Folks, I voted today.
Why is this a big deal? Well, there were no truly contested races on the ballot, except for school board — and as I have no children, you might think I’d not care about that. (Of course, if you did think that way, you’d be wrong. But I digress.) Which is why some people sit small elections like today’s out.
But they shouldn’t.
It’s important to vote in local elections, no matter how small they may seem. People who get elected to the school board, or the county board of supervisors, or are elected as judges need to be held accountable — and need to be fully apprised of what’s going on in and around their own, particular area in order to make good decisions.
Local control is important.
I say all this because we had two elections today in Wisconsin that are highly unusual, because outside influences got heavily involved in them. The first was for the County Board of Supervisors in tiny Iron County, Wisconsin — which has as a population for the entire county around 6,000 (no misprint). And the second was for the Kenosha Unified School Board election, Kenosha being right on the Illinois border and having about 85,000 people within the city, perhaps as many as 170,000 in the county.
And the group that got involved in both cases was Americans for Prosperity, a group widely known to have been founded by the Koch Brothers.
Now, why should the Koch Brothers or AFP care about Iron County, WI? Well, according to this article from NorthlandNewscenter.com, it’s all because of a taconite mine. A billionaire named Chris Cline wants to open the mine according to the Daily Beast, but the Chippewa Indian tribe has objected, along with many environmentalists.
That’s why AFP and the Koch Brothers got involved, apparently — they want this taconite mine to go forward, and they have pumped well over $100,000 of advertising into the sleepy little county to get their own way.
They’ve also apparently recruited or helped to recruit ten candidates to challenge the fifteen incumbents on the Board of Supervisors, as usually the people on this particular supervisory board run unopposed — not because people don’t care, but because it can be hard to find fifteen civic-minded souls who want the job in little Iron County.
So there are fifteen seats, with ten being contested this time around, and a whole lot of misleading advertising thrown into the mix. There also appears to be a rather unusual connection to Governor Scott Walker and many of the Republicans currently sitting in the state Legislature that is accounting for at least some of the involvement by AFP (you need to read the Daily Beast article to find out why), which just screams that something strange is going on here.
As writer Dean Obeidallah says for the Daily Beast:
This all appears to be legal, but I doubt I’m the only one who feels something is horribly wrong. This is reminiscent of the “cooper kings” who in the early 1900’s controlled Montana politics with their mining money.
Rest assured, Mr. Obeidallah, that you are far from the only one who feels this is morally wrong, as well as more than a little bit underhanded.
But all of that, bad as it is, pales in some ways to what’s going on in Kenosha. (Kenosha, for those of you not from Southeastern Wisconsin or Northern Illinois, is Racine’s nearest neighbor to the south and is the first big city you drive through if you’re on I-94 driving into Wisconsin.)
Here in Southeastern Wisconsin, we’ve had a fight on our hands with regards to private charter schools versus public education. Racine was one of the first “pilot programs” in the state for private charter schools being funded by taxpayer dollars, and we didn’t exactly do very well — yet the program has been expanded, little by little, even though privately-owned charter schools have been proven thus far to actually be educating children even more poorly than the public schools.
Well, Kenosha Unified School District has been vocal in the past about the need for more funding for public schools. They do not want to see private schools expand into the Kenosha area whatsoever. And they have continued to be a staunch supporter of the teacher’s union.
All three of those things are apparently things AFP and the Koch Brothers do not support.
Let’s be honest here. The main reason the Rs in Wisconsin want private charter schools is to break the remains of the teacher’s union here in Wisconsin. So a pro-union district like Kenosha or Racine is a big, fat target to them.
That’s why AFP — a long-time supporter of both the national and Wisconsin Rs — got involved in, of all things, the Kenosha Unified School Board election.
So there you have it: AFP has inserted itself into not one, but two local elections because they apparently see their own interests in taconite mining and private charter schools at risk.
When the Republicans, in and out of Wisconsin, are all supposedly for “local control,” this sort of interference really seems hypocritical.
Anyway, it’ll be hours before all the results come in with regards to both elections, but I’ll try to write a follow-up blog tomorrow about whatever happened, and whatever lessons can be learned after the fact.
But for now, make no mistake about it — local elections are important.
And the Koch Brothers know it.
Time for a Milwaukee Brewers 2014 Season Preview
As the Milwaukee Brewers baseball season officially begins on March 31, 2014, it’s time for a season preview.
Last year, the Brewers had an underwhelming year, to put it mildly. While youngsters just up from AAA like Khris Davis and Caleb Gindl helped All-Stars Jean Segura and Carlos Gomez get to a 74-88 record, the season was marred because of slugger Ryan Braun’s 65-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs. And the constantly rotating cast of characters over at first base due to Corey Hart’s double-knee surgery woes didn’t exactly help, either.
And must I remind you about the horrible month of May, considering it was historic for all the wrong reasons?
Thankfully, 2014 looks to be a different story entirely.
This year, Braun is back, and is hitting a ton in Spring Training. There are now only two people who will regularly be playing first base — Lyle Overbay and Mark Reynolds. All of the starting pitchers — Kyle Lohse, Matt Garza, Yovani Gallardo, Marco Estrada, and Wily Peralta — appear healthy and ready to go, while the bullpen features an interesting mix of youth and experience.
So, will the 2014 season be better than 2013? One would hope so . . . but then again, hope springs eternal and every team, coming out of Spring Training, thinks it’s going to be a world beater.
Here are my thoughts regarding the 2014 Brewers:
- Braun will have an excellent season both at the plate and in the field. He’ll be tested rigorously, and it’s highly unlikely he’ll fail another drug test any time soon. So his play should be a bright spot no matter what else happens.
- Garza has had a lousy Spring Training, to be charitable. But he’s one of those pitchers like former Brewer Ben Sheets — Garza doesn’t like to show anything of what he’s actually going to do in Spring Training, and because of that, it’s hard to gauge where he really is. My guess is that if he has enough stamina to get through six innings, he’s going to be fine.
- Lohse looks good. He’s fit, healthy, a good mentor to the younger pitchers . . . he’s not the titular ace of the staff (supposedly, that’s still Yovani Gallardo), but he sure looks an ace to me. I expect no problems from him at all, and think he’ll be one of the best pitchers in the National League, providing he stays healthy.
- Gallardo looks much better than he has since 2011. His curveball is sharp and his fastball seems to have recovered the movement it didn’t have during much of 2013. He had some off-the-field problems in ’13, including an arrest for DUI, but it seems like he’s gotten sober and is taking much better care of his health. This should mean that he’s going to be a better and more consistent pitcher, so this might be the year that Gallardo finally breaks out and shows he’s one of the top fifteen pitchers in the NL (along with Lohse).
- I don’t know what the Brewers are doing with Peralta. Every time I’ve seen Peralta pitch on TV (as I haven’t been able to get to Arizona, obviously, to see them live and in person), Peralta’s battery-mate has been Jonathan Lucroy. Lucroy hits well and is a good catcher, but he is not the right fit for Peralta as Peralta seems extremely uncomfortable whenever Lucroy catches for him.
- Speaking of Lucroy, I agree that the Brewers need him in the lineup as often as possible, as Lucroy is one of the Brewers’ best hitters. However, he should not catch Peralta, and he probably shouldn’t catch Estrada either, as both of them do much better with Martin Maldonado. The Brewers should instead put Lucroy at first base on those days, as it’s best for all concerned and they’ll get much better mileage out of Peralta and Estrada if they do.
- The biggest question mark, to my mind, remains at first base. Unless Lucroy does play over there two times every five days, there isn’t going to be much production coming from that position.The two first basemen, while better than Yuniesky Betancourt and a cast of thousands were last year, are still not very good. Overbay is now thirty-seven, and while his glove is still better than average — and while the Brewers infield needs all the help it can get, especially with Rickie Weeks being way under par defensively at second base (the only time Weeks has ever fielded well was when Willie Randolph was helping to coach the team and giving Weeks constant pointers; is there any way to get Randolph back?) — Overbay does not look like he can hit major league pitching consistently any longer. And Reynolds . . . well, he’s not been as bad a fielder as advertised at first base, I’ll give him that. He seems comfortable over there, and he hits better than Overbay. But he’s a strikeout machine on a team that already has Gomez and Weeks, and that doesn’t seem conducive to getting too many runs across no matter how much power potential Reynolds demonstrably has (he’s one of those guys who’s actually hit baseballs completely over scoreboards or completely out of stadiums, well over four hundred and fifty feet).
The remaining thoughts I have are mostly about the bullpen . . . but rather than put them in bullet points, I’m just going to say this:
They’re mostly young. They’re mostly unproven. But I like the mix . . . Tyler Thornburg can start or relieve, Zach Duke can spot start if he needs to, if closer Jim Henderson falters, Francisco Rodriguez is right there and can possibly help (K-Rod has looked especially sharp in Spring Training, especially considering his freak accident in Arizona where he stepped on a cactus while playing with one of his kids; the doctors are still getting cactus spines out of his feet ten days-plus later), and I’m particularly impressed with Brandon Kintzler’s fortitude and perseverance, as he actually made his way to the major leagues via the Independent Northern League.
So, will the Brewers be any better? Or won’t they?
Only time will tell . . . but I like their chances.
A Plea to the Media: Leave the Family Members of those Lost on Malaysian Airways Flight 370 Alone
For the past seventeen or eighteen days, depending on which side of the globe you’re on, it seems that every news person in the world has been covering the strange and sudden disappearance of Malaysian Airways flight 370, abbreviated as MH370 for short.
Every night, news organizations such as CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, BBC America, and others have breathlessly reported on any available lead as to where this plane went. Various theories have been expounded, some having to do with Visual Flight Rules and how they might apply (if you’re flying low, you’re on VFR), some having to do with why the pilots might have simulators in their houses, various scenarios about how the cockpit might have had a catastrophic accident, and many, many more.
During all this time, the various families of the passengers who’d boarded MH370 expecting a safe and sedate flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing have been inundated with all of this. They’ve had to try to remain calm, even as the reputations of the pilots have been besmirched over and over again; they’ve been told all sorts of conflicting information, as no one can even seemingly figure out exactly where the flight may have gone down.
Worst of all, the Malaysian Prime Minister, a man by the name of Najib Razak, seemingly says something different every single day. He can’t confirm anything, because the information is constantly changing, and the satellite data coming in from other countries seems to directly contradict anything he says anyway.
So when Mr. Razak said earlier today (as reported by Wolf Blitzer on CNN) that there is now “conclusive evidence” that MH370 went down in the Indian Ocean and that all passengers and crew must be accounted dead, who can blame the families for not believing him?
See, the families are in between a rock and a hard place. They want information; they have to know that it would be an increasingly long shot for anyone to survive in the cold ocean in choppy seas without land, even with floatation devices and possibly some food and a bit of water, after seventeen-plus days. But the information must be impeccable, must be comprehensible, and must be logical.
More to the point, every available authority should agree on it.
Because after all this time, with all of the information that’s been thrown at them day after day after day, the families of the passengers and crew of lost MH370 have to be completely shellshocked.
That being said, the families have reacted with dismay, frustration, loss, and a whole lot of screaming to the recent revelations by Prime Minister Razak. All of this is completely understandable.
What isn’t understandable is why the media insists on showing these poor people being carried out on stretchers, screaming at the top of their lungs while gesticulating wildly, or other scenes of pain, loss, and outright suffering.
Where is the decency of the media? Why aren’t they treating these poor families the way they, themselves, would wish to be treated if for some reason their family members and loved ones had gone down on MH370 instead?
Granted, not every media outlet is showing the screaming. MSNBC seems to have restrained itself, for the most part, especially in recent days, for which I thank them. Fox News has not shown a lot of that, either, during the past four or five days. I don’t think BBC America has shown much in the past few days (though it showed a lot more earlier), and that’s a good thing as well.
But CNN definitely has.
Worse, it keeps doing it, and shows no sign of stopping any time soon.
My view is simple: The media needs to leave these poor families alone. (Yes, CNN, I’m looking squarely at you.) They have suffered enough as it is.
And unfortunately, they will continue to suffer for a very, very long time, even if the current information is absolutely accurate and even if the bodies of their loved ones are eventually found and recovered.
The only thing CNN and other media outlets like them are doing at this point is to prolong the agony of the suffering families.
And that, my friends, is just wrong.
Figure Skater Johnny Weir and Victor Voronov Separate, on the Road to Divorce
Folks, a few years ago I was proud to congratulate figure skater Johnny Weir on the event of his marriage to Victor Voronov.
Now, I am saddened to hear of their impending divorce.
Media reports thus far have said that Victor Voronov feels blindsided by what’s happened (the link I cited above from US Weekly had a headline of “shocked by the abrupt ending of his marriage, dealing with trauma endured”), which saddens me even further.
Look. Divorce is no picnic. (I should know; before I finally found Michael, I was divorced.) It can come out of the blue, or a lot of little things can lead up to a dissolution that at the time seems abrupt . . . but after a healing distance seems inevitable.
I don’t know what happened in Johnny Weir and Victor Voronov’s marriage, mind you. But I can tell you that historically, in some marriages between two people who are otherwise well-suited — such as English mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers and Scottish journalist Atherton Fleming — when one person succeeds more than the other, as Sayers did in a resounding fashion with her successful series of mysteries featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and his eventual wife, Harriet Vane, it can cause fissures that are nearly impossible to heal.
Granted, Ms. Sayers lived during a time where divorce for an observant Christian was not always the “done thing,” which is possibly why she did not divorce Mr. Fleming. (Divorce was possible, sure. But unless there were overpowering reasons for it, usually couples would suffer in silence.) But in most of the biographies I’ve read about Ms. Sayers, the reason for her marriage having enormous difficulty was given over and over again as one, simple thing: She was successful. And he wasn’t successful to the same degree.
Now, that doesn’t mean Atherton Fleming resented his wife or her success. But her overwhelming success still hurt the marriage, because he wanted to be equal to his wife, was a good writer in his own way, and just didn’t find the same success no matter what he did or how hard he tried.
Worse yet, it’s harder for a man sociologically in Western society when a male spouse in a partnership isn’t equal to his spouse. (Just because both spouses are male in the case of the Johnny Weir/Victor Voronov marriage doesn’t change that sociological fact.) It doesn’t seem to matter how much love there is, or how much empathy, or how much understanding if one spouse is more successful than the other — under those circumstances, unless both people are fully present in their marriage and are willing to see themselves as flawed people who need and love each other and see success as a relative thing as opposed to simply a status thing — and will throw one hundred percent of themselves into their marriage — their marriage ultimately has little chance of success.
Now, what do I mean by success being relative? Well, in this case, Victor Voronov is successful because he’s always fully supported his husband Johnny Weir. That isn’t always easy to do even for the most loving of spouses, especially when one person is in the public eye all the time and the other just isn’t.
Whereas Johnny Weir is successful for other reasons.
And both of them need to see each other as a success in his own way and on his own terms, or the marriage just hasn’t a prayer of working.
In this particular case, looking in from the outside, Johnny Weir has obviously been on an upswing in his professional life over the past year-plus. He’s just come off a well-received stint at the Sochi Olympics as a figure skating commentator, where he received largely favorable publicity. He and his figure skating commentator partner, Tara Lipinski, were both signed by Access Hollywood to provide coverage for all sorts of things, including the Oscars. And his own personal, rather flamboyant sense of style has been plastered across society pages from one end of the Internet to the other.
Whereas Victor Voronov has apparently been settling into a career as a lawyer. His job is full of stress and long hours for much lower pay than Weir has been receiving for Weir’s various duties. Voronov is trying to establish himself, which is incredibly stressful in its own right.
Having a globe-trotting husband who’s plastered across society pages is possibly not what Voronov had expected his marriage to look like, especially as he married an athlete, not a celebrity icon (though to be fair, Weir was already both things when he married Voronov in December of 2011).
This sets up a lot of inequality that would be tough for any couple to deal with. One member of the marriage — Weir — is often gone and away from the other. Even with all the love in the world and complete and utter fidelity to one another, that one thing has been the death of more marriages than almost anything else.
At any rate, Weir has announced his separation from Voronov on Twitter and apparently has filed for divorce. Weir will be talking with Access Hollywood (one of his employers) later today (Thursday, March 20, 2014) by most media accounts, so perhaps at that time more will come out about the dissolution of his marriage.
That being said, while I can see from the outside why there would be extra stress on the Weir-Voronov marriage, I still had hoped it would endure. Weir seemed to settle down quite a bit after his marriage, and had shown himself to be a more mature and sensible individual — perhaps he always was that way, granted, and the media just didn’t portray it overmuch because being colorful is always “good copy” — and by every account I’ve ever read, Voronov was deeply in love with Johnny and was an extremely supportive spouse.
That’s why I find this particular divorce between two men I have never met and don’t know to be incredibly sad.
* * * * *
Edited to add:
Since I first wrote about this, a number of particularly nasty things have come out regarding the split between Weir and Voronov, most particularly via the gossip magazines.
I feel badly for both of these men. Divorce is hard.
But divorcing in public in the age of Twitter and non-stop communication seems to be the height of insanity.
I don’t know what to make of some of the things that have come out, to be honest. But I still believe that people have the right to make their own choices, as well as their own mistakes; because of this, sometimes marriages don’t work no matter how much love there is between the two parties.
I wish both men well as they do their best to move forward from what all accounts have shown thus far to be an incredibly traumatic experience.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 