All Comments on 'Mary and Alvin Ch. 18'

I was on the bull & Finch darts team before the TV show popularized it ... so glad you didn't call it the Cheers bar ... Thanks for the memories.

I'm never disappointed !! Each chapter is better than the previous one.. One of my favorite stories on this site.. I really like the caracters

If you ain't going to show us your tits, how about an ass twerking gif.? ;) 5 stars all the way around if you do!

I wish I could bring a setting to life the way you do.

I was thrilled to see Mary and Alvin 18 posted as 17 appeared to be an end to this excellent series. I went back and thoroughly enjoyed your Fall and Rise series. It also showed how you have developed as a writer as I compared 18 with your earlier work. Thank you for treating us with your stories.

Not knowing baseball at all, why did the spectators sing a Neil Diamond song whilst the game was being played? It can only be a recent thing that started.

UltimateHomeBody: Singing Sweet Caroline has become a tradition at Fenway Park in recent years. As I understand it, the music guy played it because a friend had named their baby Caroline, and the fans liked it, so it just caught on and became a regular thing. It is sung at every Red Sox home game now.

This described Boston well and it captures a lot of the city's "flavor," at least in part; it seemed to focus most on Fenway. It turns out a woman directing the music then played "Sweet Caroline" in 1997, and it took off from there.

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I keep noticing certain grammatical errors that need smoothing out, like long sentences lacking commas at certain points or too many "ands" in succession where commas suffice. Here are some issues:

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"They entered the cool dark aquarium. Mary was captivated by the exhibits; the sea turtles and stingrays swimming around and around in the giant ocean tank...," which needs to read "They entered the cool, dark aquarium." Another part should be "Mary was captivated by the exhibits:" since a colon signals for the reader a list or explanation follows; a semicolon cannot fill that, since both independent clauses must have similar or equal weight, nor can it be used for an explanation. Hyphenation still a smaller issue here, as one example should have been "the middle-aged man" that was behind Mary and high-fived her saying "good job, L.A."

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There were some odd, missed opportunities here: Mary finally gets Mexican food, but the story describes nothing about the experience; Alvin owns a wharf, yet does not dwell at Boston Harbor (why not?). Some of the odd insertions dealt with Mary quipping about eating the ice cream or a banana, or even at the restaurant: suddenly they're married and they speak more sordidly in public than they did in the previous 17 chapters and admonished each other to speak more decently in public. While the story explains Boston as the "hub of the universe," Alvin making a speech about her pussy is so incredibly...off the wall. It might have fit had they not already had tons of sex before marrying, because now he's admiring the prize in front of him and he's going to make up for lost time. They already discussed having children, so the story covered the subject several times. The things that really surprised me dealt with Alvin and Mary throwing out distasteful jabs about "if you can't keep up, I'll get you a wheelchair" (something like that) and Alvin saying "yep, I own another black one for funerals," and this is after Mary nearly broke down in a recent chapter, demanding Alvin not do anything to hurt himself/off himself prematurely? Since she felt that way previously, she should not joke about a wheelchair and he should not joke about a funeral. As for the honeymoon, it really stuck out they were ok with "staying in" when in every other chapter they've demonstrated great wanderlust, taking in as much as reasonably possible within the time they had, whether in Bar Harbor, Castine or Portland. They certainly weren't going to Boston after being worn out.

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Certainly, you nail describing cities in pretty good detail, and provide rich detail in most other areas (like especially when describing Maine). This draws Mary and Alvin as largely an adorable couple, but not quite in sync yet (which I thought they would be farther along with that by now). The odd timings and items that need fixing detract from how the narrative established their personalities. Can't rate higher than 3.

Comentarista82, what are you, a professional editor? Keep your trap shut and let MelissaBaby write her stories. Nobody cares how many stars that you so generously bestow upon her.

MB, I agree with almost every commenter on here... we all love your writing. From someone who has travelled all over Maine, to Boston many times, and to SoCal a couple times, you do such a nice job in capturing settings.

You are also terrific at creating funny, serious and touching dialogue.

We all love your work - keep it up.

And Comentarista82, keep your opinions to yourself.

I’m continuing to enjoy this story, the honeymoon was written in a loving and fun fashion.