1.	Little Peru and Big Christmas stained glass together for five hours
once on a Sunday evening. "I'll build you a cathedral," she said.
Christmas's family had a lot of land, but nothing to build on it. Peru was
supposed to be her muse. "I don't want a cathedral," he said.

2.	Carl and France had been together for several years without
France's brother coming to approve. Carl thought getting certified might
impress the brother; France felt it was a waste of resources. When the cer-
tifier came to their apartment unexpectedly, France accused Carl of
flirting with him.

3.	Boston was a close friend of Ruth's; during the downturn, Boston
asked to stay on Ruth's floor. They shared rent and food, but never made a
formal agreement about the scope of their relationship. Boston offered to
fall in love with Ruth if it would make things easier. Ruth suggested that
Boston fall in love with something else in the apartment, and Boston did
so.

4.	Japan became involved with her calculator gradually. Though it is
well-known that calculators can take whatever name is assigned by their
owner, Japan felt that her emotions precluded her naming the calculator.
This situation was unsatisfactory to the calculator who, however, said no-
thing.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

- What would you, as a counselor, recommend each of these couples do in the
short term? Do you feel any of them has better or worse prospects than the
others?

- What does each offer use as its ostensible motive? What motives do you
feel are going unspoken in each scenario?

- Suppose, in (2), that certifiers were prevented by regulation from making
house calls. Based on your experience with clients like Carl, do you think
he would have attached the same importance to certification?

- Which of these couples face obstacles common to cross-cultural relation-
ships, and which are unusual? How would you pair them up if you could re-
arrange them?

- As you may know, our profession has a history of not naming calculators.
What problems does this pose for a counselor handling (4)? Contrast this
was other instances of partiality you have faced.

- Of the roughly 250 cathedrals that have been identified, 10 all belong to
a single woman. As regards (1), draw up a table of expected differences
between that woman and Big Christmas. To each difference, assign a value.
On the basis of those values, would you accept case (1)?
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REMEMBER: Your enrollment in this seminar is confidential. Upon completion,
your record will be cleared. Hard work is the only way to regain trust.

written for Carl Beckett in my kitchen 10/27/01

The first thing I do with a word-list that puts me off a little is to step back. Eight proper nouns out of nine words -- okay, it's a list of names. I waffled a little bit at first about whether the names would "really" mean anything, and in the end they didn't. That's a cop-out, I admit; though the wordlist drove the story, you can't necessarily tell that from reading the story, even if you know what the words were. Mea culpa.

There's some more waffling in this one, which you can probably see; I meandered a little on the question of just what was going on, and the first example has a less didactic tone than the others. Also, more instances of clunky wording than I can really wave away by saying I was winging it.

On ther other hand, this is my favorite so far of the three or four stories that ended up using substantial elements that had been rattling around my head before I started the story. I like looking for fiction opportunities in non-narrative places, and teacher's guides, with their double helpings of context and expectation, are often on my mind. This is more of a worksheet than a teacher's guide, but the principle remains.

The second "as you may know", I think, is excusable as an imitation of worksheet style, but the earlier "it is well-known" on the same topic was lazy, lazy, lazy. Also, the final sentence seems superfluous, now that I reread it.

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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