We’d hesitated to return to a restaurant we’d frequented countless times. It had new owners and a new name, and we arbitrarily decided it couldn’t possibly be as good as it had been previously. We drive past it every day and each time we debate when and whether we should give it a try. Last night we bit the bullet and went in. (more…)
While I checked out at the supermarket Marc sat waiting on a bench along the wall. He struck up a conversation with a warm and friendly man who had a brilliant smile and claimed to be 94 years old.
He asked Marc how old he was.
“I’m 78,” he answered.
The man sighed wistfully. “Ah, to be 78 again,” he said. “That was a great age.”
It was 5:00. My dog had just walked into my office to remind me it was time to get into the kitchen and start rattling those pots and pans. I don’t know how he does it, but he always knows when it’s 5:00. He has to have swallowed a watch, which is why I refer to him as my “watch” dog…my chauvinist watchdog. (more…)
Today we went grocery shopping and, as usual, we brought our Service Dog, Shadeaux, who sat in the basket loving all of the attention he was getting from other shoppers.
As we rounded the pasta aisle a woman walked over to the cart and said, “Ooooh, he is absolutely adorable.”
“Aisle Seven,” I said. “They’re on sale.”
Five minutes later I was in the Frozen Food department, reaching for a bag of broccoli, when the woman tapped me on the shoulder.
“There were sold out,” she said, “but they gave me a Rain Check.”
I’m sitting at my desk, at my computer. Alongside me, on the floor to the right, is a large wastebasket, filled with rumpled 8-1/2” x 11” sheets of white paper; plain, ordinary sheets of paper that I determined, for one reason or another, were no longer worthy of my love and attention; through no fault of their own.
I’ve been here for roughly three hours. Writing. During those hours I’ve altered my perspective, changed my goal, misplaced my focus and lost my motivation. Repeatedly. And, with each change I’ve felt compelled to press Print, rip the paper from my printer, squash it in my hands, roll it into a ball and toss it into the trash basket. I could have deleted my words on the computer, and started fresh, but that wouldn’t have left me feeling cleansed, renewed, and ready to start again
I tell you this because something creepy is going on in my trash- basket. I’m all alone in my office – or so I believe – but through the soft background music Alexa is providing for me, through the soft tick-tock of my wall clock, through the sound of my own breath, I keep hearing movement; the slightest, barely audible movement, coming from my wastebasket, and it’s creeping me out. IT JUST HAPPENED AGAIN!
I emptied the trash – all paper – onto the floor and examined each piece thoroughly, certain I would find either a large insect or a baby rodent – both of which have been hanging out around my house this rainy summer, but I came up with nothing. Yet, I continue to hear something moving in those papers.
I swear, I’m not crazy.
Not yet, anyway.
Maybe it’s time for an Exorcist.–
Life can be Easy. Life can be Tough. If you’re lucky, you spend most of your time in the middle of those two extremes, with substantial shifts to the left. And, that’s where I usually live. But, bringing my second book to fruition has, on too many occasions, pushed me to the far right.
Writing the book was pure joy. I love to write. I live to write. I awaken each morning, excited to get into my office. My head is bursting with ideas to write about; ideas that appear to me during the night; ideas that compel me to grope around the top of my end table, in the dark, in search of my pen and Post-it-Note pad. It’s then that I write a word, a phrase, an idea that I’ve been thinking about in my sleep. Only when it’s out of my head, and onto paper, am I able to fall back to sleep. And, when I awaken to find myself staring at a stack of Post-it-Notes, I’m nearly always grateful to see them, because I had already forgotten those ideas that had meant so much to me just a few hours earlier. And, some of the notes I stare at quizzically wondering, “What the Hell does this mean?”
But, I digress. When I decided to commit to writing my second book I hadn’t known that the publisher I’d used previously; the one who did everything but chew my food for me, no longer offered any of the services it had previously. I was devastated and started the arduous task of looking for a new company. Suddenly, all of the fun went out of everything related to the book. It’s been exhausting, tedious and brain taxing. And, worst of all, it has not granted me time or energy to write.
At the same time, my website designer was working hard to renovate my outdated website. That poor woman has the patience of a saint. It took many months longer than it should have to be completed, solely because of my inability to know how to coordinate all that was on my plate – or in this case, my desk. The website is about 98% complete, but it’s gone Live anyway. Details will be attended to after the book is actually published. You’ll know when that happens, from my shouts of joy.
