When the well runs dry

In December I was full of column ideas.  I almost couldn't write them down fast enough.  But this month?  All the idea arteries in my brain have hardened.  LIKE CONCRETE.

HOWEVER!   I have deadlines.  DEADLINES!  What to do, what to do?

I look back at the week I just had and identify a moment when I was feeling something--anything!--strongly.  And then I see if I can turn that moment into some kind of narrative.  This week I was extremely annoyed when a driver nearly ran me off the road because he didn't see me.  Why didn't he see me?  Because he hadn't scraped the snow off his windows.

A small moment, I know.  But still.  I got a rant out of it.  Wrote it down.  E-mailed it to Editor Lisa.  Waiting to hear from her now.

This Week's Prompt

Last night I told my fabulous class at the Alta Club that I would share the weekly prompts the North Carolinians are sending me and Ken so that we can (somewhat painlessly) write our life stories.  This way they can use the prompts, too.

See how awesome and generous I am?

Okay--this week's prompt:  "What is your earliest memory?"

This one's easy--the day they brought my brother John home from the hospital.  I was 2 1/2 and the Belle of the Baby Ball at our house.  But I was completely upstaged by this skinny red new sibling who commanded everyone's attention from the moment he walked onto the family stage.

I can remember looking at him on his little blanket with smoldering resentment  as everyone crowded around, taking pictures.  NOT OF ME.  I almost felt contempt for my dad, who was busy making goofy faces for the baby.

Okay.  Maybe not contempt.  Sympathetic embarrassment--the kind of embarrassment you feel for someone who apparently isn't feeling embarrassed for himself.  So I decided to run away.

First I ran away and hid in the basement.  No one came looking for me.

Then I ran away outside and stood underneath the crabapple tree in our front yard.   No one came looking for me.

So then I went back inside and began the process of resigning myself to my fate, much as Soviet dissidents resigned themselves to one way trips to some distant archipelago . . .

(Don't worry.  I didn't hurt him.  Very much, anyway.  And we're friends now that he's a lot bigger than I am.)

Now HERE'S something that can really make me mad . . .

So today I took my two year-old granddaughter, Bean, (not her real name) to buy cupcakes at Mini's.  (I read her the sign out front that says, "Cupcakes make you happy," to which she responded, "But food makes you sad."  I will make it my life's work to change her mind about this, you can be sure.)

Anyway.  I bought a blue cupcake for her and a pink cupcake for me, which I took home and put way, way, WAY up high so that certain dogs in this house could not get it.  And I thought all was well until I heard an ominous crash.    I charged downstairs and found Zora (aka "Sasquatch") with the cupcake box in her mouth, and really my eyeballs exploded out of my head I was seeing so much red.   RED!  DO YOU HEAR ME?

Big dog eating tiny cupcakes?  Yeah.  That'll make me come unglued every single time.

An update on what I am reading now

I remember Becky once told me she just felt better in every way when she had something to read.  I've been trying to up my game on the reading front lately, because I think the same holds true for me.  Here's a list of books I've finished in the last six weeks.  By way of disclaimer--some I read closely, others I just skimmed.

The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson.  The newest title in her YA Shades of London series.  I like the voice in these books--Johnson is always a pleasure to read--but this book felt a little like the second movie in the Back to the Future movies, its primary purpose being to set up the next installment.  I kinda resent that as a reader.

(Which, btw, I could go on and on and on right now about how it feels like the stand-alone novel is a dying breed in the world of children's publishing.  Correct me if I'm wrong. I would, in fact, love to be wrong.)

The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe.  I wanted to love this book, as it turned out I only liked it.  Not quite sure why.  For me the book was most interesting when he discussed the books he and his mother read together.  I liked that they had such a broad range of tastes, especially given the fact that both of them were/are so highly literate.

Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky.  I always feel obliged to say this--lots of language in this book, so if that's not your thing, be forewarned.  Read this book and you'll see the whole "hospitality industry" in a completely different light.  Brash and breezy.

Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander.  Louise and Tom gave me this book for Christmas, and I read it pretty much in a single setting.  Not sure it would make a believer out of a non-believer, but I felt very comfortable with his experience and the way he described.  The fact that he's a brain doctor gives him some cred.

Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.  The thing I love most about this book is that Geoffrey gave it to me for Christmas.  I always enjoy the books Geoff gives me.  I think I mentioned earlier that this is kind of a cross between The DaVinci Code and The Name of the Rose but funnier and more likable than either of those books.  I LOVED,LOVED, LOVED the first half but grew a little impatient with it the second half.  Sometimes I think this kind of book has a hard time bearing the weight of its own suspense.

(Side note and personal:  my own personal favorite of my books is THE LOSER'S GUIDE TO LIFE AND LOVE, a book that plenty of people have dismissed as being lightweight.  I don't see it that way at all--I see the tone and treatment as being light-hearted, which is a different thing.  After reading Penumbra, though, I sort of understood that criticism of my own book a little better.  So I FORGIVE ALL YOU CRITICS OF MY BOOK.  I GET IT NOW.)

Blogging every day, 2013

So far I've made it.  And I am enjoying it.  A LOT.

I was going to do a proper post tonight, but I've got The Sick again--a cold and cough thing this time.  Hoping it's not the influenza bug.

Anyway.  This is by way of explanation re today's shabby post.

Hope you're all well and warm.

Column Alert!

I've been posting these on Sunday, but I'm going to take a little time tomorrow and do something Ken Baker tagged me on.  So here's this week's column.

Have a good weekend, all.

Prompt Journal

Son Numero Tres and his bonita esposa gave Ken and me a lovely gift this Christmas--journals in which we write our life stories using prompts.  This week the prompt was about our names and how we got them.

Of course I know where my middle name, Louise, came from.  It's a family name--TRQ and my grandmother share it, too.  And I've always liked that it means "warrior maiden."  YES!  WATCH ME TAKE OUT MY SWORD AND HEW OFF SOME ARMS!

When I was younger, however, I was massively disappointed in my first name.  Ann.  Ann without an "e."  So boring.  So vanilla.  So not memorable.  When I was in the sixth grade I used to pretend it was short for Angelique.  Not just Angelique.  Angelique Dawn.

So yeah.  Apparently I was a frilly girl in the sixth grade.

Anyway, I asked TRQ last night why she selected that name and she couldn't remember other than the fact that it wasn't a "cutesy" name.  She didn't want me to be named "Tiffany" like all the other girls my age.

Okay.  I can totally promise you there were hardly any girls in the 50's being named "Tiffany."  We had to wait until the 70's for that particular crop of babies.  But I got her point.  And the older I've gotten the more I've appreciated the simplicity, the directness of the name she chose for me.

Well done, TRQ!