Monday, May 14, 2007

BLOGGER'S BLOCK

I'd like to say I've been suffering from Blogger's Block, a real and serious condition worthy of capitalization, and maybe even a listing in Wiki. But unfortunately, I don't believe it exists.
Even its more famed and deadly cousin, Writer's Block, seems to me like a dressed-up name for fear. Or laziness. Or procrastination.

Or maybe it just means you really don't want to write at all. You want to think about writing--a much less taxing activity, that has never taken the life of a tree, or bored a single reader.
So no, I haven't had Blogger's Block. Instead, I've been conducting an unplanned (and highly successful!) experiment on the principle of Inertia.

So much of what I learned in grade school is lost forever, as I first learned when I tried to help my kids with their third grade math homework. Division of fractions? Huh? Did I ever do that? And how about diagramming a sentence? I'm sure there's a good reason to learn to do it, but I never knew what it was.

But I can still remember the morose Mrs. M. (who tippled in the paper closet,) teaching us that:

A body in motion remains in motion,
while a body at rest remains at rest
until acted upon by an outside force.

It has the kind of sing-song rhythm that made it memorable for those of us more inclined to poetry than science. If, say, the theory of relativity could have been encapsulated in a similarly catchy phrase, I might actually understand it.

But back to the scientific principle of Inertia. In life, it means something like 'if you don't begin your diet or your novel or your exercise program today, you're even less likely to begin it tomorrow...' And if you ignore your blog for five days or more, it soon becomes "a body at rest," stuck indefinitely on a poem about a bad mood.

Very interesting, no? I think it was Picasso who said that he painted every day because if he took a day off, he might never do it again.

There's a lesson in that, and now that I'm in motion again (I think), I just might take it.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

ALL ABOUT SMOKING

* First of all, let me say something about the photo, which was taken by the outstanding New York photographer known as Noam Galai. I'm reasonably certain that the man in the photograph (who looks like Bob Dylan to me, but is probably--or almost definitely--NOT) is smoking nothing illegal. Just wanted to make that clear.

Have you ever smoked heroin?

1. No.

2. I probably wouldn't be announcing it on the worldwide web if I did.(They arrest you for that kind of stuff, don't they?) Then again, I tend to be pretty naive. If I had heroin for breakfast, I'd probably be feeling the need to confess here and now.

And 3. They smoke it? Really? I thought they just "shot" it. Hmm...If I ever was going to use heroin in any form--which would probably only occur if I was terminally ill or all my loved ones were killed in a train crash--smoking it sounds more appealing than the vein-popping method.

The truth is I've never smoked much of anything. I never got the hang of inhaling noxious stuff into my lungs, and whenever I tried, I ended up embarrassing myself by choking, sputtering and hacking in front of the friends I was trying to impress with my cool.

It wasn't from lack of trying either. Growing up in a mill town, the art of cigarette dangling was practically de riguer. By the time I was thirteen, everyone I knew was packing Marlboros in their jacket pocket. I tried to cave in to peer pressure; really I did!

Unfortunately, like the much-ridiculed ex-President, I never inhaled. I did do a hell of a good imitation though (and I'm willing to bet that Bill did, too).

The good news is that faking it is not addictive, and I never got hooked. The bad news--if there is any bad news in NOT developing a deadly habit--is that my friends quickly tired of lending me their butts.

In other words, it was a short-lived phase.

When a joint was passed in college dorm rooms an at concerts , I quickly learned that pretending was even more necessary to my image than it had been when I snuck a feigned smoke outside the middle school. Fortunately, the light was provided by a candle or otherwise dimmed--or maybe everyone else was so high they didn't notice.

A few times, despite my ability to really inhale the stuff, I actually thought I was high, too. I giggled, I got the munchies--the whole routine. Now I'm left wondering if it was more a testament to the power of imagination than the trace narcotic I got from puffing.

I'll never know. But I do know how you tell a real smoker from a faker: We may puff, but we never purchase--particularly not when cash is scarce and the objects of my real addiction--chocolate chip cookies (!)--were available at the all-night snack bar.

Interestingly enough, most of my characters are mad smokers. But then, living in one of my books, has got to be pretty stressful. They are, after all, suspense novels.

The good news: my characters are among the most resilient and determined people I know, and every one of them is trying to quit...Maybe by the time I reach book #5 or 6, it will be a smoke-free world.

10 thoughts about THE KITCHEN


Alice In Domesticland, originally uploaded by BrittneyBush.

1. When I looked around for an interesting kitchen photo, I found a startling abundance of sexy ones. Naked people ambling across the linoleum. Women in lacy lingerie sprawling on the granite countertops. That kind of stuff. I wonder why...is the kitchen in the sexiest room in the house--or the one where sexiness is most forbidden?

2. Yellow is a very good color for kitchens. If I were queen, I would order all kitchens painted yellow at once.

3. Every kitchen should have a kitchen table, even if it's a little one where you can sit in a bathrobe with a cup of coffee and a notebook in the morning and look out at the birds.

4. My kitchen doesn't! (The queen would like that rectified at once.)

5. My favorite item in the kitchen is a little bench my father made for my kids when they were little. The only one who sits on it now is me.

6. It's good to contemplate the world from a little bench on the kitchen floor every now and then.

7. I hate the idea of having a TV in the kitchen. If I were queen, I would forbid it. If you want noise while you're cooking, the queen insists you have to sing.

8. In my grandmother's kitchen, breakfast was a three course meal: first fruit, then oatmeal (the slow cook kind), then fried eggs and toast. She always sang when she prepared it, too.

9. The best kind of floor is the black and white checked kind that I so admired in Laini's kitchen. Along with no TV, and no walking naked through the kitchen (unless it's late at night and you're really hungry) and mandatory kitchen tables for all, and singing even if your voice is really bad, the queen would order black and white checked floors for everyone. And a little bench where the cat can come up and brush against your knees. Don't forget the little bench.

10. If everyone sang while they made their oatmeal, it would not only taste better, it would lower cholesterol 22% more than it already does. Exactly 22%. If you don't believe me, the queen will commission a survey to prove it.

10 and a half: Once, just once, I want to wash dishes wearing shoes and socks like the ones in the photograph by Brittney Bush! Now that's sexiness in the kitchen. And look at the yellow!