I spent the day as a human bolster for my dog, who loves to snuggle and who spent his day rearranging himself on my lap for optimal napping. He is undoubtedly living his best life considering we found him under a tobacco wagon after a nursing home attendant told my husband she had been feeding him scraps out the kitchen’s back door as best she could, though a neighboring farm dog (a fat one) terrorized him to get the best scraps first.
At one point this afternoon, I looked down into his sleeping gargoyle face and realized I am an abstract cross between Carrie Pilby, Mrs. Maisel, and a Gilmore Girl (minus New England, being British, and Judaism, so really not at all like them), except with underwhelming drive and fewer witty one-liners in the moment. I think of brilliant things to say an average of two and a half days after the fact. But I love coffee like it’s my favorite family member, I can get behind a solid cherry soda on a splurge day, and I truly believe a good hat or the right alternative accessories can make or break an ensemble, especially if I’ve managed to create an ensemble that doesn’t include my best pair of sweatpants, which is rare.
But my whole point is, as I spent my last day of vacation this week staring down the fact that I have a Friday full of meetings and probably an inbox that will take me several days and a back-hoe to dig myself out of (cliche!), I realized I missed being creative. I mean, I was knitting when I realized this, so it’s not like I don’t have creative outlets, but my imagination is a bit, mmmmmm… calcified.
I know that because I just tried to come up with something other than “rusty” there and it took way too long to think of “calcified.”
Maybe “atrophied” would have been a better – if not more obvious – choice.
I need inspiration! I need an epiphany! I need another seventeen days of vacation! I need coffee! (Maybe not so much of that last one – too much today already.) I need sleep! (Definitely that one.) I need to write more because I just realized this blog domain renews itself and charges my credit card around this time every year and I still don’t use it enough! I need to remember I say that every year and still average only about six blog posts on an annual basis! (Seriously, this has happened enough to be considered a pattern.)
I need to write. I need to write things I submit and collect the rejection letters. Except I’m terrible at keeping mementos in one place or remembering where my scrapbooking materials are located in this tiny house. So maybe I just need to write and submit. It would stupendous if I wrote something good and submitted it. It would be downright dreamy if I got paid for it.
But what to write? Where to submit? What about all this yarn? At some point, if I keep buying yarn, knitting up half of it, then forgetting where I am and ripping out all my stitches to start over (please don’t try to help me by telling me where you or your family member or friend or acquaintance bought the best stitch marker thingies because I’ve already lost more than I’ve ever used)(and I’ve used zero, to be clear), my husband is eventually going to think about not loving me anymore. Or he’ll burn it and I’ll have to stay mad at him for an uncomfortably long time because he hates all the things I love… like yarn (also romantic comedies from the 1950s and 1960s and almost all musicals).
But right now I need to snuggle this dog, who woke up when his daddy got home from soccer practice and is now standing on the ottoman staring at me because this laptop is in my actual lap, and that is unacceptable.
I need more days of nothing more pressing than puppy snuggles. How did E.B White make this writing thing happen while still allowing his beloved dog to be his boss?
That is all.
persnicketypen 