The Day Slips Away
It's amazing how an entire day can just slip away without me writing word one. I had the best intentions this morning when I woke up. But then I remembered the cleaning lady was coming--halleluia!!--so I had to clean up before she arrived. Anyone with a cleaning lady knows if you want her to really clean, you have to clean up all your crap before she gets there.
So I got all the clothes off the bathroom floor; made the bed; put all the books and newpapers in a stack; emptied and filled the dishwasher; sorted through all the junk on the kitchen counter; got all the junk out of the TV room.
If I didn't do all that before she got here, she'd spend hours doing it herself, to the tune of $30/hour. No thank you.
Then I rode my bike to the gym (trying to keep good on my vow to drive as little as necessary and get aerobic exercise), did my yoga class and rode home...felt great but exhausted. Showered. Took Josh food/shoe shopping. Ate lunch at Costco with Josh. Returned home, answered email, returned phone calls. Picked Phil up from tennis. Rested my weary self (still tired from the bike ride) for 20 minutes. Then took the boys to the pool where we had pizza and vegged for 4 hours. Four hours! God I'm a slug. .But I did finish We Were the Mulvaneys (didn't love it) and two NYTimes Sunday magazines.
I did have a rather lovely experience at the pool. A little boy, about 4 years old, came over and started chatting with me. He wanted to know what happened to the last chocolate chip cookie on our table. I told him my son ate it. Then he told me how much he loves chocolate, and how he ate so much he threw up once, and now he has a big skeeto bite on his tummy, or maybe a dragon fly bit him when he was sleeping....he went on and on. Finally I said I'd bring extra cookies next time just for him, and his brother, who was about 7 or 8, said can I have one too, and I said of course! And then he came over to me and in all seriousness said, "I think you're beautiful."
Oh my. That made my day. So even though I wrote nothing (until now) my day was complete.
So I got all the clothes off the bathroom floor; made the bed; put all the books and newpapers in a stack; emptied and filled the dishwasher; sorted through all the junk on the kitchen counter; got all the junk out of the TV room.
If I didn't do all that before she got here, she'd spend hours doing it herself, to the tune of $30/hour. No thank you.
Then I rode my bike to the gym (trying to keep good on my vow to drive as little as necessary and get aerobic exercise), did my yoga class and rode home...felt great but exhausted. Showered. Took Josh food/shoe shopping. Ate lunch at Costco with Josh. Returned home, answered email, returned phone calls. Picked Phil up from tennis. Rested my weary self (still tired from the bike ride) for 20 minutes. Then took the boys to the pool where we had pizza and vegged for 4 hours. Four hours! God I'm a slug. .But I did finish We Were the Mulvaneys (didn't love it) and two NYTimes Sunday magazines.
I did have a rather lovely experience at the pool. A little boy, about 4 years old, came over and started chatting with me. He wanted to know what happened to the last chocolate chip cookie on our table. I told him my son ate it. Then he told me how much he loves chocolate, and how he ate so much he threw up once, and now he has a big skeeto bite on his tummy, or maybe a dragon fly bit him when he was sleeping....he went on and on. Finally I said I'd bring extra cookies next time just for him, and his brother, who was about 7 or 8, said can I have one too, and I said of course! And then he came over to me and in all seriousness said, "I think you're beautiful."
Oh my. That made my day. So even though I wrote nothing (until now) my day was complete.
posted by calabresewoman | 5:38 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Juliet,
Your blog came up on my morning google alert for folks interested in memoir writing, and I thought you might like First Person Arts’ Impressions competition running through August 15th. It includes a competition for short documentary films (under 5 minutes) and documentary photo essays (5 images or fewer), but the memoir competition calls for 1500 words. Check out the competition website here: http://impressions.firstpersonarts.org and find out more about First Person Arts, a Philadelphia non-profit dedicated to memoir and documentary art, at http://www.firstpersonarts.org
We’ve got some excellent judges, and the winning entries will get some very nice exposure, not to mention a little cash. It would be great if you could post about this on your blog and/or pass it around to your friends or writers groups. If you send me a note, I’ll happily forward you a flyer. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks,
Andrew
aschwalm@firstpersonarts.org
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