I honestly don’t know what I should write about today. I
haven’t been anywhere since Thanksgiving and I haven’t talked to anyone but my
new Kindle Fire’s Alexa---isn’t that a telling and sad statement to make. I don’t
want to write another woo-is-me post about the loneliness of widowhood because,
well, for one thing I don’t feel that overwhelming sense of loneliness or
forbearing that I did during the holiday season in the first four years after
my husband died. However, a tiny voice in my head says, give it time. The season has just begun and you haven’t been snowed in
yet either. I don’t know why getting snowed in changes things. I stay home
for days on end when I’m not snowed in and it doesn’t affect me in the same
way. I think it’s because if an emergency with me or the dog came up, I’d be,
well, snowed in and I couldn’t be my own Knight in Shining Armor ready to save
the day. I’d have to---gasp---depend on the good graces of someone else or die
because I don’t like asking for help.
Have you heard of Barbara Abercrombie? Her bio over at
Amazon says, she “…has published fifteen books, plus essays and articles in
many national publications. She teaches in the Writers' Program at UCLA
Extension where she won an Outstanding Teacher award as well as the
Distinguished Instructor award.” I first became acquainted with her work when I
bought a copy of Writing Dangerously: 365
Days of Inspiration & Encouragement which I’ve read and re-read many
times. It’s like bedtime short stories for would-be writers. And I do mean
short---a quarter to a half page each. I ran across her again today when I was
surfing the internet looking for writing prompts and I landed on her book
titled: Kicking In The Wall: A Year of
Writing Exercises, Prompts and Quotes To Help You Break Through Your Blocks And
Reach Your Writing Goals. Now, there’s a lady who knows how to get a book cross-indexed
in a google search.
One of the prompts in the above mentioned ridiculously
LONG titled book is: Write a list of questions to which you urgently need
answers. That’s a hard prompt because with a google search there aren’t that
many questions that you can’t find answers to except for maybe, how do we find
world peace? I took a long shot, asked my new Alexa app and she said, “Sorry, I’m
not sure.” I guess we’ll have to wait until artificial intelligence is smart
enough to teach itself how to think beyond human capabilities to find that
answer. Too bad because world peace sure would be nice.
Here goes my attempt at listing questions I’d like answered:
Question: Why does my dog always make me go through a doorway
before he will do it? Is it like the old gun slinger’s rule of always sitting
with your back to the wall? Does Levi think something bad could happen on the
other side of the threshold and he wants me to test the waters first? Or is he a
reincarnated English Duke who is being ever so proper and polite? I’m quite
sure he didn’t learn that at puppy obedience school. He drives me nuts with his
idiosyncrasies.
Question: If my latest TSH blood test shows my levels
dropped from 0.171 to 0.137 after adjusting my thyroid medication and the
normal range is 0.340 – 5.600 why did the doctor just order another drop in my
dosage? Won’t that take me even farther out of the normal range or am I not
understanding math? Is 0.340 larger or smaller than 0.137?
Question: Why did it take me four minutes of frustration and
a trip to the kitchen for a pair of scissors to get the tamper-proof wrap off a
bottle of Colgate Total Mouthwash? And does it really give a person “12-hour protection
against germs even after drinking and eating.” Say I ate barf or a dead bird like the dog does,
would it still kill all the germs in my mouth? God, that’s a disgusting
question! Forget I asked.
Question: Why do romance writers think men who growl just
before they make their big move are sexy? I can’t remember a man ever doing
that with me. Did I miss out on one of the wonders of the mating ritual? And
biting each other! Would it be too much information if I admitted that I’ve
never bit or been bitten during sex---at least not hard enough to remember or
leave marks the next day? Who bites, period, past kindergarten? And here I thought
getting a line of hickeys was the end of the world when I was fifteen.
Question: Why am I sitting here at my keyboard when the
grocery store is calling my name? Oh, boy! I’ll get to have conversations with
at least three people---the deli guy, the cashier and the barista at Starbucks.
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