A Cat By Any Other Name

My head used to be full of so many stories that I could barely get them all down, and then one day I woke up and discovered that they were gone. How does a person lose something that should never be capable of being lost?

At 8:30 Sunday morning fifteen Nanowrimoers – some more bleary-eyed than others – were seated around a long series of tables in the back room of a very accommodating coffee shop, and by 9am, the cameras were rolling.

…and normally I am not the sort of person who is comfortable showing up at a gathering of strangers. But the nice thing about doing it this month is that it’s a group of strangers who are all staring fixedly at their laptop screens, so social graces aren’t a requirement.

Although, you know, I still think I would prefer putting more mornings involving hot coffee and fresh-from-the-oven baked goods than dysfunctional appliances. Just in case the universe was thinking of trying this sort of thing again.

Richard, coming in the door and sniffing the air: “Are those stress cookies I smell?”

Me: “Yes. Yes, they ARE.”

He knows me so well.

No one seemed to be entirely clear yesterday on how this furlough thing was supposed to be happening, since it kicked in in the middle of a week. So I decided that the best thing to do was hedge my bets and come in to work today, but only work a half day. It was about as hard a decision to make as I am sure you can imagine (hint – not remotely hard at all).

Plus, I got to use the phrase “you are the harbinger of doom” in a writing project for the very first time in my life, so really, it’s a win-win all around.

The recipe my sister-in-law sent me was an improvement on all the others I’ve tried, in that the bagels were much less flat than before. But they still do not possess that quality of ‘bagelness’ that I associate with a good, true bagel.

Stupid reality, taking away all the fun.

It occurred to me, a few months ago, that I only possess one pair of glasses. And frankly, considering Murphy’s law, and my own special brand of clumsiness, the fact that I have so far had nothing more disastrous happen to them than a broken nose pad, I was getting dangerously overdue for some kind [...]