I’m not a deep thinker, but I'm a thinker nevertheless. Often my thoughts are quite simple, really, but my mind can become so full. Ideas for articles, chapter titles and character development for various writing projects swirl around in my head and I must interrupt my current activity in order to jot them down on receipts and slightly used napkins. I need to remember to tell our landlord about the broken lock on the sliding glass door. Should I defrost the pork chops for tonight or make it easy and go with spaghetti? I can’t forget to help Noah with his campaign speech. Telling the students at Park Elementary School that he wants to be their Vice President, “’cause, like I don’t know, I just want to,” may not impress the voters, although you never know. He does have really nice hair and he’s a champ at wall-ball so he’s probably a shoo-in.
A tale-tell sign that perhaps I needed a break from my thoughts and a chance to breath deep for a while hit me afresh recently when I finished brushing my teeth at bedtime and realized that I had, once again, used my son’s toothbrush for the job. Ugh! “What’s wrong with me? Where’s my head?” After gagging twice I climbed into bed and decided to give my thoughts some thought. “What was going on in my mind?” I smiled to myself as I took a moment to remember what I had been thinking about while at the bathroom sink. It went something like this: I hope when it comes time for me to have a colonoscopy someone invents a way to do it without going up my colon. Maybe I should wear something sexier to bed for my husband, but then I’d be cold and I hate to be cold. If I owned a sharper knife I could cut up a whole chicken myself, which would be cheaper than buying the pieces already cut….
As I lay in bed, reviewing my thoughts, I received the break I needed and deep breathing followed—a full eight-hour vacation. Zzzzzz…
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
A Part-time Job With Inspiration On The Side
I am now a part-time seasonal employee at a small, upscale home and garden store and I must say, it ain’t a bad gig. My boss and co-workers are easy-going and friendly. During each four or five hour shift I am surrounded by beautiful, high-quality home décor and patio furniture. Of course I can’t afford to own any of it, but I enjoy it for what and where it is and keep my credit card at home in the freezer. And then there’s the most exciting benefit of all: the customers. I admit that when the reality of my need to get some part-time work hit me, I went into mourning. I long to spend my days with my laptop, creating the next great American middle-grade historical novel and not worrying about paying for groceries. Now that I have this job, however, I’m no longer in mourning—I’m inspired.
I have found at my new job that the sweet, demanding, quirky customers provide—free of charge—the humor and substance I need for the characters in my current manuscript and manuscripts yet to come. In a mere two weeks I have found a goldmine in the rich old ladies who march into the store wearing matted lipstick (mostly in a shade of orange), declaring exactly what they are looking for as if they were up half the night planning their attack, I mean, purchase. Then, there are the 30-something year old women who stroll into the store sporting name brand tennis garb and blonde highlights. On a whim they buy expensive exotic plants as gifts for girlfriends and garden do-dads they don’t need for their yard. The customers I like the best, though, are the ones who surprise me. Like the biker-dude I waited on today. He sauntered over to the register with his bulging muscles, black boots, tight blue jeans embellished with leather, hair greased back with a slight indention from his helmet and a creepy tattoo on his forearm. He plopped his purchase on the counter: Two boxes of decorative snowball lights, two bags of potpourri and some scented oil to keep it smelling good. (He hates it when potpourri loses its scent. He actually told me that.) The biker-dude was surprisingly endearing—in a Hell’s Angel sort of way. I think I may give him his own chapter someday.
Ahhhh, inspiration!
I am now a part-time seasonal employee at a small, upscale home and garden store and I must say, it ain’t a bad gig. My boss and co-workers are easy-going and friendly. During each four or five hour shift I am surrounded by beautiful, high-quality home décor and patio furniture. Of course I can’t afford to own any of it, but I enjoy it for what and where it is and keep my credit card at home in the freezer. And then there’s the most exciting benefit of all: the customers. I admit that when the reality of my need to get some part-time work hit me, I went into mourning. I long to spend my days with my laptop, creating the next great American middle-grade historical novel and not worrying about paying for groceries. Now that I have this job, however, I’m no longer in mourning—I’m inspired.
I have found at my new job that the sweet, demanding, quirky customers provide—free of charge—the humor and substance I need for the characters in my current manuscript and manuscripts yet to come. In a mere two weeks I have found a goldmine in the rich old ladies who march into the store wearing matted lipstick (mostly in a shade of orange), declaring exactly what they are looking for as if they were up half the night planning their attack, I mean, purchase. Then, there are the 30-something year old women who stroll into the store sporting name brand tennis garb and blonde highlights. On a whim they buy expensive exotic plants as gifts for girlfriends and garden do-dads they don’t need for their yard. The customers I like the best, though, are the ones who surprise me. Like the biker-dude I waited on today. He sauntered over to the register with his bulging muscles, black boots, tight blue jeans embellished with leather, hair greased back with a slight indention from his helmet and a creepy tattoo on his forearm. He plopped his purchase on the counter: Two boxes of decorative snowball lights, two bags of potpourri and some scented oil to keep it smelling good. (He hates it when potpourri loses its scent. He actually told me that.) The biker-dude was surprisingly endearing—in a Hell’s Angel sort of way. I think I may give him his own chapter someday.
Ahhhh, inspiration!
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