Stationary Unicycle

unless they happen to be horking up a hairball.  Nobody can be gorgeous all the time. A little cat poem about a little cat The cat sleeps in my chair at the table I tip the chair slowly imagining  she will slip gently down land easily on her feet and find another spot to lick her paws and loll and purr and sleep her claws cling to the wicker seat with the tenacity of a burdock in a wool sock fibers of the wicker chair snag and snap enough for her to lose her grip the cat stands for a moment indignant she slinks off there are more comfortable places to sleep couch or bed I sit with my toast and my book realize I have left my coffee in the kitchen 30 seconds or less to walk to the kitchen and walk back I return to find the cat curled and sleeping in my chair

I never went to church as a kid. I sort of wanted to go to church at one point, but being the type of person who chafes and bucks at rules, being the sort of person who gets cranky when told what to do, I got over the desire to pursue a religion pretty quickly. Not long after I graduated from high school, I ran into an old school friend who was a very pious born again Christian. She had recently started college at a small Christian school and she glowed with a happiness that was and still is completely foreign to me. Her faith warmed her, it fed her.   She told me this little story about how good God was to her. Seems her school was just sqeeking by, there wasn't much money for niceties like food, heat, and toilet paper. The girls dorm was out of toilet paper, when behold! Somehow, God provided! A case of squeezably soft Charmine appeared, was delivered right to their door. Wow! Isn't God good?! Exclaimed my beatific friend. This story seemed somewhat anti-clim...

I'm so nearsighted that when I take off my glasses I can't see anything. I can't make out the facial features of those around me, can't see pictures on the wall. The whole world is out of focus and frankly, it I feel adrift and a bit lost.  I can see my hands if I hold them very close to my face, though. When my glasses are off, I stare at my hands. It's strangely comforting. The other evening I had taken off my glasses while sitting at the table talking with my daughter. My daughter brought this weird hand staring thing to my attention, like a 13 year old daughter would. Anyway,  ____________________________________________________________________________ thick knuckled callused from scrubbing and sweeping and lifting and digging have bathed babies, wiped bottoms, wiped noses, smoothed the damp hair of a fevered son and daughter, have reached down into dark places dirty toilets clogged drains are scarred ...

I learned a lesson years ago. It wasn't a good lesson and it hasn't served me well in the long run, but in the short term it was useful and made my life easier. The lesson, might as well spit it out already, was this: Do not try very hard. Eventually people will expect less of you. You can slide by while exerting minimal effort, you hardly need break a sweat. If things don't turn out very well you have the convenient excuse, "Well, it wasn't my best effort" or "I wasn't really trying." Anything less than a perfect result when I was really trying  left me thinking, that's the BEST I can  do? I imagined others around me were shaking their heads and chuckling in disbelief, Wow, if that's the best she's got, whoa! God help her! Put on a nice dress, comb my hair, do the make-up and look in the mirror.  That's the BEST I can do? Woof! Write a story, put my heart and soul into it and wind up with a  piece of drivel?  ...

I've hit a bit of a dry spot. I know that if I want to write, I can't just sit around playing solitaire on my Kindle and then lie to myself that I'm not writing because I'm too busy. I think I'm not writing this week because everything feels too big and scary and I don't want to think about the big and the scary. I want to put the Queen of Hearts on the King of Clubs and the two of spades on the ace of diamonds and call it a day. Recently I went into a little book store here in my little town and while looking for a travel guide they didn't have, I found a nice book about writing, The Writer's Idea Book , by Jack Heffron. He's a good writer. It's good to read about writing because I can fool myself into thinking I'm working on my writing. But really I'm lying on my bed with the fan on, casually flipping pages and letting every helpful bit of writerly advice evaporate away as soon as I get to the end of each paragraph. So t...