Jan. 2. 2010 The Write Resolution

Jan. 2, 2010-01-02

I couldn’t even get started on the first of January. Already, I’m one day behind, an entire morning behind, five years behind. I said I wanted to be published by the time I was thirty. Not sure who I said it to but I’m sure the conversation happened, at least in my mind. I’ve had my lunch, folded some laundry, put one child down for a nap and am rocking a second in a bouncy chair with my foot while the third is having a play date at a friend’s house. I watched my husband play Wii bowling with our three year old while I made lunch, cleaned up the slopped yogurt and gagged down a glass of metamucilled water. So, I guess I have some legitimate excuses as to why I haven’t written anything in what seems to be a dangerous amount of time. I am making the commitment this year to get something started. The idea of the resolution is a terrible motivator, we all know how that turns out. Why start something today that you could have been doing for years? I guess Jan. 2, 2010 seems as good a time as any.
We watched the movie Revolutionary Road last night with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. While it was extremely well acted and cast perfectly with two actors I happen to love, I was puzzled by the critical acclaim the movie received. My husband and I actually found ourselves giggling in parts where we really had no business laughing. We commented on how my father would have been sarcastically questioning the awards the movie brought home. I guess in part because April, played by Kate Winslet was a woman who desperately wanted to live a full and exciting life and not be complacent in a town that didn’t stimulate her or offer any kind of external gratification. Her husband Frank (DiCaprio)had a job that wasn’t terribly interesting but it paid the bills, supported their family of four.
Greg and I both looked at each other, wondering what was wrong with that? At least, I hope that’s what he was thinking. A life with little risk, some reward, healthy, happy children and a house we can call a home.
I guess that was the fuel I needed to sit down and clack away on the keyboard for at least a few minutes with a six week old baby now grunting with each squeaky rock on the bouncy chair. I’ve never had a job that I found terribly interesting, though, there was always decent money to be made in advertising sales so complaining to friends with low incomes seemed futile. How can someone make a living, a real living a good living, a phenomenal living from taking words that travel from their brain to their finger tips and form something worthy of someone else’s time, energy and money. It’s not a block of cheese, a box of oranges, a widget, a wazoo, a thingamaboo, something tangible that fulfills some void in another person’s pantry.
We read a ton of Dr. Seuss books to our children and I often comment on how brilliant that man was. I wish it were as simple as finding a theme, making up words when there is no word in the English language that has any business rhyming with anything and whimsically…..just returned from a quick break. The baby played on her mat with the dangling mirrored animals, I fed her for about fourteen seconds and she is now back on her mat, this time resting peacefully and I am enjoying a macadamia nut cookie purchased at Costco this morning. Oh yes, writing. How does one have time to write with all of the child rearing, house cleaning, cookie eating and I guess I better add yoga classes now that I’ve scarfed two cookies since sitting at my soon to be sold dining room table, on a laptop that is shared with two kids and could probably be of great use to us if programmed only with emailing capabilities and nickjr.com video games. Distractions.

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