Rumbly in my Tumbly

Write one leaf about being lazy.

(via writeoneleaf)

I’m not lazy. I’m thinking. I’m resting. I’m planning. I’m waiting for the right moment. I’m listening to this. I’m calling for help. I’m holding my own. I’m shivering. I’m cold. It’s cold in here. It’s cold out there. I’m waiting for it to warm up. I’m waiting for Spring. For Summer. I’m grieving. I’m full of grief. I’m cleaning up the meta-tags in my mp3s. I’m drinking coffee. I’ve got my hands full. I’m expanding the milk. I’m grinding the beans. I’m holding out my hands. For you to drop something into them. Some kind of offering. A little, white, cut-out heart from wide-ruled paper. My favorite song on the radio. Whatever that is. And the dogs. The dogs need to get out of my way. I’m shooing them. But they’re still in my way. On the floor. Not lazy. But dreaming.

Write one leaf about something you've lost.

(via writeoneleaf)

I don’t know where the damn Curious George DVD is I can’t find the damn Curious George DVD do you know where the damn Curious George DVD is because it’s costing me a dollar a day until I find the damn Curious George DVD and my kid doesn’t even want to watch the Curious George DVD and that’s why it got set aside and probably shuffled under something and now I can’t remember what on earth might have happened to it and if I don’t find it soon it won’t matter we’ll have to sell the house and put the dogs to work weaving potholders and sending the children out to beg on the streets all because the library charges a dollar a day for overdue DVDs and how on earth do they get away with charging a dollar a day for overdue DVDs when I can rent the damn things for a dollar a week just down the street from the library and why oh why oh why did I check that damn Curious George DVD out from the library in the first place?

Can you tell me that?

And also, if you can tell me where the DVD is while you’re at it? That would be cool.

Write one leaf about going to the dentist.

(via writeoneleaf)

Yeah. I always hated going to the dentist. Who doesn’t hate going to the dentist? But I had this one dentist… he was the only dentist in town who would see kids. I don’t think he was a pediatric dentist. Far from it. But he would see kids, so I went to this guy.

No, I don’t remember his name. If I did remember his name I would tell you his name because nobody should be going to see this dentist.

He would load me up with novocaine or lydacaine or whatever kind of caine they were giving at the dentist’s office that day, and he’d wait, and he’d come back and start digging. And when he started digging he always told me to let him know if I could still feel anything. And always. Always I could still feel something. And not just something, but searing, stabbing pain.

So I let him know.

Usually I first let him know by reflex, my body jumping six inches or so in his chair, and I’d make a noise something like “Unkhk.” And he’d kind of ignore it at first, some frustration in his eyes, and when it happened again he’d ask if I still could feel that.

Well, yes, dammit, that hurts like hell.

So he’d sigh and drop his tools into a tray as if I was just being a pain in the ass, and they’d apply more of the novocaine and I’d wait some more and he’d come back again and I’d still feel it exactly as painful as before, except now my face was feeling more and more as if it were missing. Can’t feel face. Still pain. No face.

So we did this two or three more times. And he’d get more and more frustrated. And he’d toss his tools with a little more gusto and when I jumped he’d sigh with ever more aplomb. Until finally I’d just let myself relax as much as i possibly could and I wouldn’t let on that it still hurt like hell because the last thing I needed was another injection of that crap that wasn’t working in the first place.

I don’t know why I still had pain. And frankly I don’t care. And the asshole dentist didn’t seem to care either. As far as he was concerned, I was a problem, and you could see it on his face, and you could hear it in his voice, and I could feel it in my head. He was impatient with my pain and impatient with his dental assistants and impatient with the world.

Damn. I still hate going to the dentist. Anymore I let them gas me up because I’m so worked up by the time I sit down in the chair that I’m pretty sure I could create phantom pain. Or I could create phantom phantoms. But the gas lets me relax and lose myself to whatever they have on the television.

Look! Gingivitis! That’s awesome!

Write one leaf about your phone.

(via writeoneleaf)

I hate my phone.

I hate almost everything about my phone.

I hate almost everything about my phone and any call I might make or take on my phone.

I hate answering the phone.

I hate making calls on the phone.

I hate talking on the phone.

I hate having to choose a ringtone for my phone.

I hate that I have a cell phone and a landline and can’t seem to abandon either.

I hate when my phone rings.

I hate when I have to recharge my phone because the battery is dead.

I hate when the ringer is turned off and I have something like eight calls that I don’t even know about and then I have to call for my messages and it’s never anything particularly interesting or urgent and thank God it isn’t but also why did I bother.

I hate my phone company because all they have to do for me is provide decent phone service and they don’t even do that well and they charge an ass and a leg to provide the worst kind of relationship possible and I pay for it every time because dammit, you gotta have a phone.

I hate my phone bill.

I hate paying my phone bill.

I hate looking at my phone bill and wondering what on earth all those mysterious charges are on my phone bill.

I hate not knowing what the mysterious charges are.

I hate actually knowing good and well what the mysterious charges are but acting ignorant because I want to hate my phone and my phone company and my phone bill even more than I already hate them.

I hate that I feel like I have to hate my phone. I probably don’t have to hate it. But I hate it.

I hate that it’s so quiet right now.

That the ringer for my phone is on loud and it’s so quiet in here anyway.

That nobody is calling me.

I hate my phone.

Write one leaf about your pen (or other writing instrument).

(via writeoneleaf)

The only pen I’ve found that I consistently adore is the Liquid Expresso Medium Point pen. They’re inexpensive, they have just the right width of line, and they just plain write the way I want them to write.

I’ve always wanted to find a fountain pen I like really well, but I’ve had some trouble. I had a Lamy for awhile, and I liked that, but I lost it. And anyway, I think I might actually like the Expresso better in most situations.

There are two actual real-life problems with the Expresso. The first and foremost problem is that it can be hard to find. Or rather, it can be hard to find without the entire array of colors, all by itself, just the black pen that I want and no others. Frustrated, I once ordered a box of black Expressos from Amazon (via Office Depot, if I remember correctly), and they shipped me the Extra Fine version of this pen (which I despise). They eventually corrected the error, but I was annoyed enough that I haven’t ordered them again for fear that this will happen every time. Because having it happen one time is apparently enough for me to consider it a trend.

The second problem with the Expresso pen should be obvious. The name. Is idiotic. Is asinine. Is ridiculous and hazardous to my sanity. If I didn’t love this pen so very much I wouldn’t be caught dead or alive with something called “Expresso,” ever. Ever ever ever.

But dammit, I love this pen.

If I found something similar, something that didn’t bleed through pages and made just the mark I want it to make, I’d switch in an instant, just because of that ridiculous name.

Expresso. Please. It makes my fingernails hurt when I say it out loud.

But you know what else? Having that pen around makes me want to write things on paper. And that’s a good thing to know. Just having a pen that makes you want to make marks on surfaces—its a happy place to be.

So I’m gonna go do some of that right now.

Write one leaf about Friday.

(via writeoneleaf)

Friday.

Last day of the work week.

First day of the rest of your life.

Trash day.

Day that begins with “Fri” and ends with “day.”

Day that reminds me I didn’t accomplish as much during the week as I’d hoped to accomplish.

Sometimes Good.

Sometimes full of the dickens.

Mostly full of the dickens.

Day that waits for you.

Day on which UPS packages may or may not arrive; they better arrive or else you will have to wait the entire weekend; rechecking tracking number which says it’s on a truck in town but there’s always a slight chance it won’t be delivered anyway because this has happened to you before; waiting.

Day of waiting.

Must be better things to do.

What did I do with my to do list?

Coffee.

My coffee cup is empty.

Must have more coffee.

And a shower.

Maybe lunch.

Friday.

Write one leaf about taking out the trash.

(via writeoneleaf)

It never fails.

Every week, I gather up the trash bins and start putting them into the big bin to take out to the curb. Every week, as I’m doing it, the same earworm strikes again.

“Take out the papers and the trash.”

I don’t get the whole song. Just enough to make me insane.

“Yakety yak,
don’t talk back.”

I don’t think I actually know much more of the song than that. And I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know because I have a feeling this would make the earworm more powerful. As if I were feeding it. I don’t want to feed this worm. I want it to stop.

I remember, at first, I found it somewhat delightful that I remembered the song as I was performing the act. It reminded me of my stepfather, who, if the song were playing on the radio, would have sung along loudly and stated the year that it was released (1958—I just looked it up). We could never argue with him on the year because we had no idea. That thing I just did where I Googled “Yakety Yak” and found more information than I ever cared to know about it on Wikipedia? We couldn’t do that at the time, and I have a feeling this would have spoiled a lot of his fun.

My stepfather died before I ever had the chance to correct him on a release date.

Dammit, I didn’t mean to go there, but there I went. I was going to be lighthearted and happy and joke around about an earworm and that was going to be it. But here I am talking about my stepfather and how I never got to spoil his fun using the internet.

The connective tissue between brain and heart gives me the willies some days. Think this way fire up this emotion. Walk down that path and be jolted into the past. Wake up with your heart racing and a hankering to eat an entire box of Oreos.

The papers and the trash are out at the curb. Go ahead and take it all away. There’ll be more next week.

Write one leaf in which you say "Thank You."

(via writeoneleaf)

Thank you for the first day of school.

Thank you for my children and thank you for them going to their first day of school.

Thank you for letting me be at home writing during the day.

Thank you for today and for tomorrow.

Thank you for books and music and dogs and late summer days that don’t get to be above 85 degrees.

Thank you for laughing. For laughter. For my sense of humor.

Thank you for medicines that make it easier.

Thank you for coffee.

Thank you for Anita (my espresso machine) and Mac (the coffee grinder).

Thank you to whoever invented espresso.

Thank you for my love, to my love.

Thank you for soap.

Yes, thank you for soap. And toilet paper. And toothpaste.

Thank you for chocolate and caramel and ice cream.

And thank you for listening. For paying attention. For people who buy my books and people who read them but don’t buy them but enjoy them anyway. And thank you for people who don’t enjoy them because honestly it would get pretty boring around here if everyone loved exactly the same things, and I don’t know if I could handle the pressure of everyone loving me at once. Or hating me at once. Or worst of all, everyone being indifferent to me at once.

I kind of wish I knew who to thank for all these things, but I kind of also don’t want to know, because it might just be too big to know, and knowing it would make a person insane. So thank you for not making me insane. And thank you, whoever you are, for hanging in there with me this long.