**The next 20 days I'll be posting 500 words a day here as part of a creative writing challenge. Join the FB group. Often I phone it in.**
A few administrative notes before I get started. Actually, this whole thing will be a few administrative notes. I just got home from a day of work, IKEA, retrieving my soul from the depths of wherever one goes when they’re stuck in IKEA for almost two hours, fighting LA traffic like a goddamned warrior, putting away the haul, walking to drinks and dinner with my girl boss friend, and walking home from dinner and drinks with the same girl boss friend. It’s 11:56pm, so I might fall asleep writing in the middle of this. If I do, I hope my forehead falls on the letter “a” and the spacebar—admittedly a feat—so that at least I get my word count in.
We are one third of the way through! That’s exciting! That is all.
I had a business lunch with a Scottish guy today. I caught myself saying that I was “very excited” about who knows what and he stared back at me blankly, incapable of relating. I have been to the UK many times, and sort of lived there on a project for a month a few years ago, so as soon as I said those words I remembered that Brits don’t get excited about anything and this is how Americans stand out in a crowd. I bet if you lined up a row of twenty unmarked people people each from different countries, and put a piece of birthday cake in the middle of the room, you’d know who the American is because she’d be the first one saying, “Oh I love funfetti cake!” The Canadian would be like, “How nice. Are we going to sing?” While the Brit might pull the waiter aside and note that they must be missing their dessert fork.
I’M SORRY.
(Tip your server.)
Throughout the day today I mentally prepared to tell the story about the time I had jury duty a few weeks ago, got assigned to a murder trial, and then had to wriggle my way out of it on account of conscientious objection. I know that’s not really a thing but it is to me, which I’ll apparently explain tomorrow since it’s a longer story than I have space for tonight. Wondering what happened, I just googled the defendant’s name and holy shit.
In other news, my son just half-woke from his slumber to ask me “Why do I have to sleep?” To which I answered quietly, “Because it’s good for you.” I know it’s manipulative, but there are times that I hope that the some of the things I whisper to him in his sleep will rest in his subconscious so that later in life he will recall them and state them as fact, without ever questioning their veracity. In this case, this one is true. Sleep is good for you. Another thing I tell him often while he’s sleeping is that I love him more than anything in the world. That is also true. Occasionally I have told him that he likes to eat raw broccoli, which is not true now, per se, but it’s probably a matter of time.