I sure miss writing.  I was in the grocery store the other day and flashed on a character from my novel.  I missed the family, the location, the process.  Not enough to finish editing it apparently.  Last summer I went on a camping trip with a memoir that changed my mind.  When I got home I emailed my writing group that I was switching.  I wanted to work on my own memoir.  I hadn’t planned on showing it to anyone for a very long time but the book I’d read over the weekend changed my mind about writing fiction.  

In my group were some really neat people.  I felt so lucky because not only were they good writers we all got along, and it seemed like we were similarly inclined in terms of our priorities.  You know like with deadlines and getting work in on time.  I totally dropped the ball, though, in the end.  I’ve dropped a lot of balls since the holidays.  But I’ve got my priorities straight.

Anyhoo, just typing the entry about the sculptors was a little bit enticing.  I still can’t get over puzzling the significance — Is it something to do with thinking three-dimensionally?  Mia brought that up and I’ve been thinking about the implications but I don’t know what they are . 

Going around to see what you all have been up to is fun.  Of course Jeri has been hard at it all these months, plugging away at her craft, getting better each and every year.  That’s why it’s bad to stop.  It’s like anything else.  Use it or lose it. 

I don’t know about you guys but everyone I know has a cold.  Even people in other states.  It’s like an epidemic here.  People get it again, passing it back and forth.  It’s more like a flu than a cold.  And it has a personality.  It makes you feel like you’re a complete zero.  Like you are one big blah.  I never, EVER feel like that is why I know it’s the bug talking.  Today was the first time I’ve left the house or even been outside in four days.  My daughter and her boyfriend have it, too, and we all keep each other up at night coughing.  I can’t wait to be well.

I don’t know how long I’ll keep this up but, in case some of you never saw me, this is what I look like.  My middle daughter and her boyfriend are living with me for a while — don’t ask — and she needed a picture for a project at school last week.  I needed a picture to send the second scuptor, or I guess it would be the third, so I thought I’d use it here, as well.

I have met two men in two weeks, both of them artists, both of them sculptors, and both of them came to me, sight unseen, highly recommended by different recorder friends.  The first guy, who I have been out with, likes country music and spends summers away at his cabin in another state.  He has been single for almost 20 years and appears to have developed a thick armor.  Those are the negatives.  But he’s a virgo and we are a lot alike.  We talk easily and there is chemistry.

The second guy I just talked to last night for the first time and he seems odd.  But I like the picture of him and I LOVE his work.  He and I have much more in common yet he sounded like such a dork on the phone.  Still, I think of his work and the fact that he was listening to a bellydance CD from one of my favorite musicians and feel blessed that the universe has provided me with two nice men.  You hear those stories about people showing up in your life when you least expect it.  Here I’ve been single all this time and nobody’s ever set me up before.  Then all of a sudden, right before Valentines day, I have two guys calling me.  The first guy, who I really connect with, I am a little leery about so last week, when he was sick and his brother was coming into town I said something like, “Well, when you’re well, and Valentines Day is over, and your brother’s left, we can go do something.”  I wanted to send the message that this was going to be a slow process. 

I’m so bad at this stuff; that was probably not the thing to say.  But I figure if it’s supposed to work out it will.  Since the rest of my life is in shambles it’s nice to have the diversion.  I just think it’s so odd that the last guy (with the beret and cane), who I don’t speak to any more as he is a jealous, alcoholic, depressed nut, was a sculptor, too.