There’s a lot of things I hope I never have to do.  Writing this post has made me think about all of them and now that I’m depressed as hell I guess I’ll announce the winner.  It’s something I think about every time I get on an airplane which is: I hope to god this thing doesn’t crash. 

You see, I have a fear of flying.  It’s not bad enough to prevent me from going places but it is bad enough to get me to the airport at least two hours before a flight so I have time to get tanked in the bar before boarding the plane.  The thought of getting in a plane crash scares the crap out of me.  But the weird thing is that I’m not afraid of dying in a plane crash.  Dying I can handle.  If my Catholic upbringing taught me anything it’s the fact that there is an afterlife and whatever that means exactly it sure is hell better than life on earth.  So no, dying in a plane crash is not my big fear. 

It’s surviving a plane crash I’m afraid of.  It’s the one thing I hope I never have to do.  All those people who Captain Sully saved by landing that airplane in the Hudson River?  I’d hate to be one of them!  Sorry Captain Sully but it’s true.  Being on a plane that is about to go down has got to be the most frightening things in the world and living with the memory of that fear is something I’d have a problem with. 

To counteract my fear of getting in a plane crash I always remind myself that the chances of such a that happening are slim.  And the chances of even surviving one is even more slim.  Which does make me question my fear.  Not because it’s irrational but because maybe surviving a plane crash wouldn’t be so bad after all?  I mean the chances of it ever happening again would be nil right?  Nah!  I sill hope it’s something I never have to do.  But sitting next to a plane crash survivor on my next flight sure does sound like a good idea! 

We all know that cats live for their daily ration of wet food right?  A friend of mine gives his cats wet food for breakfast which I think is crazy because his cats start working him for food every morning before 5am.  This is one of the reasons why Mrs. B does not get her canned food until dinnertime.  Every evening when Jerry and I pull into the driveway we are greeted by a hungry purring cat. 

Unfortunately on the weekends, particularly when the weather has been nice and Mrs. B has been happily playing outside all day the rubbing, purring cat begging starts early, often before 4pm.  This drives me insane, particularly on Sunday afternoons which is when I usually try to write.  I can only ignore her for so long before the rubbing stops and the claws on my legs begin and eventually  I will give in and slap some Friskees buffet on a dish. 

Last weekend however I brought out my secret weapon and when the food begging began I pulled out the vacuum and ran it throughout the house.  It not only picked up Mrs. B’s persistent cat hair but also sent her hiding behind the couch where she stayed until Jerry wandered into the kitchen and started chopping onions.  (I was going to say “ran the can opener” which would have sounded much better but of course that would be a lie, god forbid.)  Scaring the already neurotic Mrs. B into submission with the vacuum cleaner made me feel like the cruelest cat mom ever but considering the 20 minutes it bought me to write this post it was well worth it! 

You guys know I’m a wine drinker right?  This week I had a lovely 2009 California Chardonnay by Beringer.  It had subtle aromas of peach apricot and golden delicious apples and these carefully balanced layers came through in the juicy, ripe flavors. 

Actually I just lifted that from the label.  I can’t remember the balanced layers of flavor, just that it didn’t taste sour which was a real plus because I got it on sale for $2.99 at the Liquor King.  And last night I had to wrestle the bottle, with an inch left of wine at the bottom, from Jerry who had more than his fair share earlier as well as two Hayward Heffs at Buffalo Bills.  It was worth the fight.  It went nicely with a Benadryl and made for a good night’s sleep. 

*Edited to remove the bit about the Mike’s Hard Lemonade which Jerry did not drink last night.  Sheesh!  What fun is a blog if you can’t throw in the occasional embellishment that makes your spouse look like a lush from time to time? 

I’m having a major case of blog block and I don’t like this prompt.  Life should be worth living because it is not because the people in it make us want to do so. 

I’m too tired to explain further. 

I used to be shy about the thing I wanted to do in life but I’m not anymore. The thing I hope to do in life is write a book.  It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but something I never shared out loud.  Because sharing it out loud would mean I’d have to try and do it and actually doing it scared the crap out of me.  I don’t know why but it did.  What is it about creative pursuits that make them so scary? I’m sure if I muse around enough I’ll come up with the answer to that question but not today.  I don’t feel like it.  Instead I want to talk about the two things I need to do to get me closer to my goal of writing a book. 

The first thing, oddly enough, is that I came to terms with the day job.  Working full time is a necessity of life.  But turning your job into something you do for mere survival, which is how I often see my full-time job as a paralegal, turns work into drudgery and daily drudgery is the main ingredient for full time misery.  In the past several months I’ve made an effort to embrace the work I do full time and really care about it, rather than see it as something that I need to do simply for the paycheck.  And you know what happened?  I found that I felt like writing more!  You want to know why?  Because creativity lives in the soul. Full time misery caused by daily drudgery sucks the soul.  And a sucked soul is bad if you want to write. 

Once I got busy at work and my soul in order I moved on to the next thing which was to establish a regular writing habit.  Remember back in November when I did NaNoWriMo?  The goal was to end up with a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  I didn’t make it but I did end up with a 26,000 word novella.  More importantly I got into the habit of writing daily.  For a while at least.  I’ll admit that the writing marathon of NaNoWriMo burnt me out a bit so I had to take a break.  During that time I read lot of books on the Victorian era am am ready to start my next project.  The subject:  an historical romance about a feisty spinster who runs a home for wayward girls. 

Now then, how about that book?