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Thursday, January 15, 2009

Knight With Knees Knocking

No, this is not a treatise on the irony of the strong being internally weak.

Actually, Knight With Knees Knocking is a bit character in the children's story I just rewrote--five hundred times. Or almost that many. Martin continues to be a harsh, unfeeling, cold critic--and a very, very welcome one.

No, the deep thoughts I was pursuing as I dumped ingredients for pizza dough just now (besides the one where I struggled with myself briefly before deciding I should indeed eat the rest of the loaf of chocolate-banana bread completely by myself and with complete impunity) were as follows:

1. I'd like to write poetry again.
2. Ooh, that flour looks GOOD in that glass jar with a lid and a scoop. Ow, Baby.
3. I want to eat peanut butter cookies.
4. Maybe I should read a good book while the kids nap.
5. I am possibly a socialist at heart.
6. My head hurts.
7. Cup of tea! Cup of tea!
8. Lead is not good for children.
9. I am not a homeschooler (even though I. . .technically. . .am).
10. Absolutely. I will eat the rest of the banana bread.

How did I improve the world with these thoughts? How did I act on my inner life?

Here I am writing piffle. I have finished a bowl of banana bread slices. I have drunk a cup of tea in vigorous, hurried swallows as though someone will take my sustenance from me if I do not down said victuals in a hurry.



What makes your knees knock, people?

Me, I get those caps clattering when I:

a. Swallow my coffee while it's still super, just pressed, just poured, hot.
b. See Martin clean any part of the house of his own volition.
c. Smell homemade bread baking.
d. Finish writing a letter and affix the stamp.
e. Bury my nose in the neck of one of my just-washed daughters.
f. Fall asleep on the couch without any worries about who will wake up and need me.
g. Shut the door of my office. . .ALONE.
h. Crunch a waffle.
i. Hear good guitar music. (Music is a tricky thing, since everything from Mariah Carey to showtunes have knocked my knees before I acquired what Martin says, nasally, is TASTE.)
j. Find myself in the middle of a really good book--(I have read enough to be thoroughly engaged and lose myself, but I am not mourning the end of the book yet.)
k. Feel the warming earth blow through my open kitchen window in the spring--a warmth accompanied by the popping of onions in a hot pan.
l. Finish writing anything that has surprised me.

Well, I'll spare you the rest. I had a fleeting vision of going through the alphabet but considering I'm only doing super lazy writing at best, I'll stop and let you all contribute. What floats your boat? Rings your bell? Buzzes your buzzy things? Pings your palate? Rumbles your belly? Gurbles your gonads?

1 comment:

AppDaddy said...

Your last analogy I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.
When you hit your Fifties you don't get 'gurbled' as frequently.

Too much in your excellent musings to address in a comment.

Maybe I will muse in my own ocassional diary of the ether, though it pales in comparison.

One caution, socialism is like too many sweets.
One day you wake up fat, lazy and dependent on the sugar rush, and you find it all but impossible to resist.

Where practiced in earnest, it not only bankrupts the treasury, it bankrupts the souls of the citizens who become incapable of not looking to their government for everything.

But, I fear we are about to move into it here in this country, like a frog in the ever increasingly hot pot.