Life is Beautiful

The title came to me this morning, even before I knew exactly what I was going to write about, while I was sitting by my fire, enjoying the wireless network in my house which enables me to sit in my favorite chair and type away. I'm so comfortable--it almost feels like cheating on a test.

I had the oddest experience the other night--a mix of panic and excitement.

I've read all the Jane Austen novels that we have, which, unbelievably, does not include "Pride and Prejudice". I think I have been resisting reading it so far because I've seen the movie, both Laurence Olivier and Colin Firth, and I was afraid that, knowing the storyline of the novel, I would be a little disappointed at not being surprised by the plot twists.

So I visited Barnes and Noble because we were fresh out of Jane Austen in the house, and I found myself standing in the New Fiction section. It was kind of late on a damp night, and there was barely anyone else in the warehouse-sized store. A slow-witted boy with bottle-thick glasses on the end of his nose was brewing a fresh pot of coffee, the aroma of which permeated the whole store. I looked at the piles and piles of New Fiction and realized that, someday, I am going to write something that will end up in on those shelves. I know I'm capable of it, but I have to be disciplined to, obviously, finish it, edit it (which I've learned is also difficult for me), and follow through with the tiresome process of getting something published.

I picked up a book--the title was terrible, like a 10-year-old had written it. I read the intro page, and had my sudden panic of realization that, if this complete swill could be published, certainly something I write could be interesting to readers...But the prospect of doing it made me energized and happy.

Now, I've got kids buzzing around me, so if my sentences start to become (more) incoherent, that's the reason. At least I have an excuse now...

I've got a great idea for a book, which I've been charting out and writing disjointed chapters for as the urge strikes me. Please, please, don't ask me what it's about yet...

Additionally, I think I've been watching too much Extreme Makeover: Home Edition--The urge struck me to redo the kids' bathroom, which was outdated and really needed some work. I'm pretty good with my hands, so I started doing it, stripping off 3 layers of wallpaper and making a huge mess--I left it as messy and shocking as possible, and asked Fran to go look at it--One of the layers of wallpaper had been particularly well-glued, so even though I scored it and used wallpaper stripper (oh, the Google hits I will receive now!--what would a wallpaper stripper look like, I wonder?)...anyway, back to the ransacked state of my remodeling job--tiny strips of peeled wallpaper overwhelmingly littered about the place in psychotic randomness and destruction of artistic proportions--it looked like the depraved remodeling efforts of a deranged mind, like if we somehow merged Ty Pennington, Freddie Krueger, the Tasmanian Devil, Edward Scissorhands, and Hannibal Lecter into one body, pissed him off royally, and locked the maniacal conglomerate into a small room. Fran was duly impressed.

I told her, "I'm really tired of this job--maybe we can just leave it that way..." I had to disconnect the toilet, so it looks very out-of-place in the center of the room. Which reminds me, I need to do something so Ryan's friends don't try to actually use it...

"Baby Beethoven" just ended, and Kaitlyn asked me "Watch it again, Mike?" (which she sometimes calls me which just cracks me up so I can't stop her)

So, I'll wrap it up here--hope it explains a little of my absence and distraction from blogging (thanks to those who noticed). Up to 8000 hits since June, so thanks for continuing to read. I'm also getting less shy about letting friends and family know about my writing, so I guess that's a step forward as well.