778. Muse Returns

I went to get the rest of my groceries out of the car, and there she was. 

“Muse!  WOW!  I am so glad to see you.  Where have you been?” 

She stepped out and regarded me with a look that could only be called disdain. 

“What’s this I hear about pose-it notes?” 

“Pose-it notes?  You mean post-it notes?” 

“Oh, they’re called post-it notes?  Huh.  That doesn’t make much sense.  Okay, anyway, someone told me you’re not writing in your nice journal from Paradise?” 

“You mean Paris?” 

“Isn’t that what I just said?” 

I stepped a bit closer to find out if I could smell any alcohol this time.  Nada. 

“Muse, if I write in the leather journal, I might mess it up.  But a pose-it note, who cares?” 

“Pose-it?  So that is the right word?” 

“Stop.  You know what I mean.  I can throw a post-it note in the trash.” 

I smiled wide, revealing teeth that were not magazine model perfect, but orthodontist passable. 

“Are you telling me now that you don’t recycle?” 

“What?” 

“You throw my extra ideas away?” 

“No!  I mean, I save them all!  I would never throw your ideas away.  Your ideas are brilliant!” 

She stared at me for a very long time.  “You are really hard to read, MOV.” 

“I could say the same thing about you, Muse.  I never know when you are giving me a real idea or just messing with me.” 

“Why would I do that?” she demanded, her eyes suddenly wild with rage. 

“Oh, Muse, I know you have a wicked sense of humor.  Hey, are you going to be here for a minute?  I can go grab my new red journal, but this ice-cream’s melting.  Let me go stick it in the fridge.” 

“I’ll tell you where to stick something,” she mumbled. 

“Excuse me?” 

“I said, I’ll wait right here.” 

“Promise?” 

“Sure.” 

“Okay, be right back!” 

I was away less than a minute.  Of course she was gone. 

But so was my car.

777. Queen Virgo Owns 12 Journals

I’m a writer.  This makes it super-duper easy for people to buy me gifts:  they just get me something writer-ish.  Mostly they get me pens or journals.  They never give me erasers.  Erasers would be very insulting.

My brother got me a gorgeous red leather journal from Paris recently.  (I believe the French people call them “zhur-nals.”) 

What makes this even more impressive was that besides it not even being my birthday or a national holiday, he actually went to Paris and bought it (not the sole purpose of the trip, I hope, but a lovely gesture nonetheless).  Every day, I look at that journal and promise to write something profound in it.  Every day, I break my promise.  And the next every day, I remake the promise. 

My high-school boyfriend got me a Waterman pen when I graduated.  A Waterman pen says you will write something serious, something real.  A Waterman pen practically wants to get married to a red leather zhur-nal from Paris. 



My step-mother sends me lovely journals from the high-end stationery store, Papyrus.  I think she does not realize we have Papyrus here in Crazy Town mall, about a 5 minute drive from my house.  She thinks the Papyrus near her in Denver is the only one. 



My sister once gave me a tape-recorder (“In case you can’t get to a pen, or in case the idea is too fast”).  Yeah, ‘cause my ideas are like Nascar racers, they leave tire tracks on your feet. 

Queen Virgo eyes the lovely stack of (unopened) journals, pristine in their originalness.

 

She kisses the Waterman pen, and sets it (still full of ink) next to its lovely twin (a gift from the college boyfriend). 


And right then, she has a magnificent idea for a blog.  She reaches for her trusty "Special Deluxe" pen …

… and then she grabs the one type of paper she uses to write down 100% of her ideas:  

But she will never throw away the journals.       

MOV

775. Eco Lessons for All

"Mommy," called out Short in that sing-song way that only five-year-olds can, "you put that paper towel roll in the trash.  It can go in recycling.  You need to get it out." 

I had to smile.  Not only had he inherited his Good Recycling Instincts from my side of the family (my sister is best friends with Al Gore's picture), but my darling son had obviously inherited his Bossy Ways from my gene pool, too.   

I did as instructed, thus saving the paper towel roll from decades in the landfill and giving it a new life as, well, maybe another paper towel roll.  

I leaned in and gave my son a hug.  "Thank you for being green, Short.  Good job!" 

"Mommy, we're so green, we're blue." 

I laughed.  I had no idea what it meant, but I know a catchy slogan when I hear one.    "Short, what does that even mean?" 

He rolled his eyes (not to worry, I have been a victim of a kindergartner's eye rolling before), and replied,  "If we say we're green, that doesn't really help anything, except maybe the clouds.  But if you are blue!  YES!  The ocean is blue and helping the evironmentals really helps all animals including birds or turtles or Ninja warriors.  Because The Earth is covered in 429% water. That means only about 1% is green.  Now do you understand?" 

I had to smile.  I was proud of his explaining skills and his environmentalist attitude, but I was even prouder of his math skills. 

Another gift from the MOV family DNA. 

MOV

774. My Son Is A Foodie

Overheard at the playground (Tall talking to his friend):  Yeah, I like all foods.  As long as they don't end in "egetable." 

WHERE does he get his sense of humor????????



MOV

773. MOV's Rules About Writing

The most important rule of writing:  There are no rules.  Seriously.  I write in first person, second person (you might like writing this way if you tried it) and even third (Queen Virgo has a thing for third person).  I write long, demented, deranged run-on sentences that twist and turn and convulse then back up only to turn around and lead nowhere but then seductively circle back and make no sense but then mysteriously provide a crucial key that unlocks a joke in a later part of the post.  Yeah, I write that.  And fragments. 

I love fragments.  So much!  Fragments audition for my blog.  They stand, waiting patiently on the side of the desk.  Hopeful.  Frisky.  Nonchalant.  Nervous.  Indifferent.  I see them there, primping, straightening out their letters, standing all alone, moving away when another word tries to be polite and make small talk.  Sometimes I just abandon them, tell them I don’t need them, but they grin because they know I’m lying.  They know.    

Surprise!  One will show up. 

Here is another rule:  Show, don’t tell.  My very disheveled 9^th grade English teacher would run around the classroom, tapping an imaginary ruler in her hand, then she would cry out, “Show, don’t tell!”  I had no idea what she was talking about.  I didn’t want to look stupid though, by asking the question that the other 99% of the students already knew the answer to, so I would just nod-nod-nod.  Of course, of course, Mrs. Bowles (with your unflattering bowl cut hairstyle), of course!  Show, don’t tell!  I get it! 

I didn’t really get it.  Not then. 

Twenty years later, I had my Oprah Winfrey lightbulb moment when I was explaining to my younger cousin my definition of good writing. 

“Elyse, you should say, ‘I forgot my coat and it began to snow,’ not ‘I am cold.’  You write, ‘The neighbors had a party and blared heavy metal through the paper-thin walls until 3 AM, and of course I had to be up at 6 for work.  No pot of coffee is large enough for me today,’ not ‘I’m tired.’  You write the situation without spelling it out for the reader, you let them make the connections, do the translations, for themselves.” 

Wait—this was what Mrs. Bowles must’ve meant!  Egads! 

Now I felt like Christopher Columbus when he discovered President Lincoln lied about being shot.   

Huh? 

Yeah, there’s another one of my rules:  don’t do the expected thing.  Avoid clichés.  Don’t say, “Raining cats and dogs” (unless you are a cartoonist and you’re going to provide the visual—then by all means!).  Don’t type “It was pouring outside.”  Find a new, creative way to say it.  How about, “The sky growled, it seemed the black clouds were angry at me personally, and then they released their violent gray pellets of water directed maliciously at my pristine new silk dress.  Yes, the one with the rainbow ribbon at the hem.  The irony was not lost on me.” 

How much more interesting than the pedestrian “cats and dogs.”  The reader has read cats and dogs a million gazillion eleventy billion times, he is sick and tired of cats and dogs.  He feels like he was stampeded by a wild herd of clichés, ugly ones with rabies and matted fur.   

And people don’t like to read more than 500 words.  So stop there. 

MOV

770. Where, Oh, Where, Has My Little Muse Gone?

As you may remember, Muse had disappeared.  I was at first blasé, but then became, oh, what’s the word?  Distraught?  Despondent?  Yeah, one of those. 

I tried to take my mind off her disappearance by watching old episodes of Top Chef and eating Ben and Jerry’s.  Next, I decided to check my email in case someone had sent me news of Muse’s whereabouts. 

I was momentarily distracted by all the new blog posts from bloggers I like.  I casually clicked my computer mouse to read one of my favoritist blogs of the whole universal, Haley’s Comic, when GUESS WHAT?!? 

THERE WAS MUSE!!!!!!!!!  See for yourself:  click HERE.  And then follow Haley.  That might be the only way we ever get Muse back.  Think about it.    

(And by the way, she looks good in red, eh?) 

MOV 
p.s. Gotta say, Bob’s got good taste.  :) 

769. The World and The Way It Would Be If Everything Were As Fragile as Legos

Tall is a great cleaner-upper.  This stems primarily from me showing him from the time he was a baby how to put his toys away.  Sure, it may have taken him a little longer since he was just crawling at that point, but we had all the time in the world.  I would point at the shelf, and then cheer when he finally put the stuffed animal away. 

Short is not a good cleaner-upper.  For this, I blame myself.  I tried everything the books recommended:  sticker charts, rewards, punishments, praise, ice-cream sundaes, wine (that was for myself when we had a victory), and unlimited trips to Target (again, for me).  Oh, how much easier it was to just say, “Short, Hon, don’t worry about putting those toys away.  Mommy will make sure it gets done … hey, Tall!  Wanna earn a dollar?” 

And thus, I have ensured a future full of both capitalistic ventures (Tall) and pawning work off on others (Short). 

But that is not what this essay is about. 

I want to talk to you about Legos.  Specifically, how Legos break apart the second you touch them.  Or breathe on them.  Or look at them.    

As I previously mentioned, Tall puts his things away.  Short does not.  The result is about a million gazillion stray Legos pieces strewn about as if a nuclear bomb made of (you guessed it) Legos went off.  Twice. 

In our last house, the kids’ play area was the basement.  The basement also served as the laundry room and family room.  Really, why did we even need three bedrooms, a study, a living room, dining room, and kitchen, when 99.9% of our living was done in the basement? 

This became very problematic for me as a lifelong Virgo because I am one of those people who absolutely cannot relax unless everything around me (in the immediate vicinity) is picked up and put away.  As you can imagine with a two-year-old and a four-year-old, that never happened.  I would get stressed out trying to “relax” and watch TV when the kids had gone to bed because there were 10 loads of laundry to fold and dozens of plastic trucks littering the landscape of my basement. 

This made me sad. 

So we moved. 

I told The Husband that my number one priority in finding a new house was that the kids have a separate area to play in that is not the family room and not the laundry room.  Who cares about good schools, a nice yard, or walk-in closets?  My must-have list was short:  a play area.    

I got my wish.  The kids’ play area (we have affectionately dubbed it the “toy room”) is a 13 x 17 masterpiece in lime and turquoise paint, and the kids love playing in there.  It is directly adjacent to my study, where (you may or may not already know this) I write my blog. 

I can see the kids play, they can see me write, everyone is happy. 

Did I mention I can’t relax until things are picked up?  Did I mention that Short is not a good picker-upper? 

At 5 AM today (when I first went to sit down at the computer), I could not take it.  The messy toy room was swearing at me.  Loudly.  Against my better judgment, I walked in the toy room with the intent of “straightening it up a bit.” 

In Virgo Land, this means putting everything away. 

Things were going well until I got to the Legos.  I have been a mommy for over eight years.  I am well-aware of how precious Lego creations are, and how very, very fragile.  Over the years, many a heart has been broken in my household when well-meaning Mommy attempts to gingerly move a Lego creation but accidentally breaks off an essential piece.   

You know what comes next:  I broke some Legos merely be lifting them slowly and carefully and attempting to carry them to the bookshelf.  (I am hoping to get the kids off to school without them ever coming in this room, so we can at least postpone the inevitable meltdowns until later this afternoon.)     

And now we are at the title of this piece.  This of course got me thinking, “What if every single thing in life was a delicate as Lego construction?”  Imagine:  

• “Honey, sorry—that sleeve just ripped right off your jacket when I picked it up at the dry cleaners.  You can try to stick it back on.  Oops, it’s upside down.”
• “I was going to reheat the lasagna for dinner, but all the knobs came off the stove.  Oh, and so did the door.”
• “Speaking of doors, the basement door fell off.  Again.” 
• “You weren’t going to take a bath, were you?  The tub broke in half when I was cleaning it.”
• “Yeah, I was going to drive to the drug store, but the steering wheel of my car came off.  I tried to put it back on, but it just kept happening.  So frustrating!”  
• “Be careful when you make the bed, the mattress keeps breaking.” 
• “Boss, looks like I won’t be coming in to work today.  None of my shoes will stay together.  Every time I go to put one on, it breaks.  Bummer.” 

I think back to when we took the boys to the Building Museum last summer.  There was a special Lego exhibit where highly-educated Lego enthusiasts who are on the museum payroll put together incredible Lego masterpieces to mimic famous landmarks.  There was the Sears Tower, The Gateway Arch from Missouri, The White House, Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic Falling Water, and many others that I am too lazy to google.  They were all under glass or cordoned off with velvet ropes. 

Tall stood staring at one of the “buildings” for a very long time.  I asked him what he was thinking.  “I was just thinking how lucky that Lego architect is.  His mommy got that in here without breaking it.”

MOV