Dismantle My Bed

When sneaking in writing during office meetings, remember it’s not always about what you bring to the meeting and how prepared you are to utilize it. Sometimes, it’s about location.

You see, today in a meeting at work, a woman who is sort of a quasi-supervisor of the department decided to bypass her usual seat at the conference table, come right down to my end, and sit down next to me. When this happens, pad and pen may not be enough to give you true writing freedom. So, here are five possible solutions to such a problem.

1. When the person goes to sit down, quickly turn and push his or her chair back with your foot. He or she will fall on his or her ass, extremely hard if you are lucky, and learn that you are not the kind of person that should be sat near.

2. Wait until he or she sits, then give the close-sitter an elbow to the face. Aim for the nose. Noses almost always bleed profusely, meaning that the person will either have to leave the room or be too busy mopping up blood to pay any attention to you.

3. Let the person sit without incident, then write terrible things about him or her on your notepad. The person will undoubtedly be nosy, as all people are, and will see what you have written. Since he or she cannot call you on it, because it would be admitting to being a busybody, the person will likely not sit next to you again, both to spare his or her own feelings, and because you will be considered the office bitch from then on out.

4. Yell “I can’t work like this” and storm out. Later, when questioned about it, explain to anyone who will listen that there was inappropriate touching beneath the table where they couldn’t see, and that you don’t allow people to feel you up unless they’ve paid for a nice dinner first.

5. Forget trying to write, and take a nap instead. This way you don’t have to sleep as much when you get home later. Use that time that they tried to steal from you in the meeting to write at night. This is a difficult solution. They will try to wake you, so you must be prepared. Spend some time this weekend practicing how to say “Five more minutes, Mom” and sling drool without actually waking up. Believe me, it can be done.

In summation -

Two of these are certain to get you fired. The other three are certain to get you committed. None will get you laid.

Sorry.

aka, The book that reminded me how to piss my pants in my teenage years.

Haunted Heartland is a collection of ghost stories, divided up by state, and all supposedly based on true events that happened right here in the United States. The stories are relatively well-written. (There is nothing particularly fancy or bold about them, but it’s a book of ghost stories, not meant to be a masterpiece, so there you go.) Poltergeists, ghosts, and plenty of unexplained phenomena are captured within the pages. If you are looking for beautiful craftmanship, you may want to look elsewhere, but if it’s a good scare you are after, you won’t find a better source.

I read this book for the first time when I was in high school, then I read it again in my twenties. Both times, I had to put it down several times and hours before bed to prevent the creepy crawlies all night long. It’s just that much more scary when you are told that the stories are real.

Not my family, but it’s a funeral I shall have to attend, so there you go. I am sad though, because I feel bad for Daddy Jeff, whose real Daddy has died. I like Daddy Jeff. He’s funny and he constructs massive items, because he doesn’t know how to build anything small. He also works with heavy equipment, for which I, for some reason, harbor a strange affection. And he likes to carry heavy things and help out, which made moving considerably easier when we were living near him.

But I hate funerals. I’m taking bets now on whether or not they will play “Go Rest High on That Mountain”. The odds at any given funeral is roughly 10 to 1.

So, anyway, the whole point of this is that I get to go visit the boxes of books that are still left down there. You see, the books here are enough for a platform bed, two bedside tables, a platform for the closet and a microwave stand, and yet there are more of them.

Arrrrggggh!

Writers are crazy. And if they are not crazy, they’re on drugs. There is no other possible reason for them not to be certifiable except for the constant stream of foreign substances into the body.

I’ve considered that out myself from time to time. I really GET addicts. I do. I don’t want to, but I definitely do.

I read the other day that one famous author, who need not be mentioned for fear that you will rush out and buy his books instead of mine, said that he never gets writer’s block, because he is always working on more than one thing at a time.

You see, this is exactly what causes my blockage at times. Because my mind is going so absolutely berserk, bouncing from one idea to another, that I can’t settle it down enough to concentrate on one thing. This not only causes me to be unable to write anything, but it makes me run around in circles in the middle of the room, like a dog chasing its tail, until I get dizzy and pass out.

Why drink when I can spin myself into a stupor?

So, I’ve been selling books left and right lately. No, no, no… not copies of the book that I wrote. I don’t do miracles. I’m no messiah. There isn’t room for two of those at the same time and everyone knows that Obama holds the title right now. But I have been selling a whole lot of books, ones from my personal library to prepare for, yet another, move across country, because that’s apparently one of my greatest skills. And so is selling off everything that I own to ready myself for such a move. Hey, at least I am making some sales.