Today was fascinating.
I went to the gym, per my usual routine. Got there before 6am and did my 30 on the elliptical. I’m reading a wonderful book so I can’t, just can’t do Gina’s suggested “Torture 12” (what Eithne and I call it) It’s the usual for 4 minutes then for 4 minutes we do 30 seconds of “let’s see if we can break the machine if we go super fast”, 3o seconds of normal then back to fast. Back and forth for 4 minutes, then we get normal for the last 4 minutes. We’re so out of breath we can only curse her name in our heads!
But the book is too good, a David (huh…a David, shrug) Weber anthology of little bits from all his series. A great way to see a series before you start it. Anyway, after my 30 minutes I’m off to the weights. Usually I just use the machines but Gina’s got me brave enough to be one of those women standing in front of the mirror with all the guys and trying to not seem too uncoordinated. The key is to go slow so it looks like you really know what you’re doing ’cause you’re concentrating so hard.
But ow! All day, everyday, ow! My shoulders and upper back are letting me know what I’m doing is working and they are lazily complaining! Good, but ow!
Soooo, I’m leaving the gym and it’s almost two stories down of stairs. I always watch the people as they walk up to see their expressions. And today this guy stares at my feet the whole walk up. I’m grinning ear to ear because he’s obviously got a foot fetish and can’t take his eyes of my red manicured toes poking out of my black sandals. He never once looked at my face!
It flashes me back to when I used to work at a pool hall as a waitress. (Flirty fun, lots of work and its amazing how good you ‘think’ you are at pool when you watch it all day…I suck at pool.) The oldest son of the owner had a thing for feet. So every day at least once during work I’d slip off my shoes, flash him my toes and he’d dramatically fall to his knees. No, really! I do have adorable feet but probably only to those who love feet!
Poor guy, though. His lovely girlfriend wasn’t Armenian and to his Armenian family that was the worst thing he could date. And I wonder if it gave him a sense of freedom knowing he’d could tell her anything and blame his “I can’t marry you” crap on his family’s approval. I give it another generation…maybe two and the kids won’t care who they marry.
I think it happens with every immigrant group. ‘You can only marry a Chinese girl!’ ‘What, he’s not Italian!’ ‘Where are all the good Jewish girls!’ All that falls to the wayside by the 3rd and 4th generation because the kids see themselves less as Italian and more as American and they’re now looking to connect with an American who thinks like them. Well, maybe not so much the Jews because that’s tied up in their religion and the fact being Jewish follows the mother…so if she ain’t Jewish you got a problem!
AANNNYYYway that was this morning. I popped home, did some quick emailing, popped the day’s blog up and readied the kids for the beach. Sandwiches, chairs, sunscreen, fruit, frozen juice, umbrella, boogie boards. Locked and loaded and off we went. Only 30 minutes behind schedule, risked the 5 with NO problems and got there in a hour. Loading the three kids up with stuff we managed only one trip from the car to the shore. After set up and sun screening we head for the water that they’ve been begging to hit since we arrived.
Then its, “too cold! Ewww, seaweed!” and whine and whine and wheres’ the wine! Convinced they’re too irritating to drown I head back to the beach chairs under the umbrella. It was windy…and cold…but it warmed up by the time we left! Had to leave early due to an appointment and I was worried over traffic because of the Michael Jackson funeral. Lucky me…got none of it and we had time enough to pop in at home before we headed out so I could get my laptop and ‘rip’ more words out of Cat.
I’m becoming quite the slasher on my novel. “We don’t need that scene!” I savagely yell out while this little voice says, “But that really develops Samuel’s uncertainty…” Screw Samuel…he’s fine! See, words gone and he’s fine…blissfully pleased he’s boinking Cat! Onward!
Truthfully I’m at the part of the 1st full day and 2nd night and the novel really slows here so I’m being very brutal in my condensing. I realize I wrote it as if I’d lived it. Which is great for the important scenes but I was filling almost every moment with interaction and conversation. It’s like tagging along while the hero rides to the rescue (which takes hours) and he and his sidekick just kick the conversation around. Some parts might be funny, even interesting, but the reader’ll get bored ’cause there ain’t no action.
By the time I got home from the appointment, kids in tow, car unpacked, stuff de-sanded and dinner cooked (Okay, heating up corndogs isn’t hard but it counts as cooking to me!) I. WAS. Exhausted. Physically. Mentally my brain is going on and random things, per usual. So I thought, hell, let’s blog it.
Because the above is what its like to have a conversation with me, although you do get a word in…its just edgewise. I bebop about, bringing up unusual things that happened to me, which brings up a funny story from my past, which segways into a personal opinion piece. And all of you who’ve experienced talking one on one with me know just how true that is! I think it’s one of the reason I so enjoy meeting strangers. Not only are they fascinating characters in waiting but they are unsuspecting willing recipients of my entertainment side.
In other words…they haven’t heard ANY of my stuff!
UPDATE: I just HAD to add this. Almost a year and a half after writing this blog I was single and met a man who KNEW the pool-hall, foot-fetish guy. That brave Armenian man married his Latina love and they had 2 kids. My friend dated for quite a while their little sister. Tells you how progressive this family was, my friend was Black! So cool.