Heather Menzies Jones
www.WriterHeather.com
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What Fresh Hell?

Berlin - March 8, 2018

 

I woke up last night – not unusual – I wake up many nights at two or three regardless of wine or coffee – I’ve heard that sleep is disrupted at my age – people joke about it, although it’s not so amusing when it’s dark and one’s mind churns. I try to remember my German lessons, which article, das, der, die – which one adheres to which noun. Then a name becomes stuck. I can’t remember someone’s name a name that would have at one point in the past tripped off my tongue but now it unglues itself and only hours or days later will it pop unbidden into my head and I think I’m coming down with my heritable brand of cognitive decline.

The First Monday in June 2017

First Monday in June 2017

1.      I get up after reading (in bed) (for an hour and a half) (64% completed – huge -500 print pages) Paul Theroux’s Mother Land.

2.      Come downstairs to look up Steven King’s review of it in May 8, 2017 NYT Book Review article. Definitely autobiographical. Ew.

3.      I spend at least a good fifteen minutes in contemplation about whether I am an evil, malevolent force in my own children’s lives.

4.      Begin my own writing and eked out a page or two so that I could read something when our writing group convenes tonight. At my house.

5.      Spend fifteen minutes rereading what I wrote two weeks ago when our writing group last met.

6.      Spend at least five minutes going back into my own text to retrieve characters’ names I have forgotten. Consider that future readers of my work will have the same amount of interest in these characters as their own creator who can’t even remember their names.

7.      Shower.

8.      Look at my face in the mirror and for the millionth time consider it a blessing to be myopic.

9.      Consider going to Scott Miller’s Salon to buy some MAC lipstick. Begin to think about how going into a fancy place to buy anything makes me feel like a middle school kid and only too ready to fork over much more money to buy stuff that I know only too well (you do pick up a few things by the time you’re 61) will not do anything more to enhance my sexagenarian beauty than the stuff I currently use. Nix the Scott Miller trip.

10.  Instead, go straight to Trader Joe’s to pick up snack food for tonight’s writers’ group.

11.   There is not one ripe avocado, so scratch the guacamole. Buy the guilt-free kale and spinach dip instead.

12.  In the sauce aisle, I overhear two women with their respective kids talking. The one in sandals with good legs says, “We’re not from here. We live in Vermont and buy expensive food.” I feel like slapping her. Why do people from Vermont always have to tell you they’re from Vermont? And what’s that shit about having to buy expense food? God, you feel white enough at Trader Joe’s anyway.

13.  I come home.

14.  Eat my Trader Joe’s Caesar Salad with their very good croutons.

15.  Back to Mother Land.

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