Feb. 10, 2010 Chocolate, writing and (pack)rats!

Yesterday's merchandise return could conceivably involve a bit of "foreshadowing" as described by Wild Bill, my high school lit teacher. Amidst a ceiling fan installation, stripping the top of a bar, digesting 60 pages of deposition testimony, picking up dry cleaning, moving two twin beds to another room and relocating 10 bins of books, I managed to drop by my local import store with an unused mango candle holder and its receipt. Mind you, I purchased this months before I travelled to the country where it was manufactured, but the back of the receipt indicated store credit would be issued after 60 days. The gentle employ of persuasion skills on the manager having yielded a successful result, I tried to soften the associate's irritation by explaining I was essentially going to exchange the candle holder for chocolate. From the look on her face you'd think I'd said I was fencing stereo equipment for crack.

I've been buying chocolate all over town since Saturday. It's mostly been a casual affair, just a "well, since it's here by the cash register", although yesterday's jaunt turned into a full-on quest for an apparently extinct brand of chili-infused dark cocoa. Warning bells should have sounded somewhere, but even if they had, I was too busy to hear them.

Things like this catch up eventually, and today I found it lurking in my personal e-mail. There it was, a copy of my grant proposal, now minus my name and heavy two roman numerals, on its way to the U.S. Embassy. I glanced through the language and something started to gnaw. Damn, that was good writing. It even sounds like I knew what I was going on about. Huh. That's a pretty big issue I was trying to help solve. Hmmmm. A look around at the basement room piled with boxes bursting with retaliatory drivel...

What the F*** am I doing here?

I grabbed my purse and got the dickens out. My compass pointed me to a bookstore a girlfriend and I had haunted while in law school. My thoughts finally started to crystallize as I tried to navigate into a narrow parking space. It's not that I want to sell plasma for a plane ticket back, it's just other than my wonderful husband's impending return, our scruffy found pup and some administrative matters of the home, there isn't a damn thing that's got me on fire about being here. Filling up my time by working on things I care little about is sucking my soul bone dry. Before anyone says I should be happy that I have a job, let me disclose that this is a favor and I'm not getting paid.

The little voice in my head rattling off pirate slang, I got a coffee and cake in an effort to find some sense in the discord. Staring at the smiley face drawn on my plate in caramel syrup didn't make the voice any happier, so I looked at my coffee lid instead. I know I need a job in DC. Working on that. Want my love in the same place I am. Okay, it's gonna happen. Soon. AHA, says the voice. You want to do something meaningful with your life again. So, seeing your words makes you happy? Why don't you get off your ass and go look at the books about writing? Pushy, that voice.

My coffee cup was empty by the time I made it across the store. If anyone saw a vacant-eyed blond woman chewing on her coffee lid's spout, that was me. I hope I provided you with some amusement. Despite my preoccupation I managed to find the section I was looking for fairly quickly, although the selection threw me for a loop. Dear lord, does the world really need books where the words "writing" and "dummies" appear on the same spine? And what is all this about writing memoirs? My thoughts flickered to some of the greats, and I briefly wondered if they had consulted such works for guidance.

Shoving aside my wandering wit, I dutifully reached for a reasonably-sized tome, Shimmering Images by Lisa Dale Norton. Shortly after I began flipping pages I landed on these words: "So I say to you: save, save, save." No, she's not talking about saving money so the starving writer can afford to stock his or her garbage bag of ramen. She's talking about stuff. Norton advocates for those who want to write memoirs to become and/or remain pack rats. What better way is there to trigger a memory to write about than to keep everything, including but not limited to old hair products? I may have a 6 year old bottle of Paul Mitchell hairspray hanging out under my sink, but bullocks, I guess my current project rules out this line of work.

My resolve refining itself into something a little different than what I had walked in with, I picked up a copy of British Vogue and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (now with 30% more zombies!!!). The young guy behind the register found a discount coupon for me, saying he was happy to do it for great books. Oh, and had I heard about Jane Bites Back? It's Pride and Prejudice but Austen's a vampire and she's been trying to get the same book published for, like, 200 years.

A warning?