Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: The Holy Roman Empire--Neither holy, nor Roman. Discuss.

I have reached a novel-writing impasse.  I had to skip a chapter and start an altogether-new one, completely out of sequence, because I just can't figure out what's supposed to happen at the end of the last one. I don't know what that means.  I'm going to just keep writing stuff.  It'll turn itself into a novel.  That happens all the time, I'm sure.

*****
Sometimes, you think you know who's calling, so you answer the phone with a funny greeting.  And sometimes, the person on the other end is not the person you expected.  And then you feel silly.

That was just a general observation about something that happens sometimes.  Not a dear-diary entry about something that I actually DID.

*****

Random questions, addressed to no one in particular, and certainly not to anyone in my household:

1. Is the concrete floor of the not air conditioned and not especially clean garage the best place to store a watermelon?  Or any other food?

2. When you cook something with a cookie sheet, should you then clean the cookie sheet, or return it quietly to the oven, crumby and just slightly crusty?

3. If you have an extra $5,000 hanging around, because the Brinks truck is always backing up to your house and dropping stacks of cash in the driveway, is expensive jewelry not just as good an investment as a 36-year-old Mercedes convertible with a rust spot on the hood?

Purely rhetorical questions.

*****

But even rhetorical questions can be answered, right? In a purely rhetorical sense?

1. No.  Come on.
2. What the hell? I mean, COME ON.
3. Come on, man.

*****

I'm reading a book about the Rothschilds.  As much as I love history, I am terrible on details, especially details about European dynasties, and ESPECIALLY Hanoverian and Saxonian and Prussian kings and princes and electors and Thanes of Cawdor and whoever else ruled those itty-bitty Germanic roosts.  And there were a lot of Rothschilds, too, who were fond of a few family names that were handed down from generation to generation.  I'm going to keep reading, because it's interesting, but don't ask me details about which Rothschild advised which Wilhelm of Fill-in-the-Blank German hamlet, because it's all a little fuzzy.

*****
Sometimes, if you just stand in front of your computer and write about whatever pops into your mind, you'll clear all of the mental cobwebs,  and the resulting moment of crystal clarity will lead you to the solution to your writing problem.  And sometimes, you'll just end up with a pile of old cars, overripe fruit, inadvertent reverse prank calls, and Hohenzollerns.

Fireflies

I said that I'd write something this week, so here I am.  It's a so-much-to-do week, the kind that I can only manage with the aid of a list. And I know that the only way that I'll write anything is to make writing a to-do list item, that I can cross off my list with great satisfaction.  So there's the list, and here I am.

The fireflies are back. I walked through my neighborhood tonight, just a short time before twilight.  The sun had gone almost all the way down, and so it was hot, but not blazing hot without the sun overhead.  The air was heavy and close and humid, and there wasn't so much as a slight breeze.  I could hear everything; cars and lawnmowers and crickets and children shouting about fireflies.  We called them lightning bugs where I grew up, but here, they are fireflies.  The fireflies had disappeared for some time, or so I thought.  For 15 years, give or take, I didn't see any fireflies, nor did I hear a word about them.  Then suddenly, 10 years or so ago, they were back.  Had they really disappeared, or did I just not notice them until I had a five-year-old boy?  The five-year-old boy is 15 now, worried about his upcoming lifeguard's exam, and asking when he can get his learner's permit.  He probably won't notice a firefly again until he has his own five-year-old boy.

*****
So today was even hotter and more densely humid than yesterday.  After an interminably long evening swim meet, I made an ill-advised decision to allow a sleepover tonight.  Who knows what I was thinking.

No, really.  That was a question.  Who knows what I was thinking? Anyone? Anyone?

Fortunately, the sleepover includes only this boy, who is such a frequent guest that he might as well live here.  No special guest accommodations or preparations are necessary.  The boys are now cozily parked on the L-shaped sectional couch, which is covered with sheets and stacked with as many pillows and blankets as they can fit while still leaving room for their 11-year-old bodies.  Multiple swims today have left them tired enough to thwart their plans to stay up late to watch Batman vs. Superman.  I'm pretty sure that they'll be asleep no more than an hour into the movie.

*****

The boys fell asleep, as expected, about an hour into the movie, but then my son woke me up at 2:30, complaining that he couldn't sleep.  When I got up with him to see if it was too hot or cold or if any other adjustments to the sleeping arrangements would help, I found that the porch light shines so brightly in the family room that it was all but daylight in there.  A person with reasonably sharp vision could easily have read a book.  With the light out, he fell asleep again in no time. I left for work this morning as a sleeping pile of boys were just beginning to stir.  School is out, but morning swim practice is on.

*****

I'm married to a police officer, so it's been a difficult week.  Awakened by light, literal or figurative, I often wish that I could just go back to sleep.  Friends and others, well-meaning or otherwise, ask me how my husband is, what he's thinking, what I'm thinking.  What do I say? Black lives matter? Blue lives matter? All lives matter, during a week when it feels as if life itself is disposable, isn't valued, doesn't matter?  I don't know.  I just know that it's summer, and for only a short time.  Swim meets, and sleepovers, and fireflies, and movie-watching on the couch--who knows how much longer it will all last?