Two Days Ago--I Canoed the Amazon (Not)

If I had known the subject for this week’s blog was going to be “two days ago,” I would have tried to do something interesting.

But then the question is whether I’m supposed to report on something I did two days before the subject was announced, or two days before I wrote this blog. If it’s two days before I wrote the blog, then I had time to prepare. So I set out Thursday morning to hack my way through a hundred of miles of Amazon rainforest and make contact with a hitherto unknown tribe of aborigines. It was exciting.

OK, I didn’t do that. You guessed it, didn’t you? So I’ll tell the truth.

Two days before the subject was announced, I awoke with a sore throat after a restless night and spent most of the afternoon napping. Went to bed early in spite of having slept all day, and woke up Saturday feeling much better.

Oh. That’s too dull? You want me to tell you what I did two days ago from today?

I printed most of my accumulated receipts off the Mac and filed them neatly away in case I make so much money from my novel I need them for tax deductions, knowing full well that odds are I’ve just wasted my time.

But in between those “two days ago” periods, I did a few things that kept me from curling up and dying of boredom. A week ago last Thursday, I met a complete stranger at Panera and left with a new friend. I interviewed Diana Manning, an artist from a nearby village, about her memory montages for a story to appear in “Thrive,” a local entertainment magazine. Sunday after church, I wrote the story and sent it off to the editor. Friday I made a hotel reservation for me, my daughter, and my granddaughter. We’re going up to Chicago Monday for my granddaughter’s orientation at Columbia College. Other than that--cooking dinner, promoting my book on Twitter and Goodreads, and sewing lace on "The Dress." (Another story.)

And there you have it. Most people lead very quiet lives taking care of those things that must be taken care of to make their days and the days of their families run smoothly. I’m no exception.

Except that I can’t stay in this peaceful and predictable place. I lead another life in an alternate universe. “When the Moon Is Gibbous and Waxing” is finished and published, but Michael and Natalie are just beginning their lives together as husband and werewolf. They are insisting that I write down all their adventures exactly as they happen, from discovering the body of a U of I football player drained of blood and lying on the sidewalk near the lab to searching for a professor at the University of Glasgow who disappears after discovering a drug that could cure leukemia. I have a feeling it’s going to be another exciting year in my head, if not in my life. How about yours?