I need a pillow that won’t drive me crazy. My head hits the pillow and I want to hit the highway. It’s come down to this. I am quoting John Cougar Mellencamp.

When I am on the Forbes 500 list, my first splurge will be to buy new pillows for each night. They feel okay Night One. But then? The next night? WHAT WAS I THINKING? I hate this thing!

If you need a salad chef, I’m your girl. I excel in tossing and turning.

Lost. In. Space.
Paging The Book to the front desk, please.
I see this book nearly every day in the house,
like a friendship that passes in the night.
Now that I’m looking for the book, I can’t find it.
I need it. It knows that.
It’s playing hide-and-seek.
So you want to play hard to get?
I’m sorry I neglected you, Book.
I’m not in the mood for these games.
Come out now and show your face! Game over!

————Poet Maggie Smith

Snow takes her solo. Center stage. The crowd, rapt in wonder, holds its applause, afraid to break the rhythm. Play on, play on.

Someone figure-eights to the music of silence.

I am not having a crisis. I am not done.

My new blog focus, framework, idea? CALL THE MIDLIFE.

CALL THE MIDLIFE. Hmmmmm.

Maybe. Maybe.

Works for me. 🥳

I know how young old I am. No need to feel shame I’m past my Amazon Prime. 😉

Our apartment, growing up, Brooklyn: Top floor, closest to the viewer’s eyes, terrace on the corner. A terrace we never used. The access door was covered by expensive drapery and my mom was adamant about keeping it that way. Untouched.

My shared bedroom: Third window to the left of the mystery terrace. What would I give to zoom inside and see what we were doing, circa 1972 through 2019? Where did we all go?

Not sure why I did a map hunt for the old place. Seeing it in 3D is astounding, as enigmatic it must have been when people first saw images on a television screen. I don’t know how I would have survived childhood had I had access to the Internet. That’s another door we couldn’t open. And like the flowing fabric in that apartment, my memories of The Way We Were are as fresh as the day they were made, untouched by years and time and adult onset “what was I looking for again?” amnesia. 🤦‍♀️

How it started: A much-needed one hour nap at 6 pm

How it’s going: An obviously much more needed seven hour sleep.

Seven -hours-? Equals two nights of rest in normal times. Don’t ask. Math is not my super strength.

Thank you, Big Comfy Couch, for giving me what a bed resists. Deep, deep sleep, give or take a few bad dreams. (Make them stop.)

Can a day begin at 2 am? I’m about to find out. 😉

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A great miracle happened here. Fears fell to pride. Anthology finally removed from envelope. I’m on page 72. “Toilet Paper and Sympathy.” Two essentials needed in the era of Covid. (And always.) Can’t have one without the other.

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Earlier today, I attended an online webinar on Jewish-American writers in a #MeToo era. (Their description. Not mine.) Philip Roth was a hot topic. To be clear: The conversation was not so much focusing on Roth but rather writer Blake Bailey, the author of Roth’s recent biography. On the eve of publication, Bailey’s personal history of allegations of sexual misconduct resulted in a “disappearing” (again, their description) of the biography.

The paragraph above is a long and winding road gateway to wondering about women authors. Are we “disappeared” in a similar fashion? Do our personal lives get in the way of our work? You don’t have to answer. I am just thinking out loud.

An editor once wrote my writing “was like ya Philip Roth.” It took me hours to bask in the glow of this curious “compliment” or what I thought was a compliment. What editor says “like ya”? Sounds like a phrase straight out of an Archie comic book.

And then. Eureka! The lightbulb went off! I was not a “like ya” anything. He meant I was “like Young Adult” (“ya”) Philip Roth.

Oh my g-d. So it was….Goodbye, Columbus and Hello, Capital Letters!

I have no plans to disappear. Ever.

The Bad Dreams just keep on coming.

I don’t think anyone could have a good day after an imaginary gang of little kids taunt me and mock me, calling me PIG VOMIT over and over and over. One of those Bad Toddlers deliberately drooled schpittle down to splash my skin.

Waking up was the best part of my day. That’s a good thing.
But as of 6:16 pm, I cannot say I see anything on the horizon to make me feel like swinging from the chandeliers. If I had a chandelier.

The night is young. There’s still time to turn my blahs into blessings.

(Who am I kidding? This day is done and it’s going to take a miracle to turn this day around. If pig vomit could fly…)

If you talk to enough people, you find out your fear of overwriting about the pain of losing a parent is as ubiquitous as sweat while running up the stairs to find your ringing cell phone.