Interesting things happened today, but I can't write about them until tomorrow. Blogging is a very exhausting enterprise, or life is or something is. I can only write just enough to say I really wrote something today, since that is my dadblamed objective - to write every day. Boy, is dadblamed a word? Seems like I've heard it somewhere in the very distant, murky past, it's sloshing around in my memory, I can sorta make it out but not grab it.

So, I had a little perception, and I mean little, after my blog of confusion yesterday. I think my hang up with that 'wisdom of life' quote is that most things in life are truly nonessential, in the purest sense of the word. Let's face it, if it's not spinach, pineapple juice, a sarong and a thatched hut, then it probably is not THAT essential. We could survive on those, eh? We might get a little sick of Spinach Cocktail, but hey, we eat all the spinach we can. But then, I say it again, poor longsuffering you, nonessentials can pose as essentials. Like reading that interesting newspaper. For Pete's sake, I had a history teacher in high school, dear, sweet, no nonsense, I-expect-great-things-from-you-make-me-proud Mr. Allison, my very best teacher EVER. Guess what he did? He gave Current Events quizzes ev-a-ree day. This was not fun since prior to Mr. Allison, I thought Current Events were who made cheerleading, what's for dinner and which boy did Faye Ellen Foster (BILLY FOSTER'S FOR MAYOR sister) conquer today (wow, she was a marvel and so was her name, say it out loud and you will see). But Current Events was really a bunch of boring stuff WAY outside my orbit of interest. Mr. Allison, he could act so put out with us. WHAT?, he'd holler. You don't know what's going on in the world?? This is history in the making, you are part of it. How can you be so apathetic?? You all are completely pitiful. Then he would purse his lips, hang his sorrowful head and shake it grimly, to let us know how fathomless we were, how it wasn't possible to descend any lower as human beings. His sheer disgustedness was frightening to behold and left no room for interpretation. Which meant we were left with no option but to get off that rotten school bus, run in the house, right past the Twinkie platter (who can bother with sustenance at times like these) and make an honest stab at devouring the newspaper, first thing - middle thing and last thing, too. In other words, (I love other words) an urgency, if not a genuine enthusiasm, to master Current Events squeezed our souls in a viselike grip. I can promise you I was overwhelmed, it was all just too much, to try to begin absorbing the whole wide world at large when you were used to only your own little block. Those quizes were an ongoing dreaded nightmare, let me tell you. I started wearing black hair ribbons, black socks and black lipstick - I stopped just short of dying my uniform black. Current Events hung over me like an ominous black thundercloud, and living in the Sunshine State suddenly meant absolutely zip. But Mr. Allison was one of those neat teachers who commanded respect. Catching his reluctant grin if we got an A on the quiz was reward enough. We loved and adored him, coveted his praise and aimed to please. I think I'm still aiming to please to this day, hence the newspaper clutch. If Mr. Allison drilled into us the essentialness of reading the newspaper daily and thoroughly, who is little KEM to buck that? NO ONE, that's who. NEWSPAPER READING VERDICT: ESSENTIAL.

Same basic idea for those interminable piles of piano magazines, a problem peculiar to me, maybe, but do I attempt continued education (essential) or do I own defeat, seeing my life as ebbing by in a river of regret (nonessential)? But hey, knowing when to give it up IS essential, too. Unless you become a nun or a monk and go live in a convent - if you make that decision then all the other decisions seem to be made for you. That would plunk the 'non' smack back on essential, wouldn't it?

It the above paragraph made ZERO sense, then get used to it. When I get excessively tired my thoughts come out even more distorted and peculiar than usual. One last comment and this subject is laid to rest, like loose hair. My final conclusion is that I am going to go by INSTINCT when deciding what is and is not essential in my life, since most things strike me as essential and nonessential all rolled together into one. (I'm positive I just contradicted myself.) Oh, well. INSTINCT is a valuable natural resource, I think it's a blend of life experience to date plus a good feeling plus intuition. So, that shall be my new operating force, with pleasure, and that lousy mystery quote, yes, the one I formerly loved, has finally been solved.

My very first exercise in instinct is going to be telling myself that I don't have TIME to read the newspaper (even though I might MISS SOMETHING, NOOOO!, like the GORILLA STOLEN OFF STATE VACUUM ROOF story). And I mustn't WORRY (Fret Queen) about it and to rather TRUST (really?) myself, Mr. Allison notwithstanding. The PILES of papers in the dining room that don't go away (history lesson) + the RELIEF of giving myself permission to let go (feels right) + my gut telling me I'll be perpetually drowning in a sea of paper if I don't lower the axe (intuition) = NEW NEWSPAPER READING VERDICT: NONESSENTIAL. There. That was so easy.

Did you know my friend invited me over to lunch today at her house and I brought the lunch. Guess what I brought? Spinach. But it's official title was Spinach Salad with Blue Cheese, Warm B . . Well, that's all that printed of the title, off the Internet (why?). But I can tell you more . . acon. Cause it had warm Bacon in it. But I'm thinking it was going on to say Warm Bacon Dressing and it could have even gone on to say 'and Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain Caesar Croutons,' because they were in there, if we want to get fussy. I have a confession to make, I don't understand if periods and commas go inside or outside of quotation marks and parentheses. I Googled it but it's just one of those things I will never comprehendo. Like in college I couldn't "get" where the apostrophe went when making plurals possessive, FOR ANYTHING. It made no sense to me. My roommate Genie would say, like there was nothing to it, Children would be n apostrophe s. And I didn't see why it couldn't just as likely be s apostrophe. She'd say People's, and I'd think what's wrong with Peoples'. Picture a math wizard matter-of-factly stating the answer to a word problem to someone who still counts on their fingers. These gifted people think the answer is SO OBVIOUS that anyone requiring an explanation would be just plain silly. Well, they haven't heard of me. This all started in the third grade, you know when I got shipped on a bus across town to a new school. The teacher would ask you to answer a question, she asked you in front of the whole class. She asked me. I think it was on deciding if a word was an adjective or an adverb. But I didn't know. Heck, my brain froze up so badly I didn't even know the question. But she stood over me for the longest time, waiting for an answer when no answer was forthcoming. It was pure, unadulterated torture. All I could think to do was roll my eyes. Not one roll, but continuous rolls, like a car tire in motion, like those little plastic wiggle eyes they use in crafts. Then guess what? The teacher imitated the eye rolls for the entertainment of the rest of the class. I'm sure it wasn't premeditated and malicious on her part, but I felt absurdly mocked and shamed with every fiber of my small being. And I remember feeling so desperate because I really hadn't the vaguest notion how I was EVER going to grasp what apparently the rest of the class already had. Same as when I started piano lessons and was introduced to note reading in the John Thompson Primer. I would sit on that bench in front of those keys and stare at those musical notations as hard as I could, staring a whole straight through them. I think I was waiting for them talk to me and make friends. But all they were to me a half hour later, day after day, were the same little black dots on the page, interesting looking but utterly devoid of any meaning. Wow, it's really scary to be a little kid and NOT GET SOMETHING, not get it SO THOROUGHLY.

I think somewhere along the line I was telling you about spinach salad. The recipe spelled the Blue in Cheese just like that, B-L-U-E. Why did I think when it came to cheese you spelled Blue, B-L-E-U? Our little dog, Jazzi, has had upset tummy the last couple of days. She's been throwing up and it dries on her mustache and doesn't smell real pretty. Driving to my friend's house, after I'd composed the salad, I realized my hands still smelled of Bleu Cheese. Then I thought, These Bleu Cheese hands smell exactly like Jazzi's mustache. Not a real encouraging thought.

Guess what today was? The Big Thursday to drive over the bridge to Tampa and retrieve my serviced vacuum cleaner at Gorilla Vacuum Repair. But something appalling happened, and I'm going to let you guess. I will give you choices A and B only because there are too many choices in this here world and it's so overwhelming and humans are not especially equipped to handle deciding between multiple multiple choices. We really max out over just picking between A and B. I certainly do.

Directions: Circle A or B. (Hint: You will NEVER guess which one.)

A. My vacuum was discovered to be on it's last wheels, and they sold me a new one.
B. I found out my Gorilla-On-The-Roof story was manufactured, by me.

Since I didn't have anything to say tonight, nothing at all, I think I'll go eat a bowl of my favorite cereal, from the health food store, gluten-free: ORGANIC GORILLA MUNCH. I kid you not.

KEM