I mentioned changes afoot and told you I’d be back with more news. Then I never mentioned it again. Today I share with you some of the changes; when I’m damn good and ready, I’ll tell you the rest. Really, I just need to figure out what it’s all going to look like first, and then I’ll tell you.

To begin with, I’m writing a book. Yeah, baby, a book. If you’ve known me for any amount of time (outside of blog-land, that is), I’m sure you’ve heard how I plan to write a book. And plan is all I’ve done. Planned and planned and planned. Why write when you can just think about how you’re going to write? The thinking is so much fun and so little work.

Well, I decided enough with the thinking already. There’s a bit more to this story – divine intervention, blah, blah, blah – and I’ll probably post about it one of these days. The short version, for now, is The Red Dress Club (TRDC for short) came into existence precisely when I decided the time for planning had ended. The time for writing had begun. So I’ve become a card carrying member (hey Red Dress ladies, can we get cards?) of The Red Dress Club, an on-line writer’s group for those of us who write, or want to write.

Periodically I’ll be doing some writing exercises that need to be linked up to TRDC’s web site. I thought about starting a seperate writing-only blog for this purpose and then I got real. I already – barely – maintain two blogs (this one and another one that’s a private affair, chronicling our boys’ lives – or at least it chronicled them until April. Ahem. Updates coming… one day.).

What that means is I’ll be posting writing exercises here. I will warn you IN BIG BOLD LETTERS when it’s writing exercise day. I understand – I really, really do – if the idea of reading my attempts at fiction and whatnot makes you feel a little nauseated. And bored. Please move along with your day and come back to read next time I post about regular, old life stuff. You are excused.

If you choose to read, I’d love to hear what you think. If you feel the need to be exceedingly critical or mean, please have the decency to do it behind my back and not in the comments section. Helpful criticism is always welcome, though. As is heaping amounts of “oh, you’re so wonderful,” even if it’s insincere.

The first exercise for TRDC was to write a short piece of fiction, starting with the words, “Your mother.” A note to my mother and anyone else who cares: this is fiction, make believe, not true. My mom has her own brand of crazy, surely. Don’t we all. But this story is not, I repeat, not about my mom. At the risk of protesting too much, we’ll get to it.

One last note: the “link up” for these writing exercises will be posted on Friday. Visit The Red Dress Club to read more works of fiction. (A link up, for you non-blogging people, is just another way of saying you can go to one blog, and then click on lots of links to read stuff at other blogs…)

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The Farmer’s Market

“Your mother was on the news again today. Lead story.”

I gently place the bag with the eggs in it on the counter. Then I let the others drop, less gently, to the floor. There’s an angry red mark across the crook of my elbow, created by the weight of three grocery bags. I had exactly enough energy for one trip from the car, nothing more. The weight of the bags and the insufferable heat make me want to lay my upper body on the cool, marble counters. Cheek to counter, arms out straight like I’m pretending to fly.

“A little help unloading and putting away, please?” I try not to sound put out. It’s not his fault I want to crumple and sob quietly into the stone counter.

“Did you hear me? About the news?” He’s quiet, gentle. But clearly, he’s not letting this one go.

“I heard you. I thought maybe there was enough going on the world right now that they would forget the whole thing.”

A raised eyebrow and slight smirk. “It’s a small market. They live for stuff like this. This, they can talk about. The big stuff, the real stuff, like corporate responsibility, environmental disasters, well, I don’t think our local news team can really wrap their heads around it. Better leave that to the national news. Around here people prefer gossip and hype.”

He’s right, of course. A former journalist, he probably understands exactly what went on in the morning meeting. He knows they all pitched their stories and talked about what was going on out in the world, and then they decided to lead with the crazy.

“It’s not even that interesting anymore, is it?” I work in numbers, facts, a very literal world. Accountants get too little respect; people say we’re boring. Perhaps. But I think we just prefer to look at what’s real. One plus one always equals two. Most accountants feel this way. It’s a very small percentage of the field who do shifty stuff with the numbers. They give the rest of us a bad name. I digress.

We’ve made an assembly line of two, passing groceries from bag to refrigerator or pantry. I’m too hot and tired to eat anything. Why did I buy all of this?

“Maybe to you it seems pedestrian now, but you have to admit the whole incident was entertaining, in a disastrous way,” he says, with equal parts sympathy and humor. What a gift he possesses, to be able to say such a thing without making me want to hurl a bag of dried pumpkin-ginger flavored brown rice noodles at his head.

“Did you mean to make a joke? Pedestrian?”

“Oh, no, honey. I really didn’t. One of those mind tricks. I guess I was thinking about the incident, so the word naturally made it’s way to my tongue.”

Again, I should be irritated with him for the mildly insensitive slip of the tongue, but I can’t be. My mother and her infernal selfishness have rained down a small town media blitz on our entire family. He didn’t ask for this. Of course, it’s no secret that she’s a bit eccentric and completely self absorbed. He knew what he was getting into when he married me, but I guess we all thought the crazy would be contained to the family.

“Nobody got hurt. Insurance is going to pay for the farm stand’s loss. Her license is suspended indefinitely. Court dates set. Excitement over. Can’t the news just move on?”

Why does my mother insist on acting like produce is at fault here? She could at least pretend to be remorseful. Then the media would probably leave us all alone. Where’s the fun in covering a contrite grandmother of three who made an error in judgement?

Groceries put away, we wordlessly agree that it’s a wine for dinner kind of night, our appetites all but erased after this week. As I reach for the corkscrew, one of those outrageously expensive numbers that does everything short of select the wine for you, the phone rings. I check caller I.D. and signal to my husband to keep the wine-opening-and-pouring process moving. Unidentified caller. Reporter.

“Want to turn the ringer off again?” He asks, smiling, holding out one of the glasses we bought on our last trip to the city, now filled with inexpensive wine from a bottle with a cute label. I’m a sucker for a cute label.

“Yes. No phones. Two words my mother should learn to employ when driving. That and no smoking.”

Inexplicably, we start laughing. A chuckle at first, with a shared eye roll at the situation. Then, suddenly, perhaps inappropriately, we’re howling, tears rolling down our cheeks. We tell each other the story again. Only this time, the absurdity bubbles up and overflows, like so much wine, allowing frustration to finally subside.

“How she managed to get the car in a pedestrian only farmer’s market is beyond me. Where was the traffic officer?”

“And she never hung up the phone!”

“Just kept talking to my sister, like nothing happened. Meanwhile, there’s rhubarb hanging from her hood ornament.”

“Then she tells your sister to hold on, and asks the owner of the stand for a light. For a light!”