This past weekend I:
Laid around all day Friday and read "Stolen Lives: My 20 Years in a Desert Exile" punctuated with television viewings of "A Wedding Story," "A Makeover Story," "A Dating Story," back to "A Wedding Story," and "Trading Spaces," all on The Learning Channel (TLC). In between, I wrote for one hour.
Later that evening, we went out to dinner with friends and then sat around in Kev's moho for about 2 hours talking about nothing. Then, I watched the ends of Letterman and Jay Leno.
On Saturday, I slept until 11, watched more TLC (I'm irrevocably obsessed with that channel), cleaned, talked on the phone, watched the "real" story behind the Chippendales dancers, had a fight with Kev about shoveling sand out of our backyard, and went to dinner (chicken quesadilla and BBQ chicken salad...no Reese's cheesecake, though boy! did I want it). Went to bed at 10:30...though I had no identifiable reason for being tired.
On to Sunday, where I read some of the paper, perused the classifieds, ate breakfast, saw "Planet of the Apes," painted a couple of pictures pretending to be Jackson Pollack, applied for a few jobs, sketched out the next few chapters of my book, watched "Sex and The City" (I'm ashamed of my TV viewing habits), went to sleep, awoke to the melodic sounds of neighbors fighting and pealing off in their automobiles, and fell back asleep.
The above was a public service designed to make you feel good about your life, which can be no more boring than mine.
Now, I am going to include the few pages of the book I am working on so I have it "out there" in the real world and will be more inclined to finish it, so I can then sell it, make tons of money and be able to finance funner weekends.
Chapter 1
Annie woke up feeling sick. There was an intense pain in her stomach that just would not go away. She told herself again and again that it didn’t exist – mind over matter, you know – but her stomach wasn’t listening. She lay there in bed with her head racing. Earlier that night, her whole family – mom, dad, and sister – had gone out to dinner. Annie loved spicy food and heaped the jalepenos on her enchiladas until there were more jalapenos than enchiladas. Maybe that was it. The jalapenos? Nah…she’d never been sick from her spicy eating habits. But her stomach burned anyway.
She considered opening a book to read and distract her from the increasing nauseous feeling in her tummy. Her mom had just illustrated another book written by the family’s neighbor and Annie usually got first dibs on it before anyone else did. But she was pretty tired, so she tried to close her eyes and imagine her stomach with a big block of ice in it cooling the fire that she was feeling there instead.
Thunk! Annie popped her eyes open wide. The sound seemed to have come from downstairs and had been loud. She grew rigid in her bed, listening, There was nothing else. Then she saw her parents walk past her door. “Mom,” she called, “are you going downstairs?” Her mom nodded and told her not to worry. Her dad snapped on the hall light and winked at her. Annie was going with them. She hopped out of bed and hurried into the hallway. She turned to look at her sister, Randi, still asleep in the next room. That girl could sleep through fireworks. Annie’s mom said it was the deep sleep of a seven-year-old. Annie considered waking her up and bringing her with them. “Don’t you dare,” her mom whispered.
All three of them traipsed downstairs to investigate the thunk noise. At the bottom of the stairs they turned left through the kitchen and into the living room, where the sound had seemed to come. Her dad turned on another light and had a look around. The sofa, rocking chairs, piano and fireplace sat quietly. Nothing. Mr. Abrams then walked through the archway leading to the dining room, made a circle, and came back through the kitchen. “Well,” he said scratching his head. “I don’t see a thing.”
As an afterthought, he went through the patio door in the kitchen and took a look outside. Annie stayed close behind him. It was a pretty night. Very clear with the twinkling stars Annie liked to watch from the backyard swing. There was a lot of land in the Abram’s backyard. At least four acres. They lived in a renovated farm house complete with an old barn, a small stable, and a little guest house. Near the back of the guest house was a pond where the kids liked to swim during the summer. It was June, and Annie had recently had her last day of school for the summer, so she was looking forward to spending a lot of time in that pond with her best friend Coriander.
Everything seemed quiet and fine. There was a little light on in the guest house, but the Abrams knew their tenant, Mrs. Lokken often stayed up late working on the children’s books she wrote for a living. Suddenly, there was a loud and terrible squawking coming from the direction of Mrs. Lokken’s house. It was Pandy, the old woman’s bird. Annie and her dad looked at each other in puzzlement and then the noise ended as quickly as it had begun. The light in the guest house snuffed out.