Today's topic: Food

Food, glorious food . . .

Today, we dine on pigs in a blanket, strawberries, grapes, bananas, yogurt, scrambled eggs, and two different kinds of cake. Yes, cake for breakfast. If I haven't said this recently, I love Blackwater Writing Project and particularly the Invitational Summer Institute. This morning, when the alarm blared, I only liked it. I didn't want to leave the bed, but I did, and then my day brightened when Ricardo arrived, food in hand. Mind you, I like Ricardo even when he doesn't bring food, but with food . . . Wow! Gosh, now I wonder how much more attractive everyone else will be on the assigned breakfast day. It's like looking at people in just the right light with the certain filter on the camera that blurs wrinkles and softens skin but also slims them by fifteen pounds.

Favorite foods:

• sunflower seeds--more a ritual than a favorite food, but I snack on them when Wes gets a migraine (I hope Lynita's migraine disappears soon) or when I don't feel well or when I've had a really bad day
• quesadillas--probably the first food I figured out how to make in college. I'm not a great cook, but that recipe has spread throughout my family, and now I'm required to make it on family vacations. Because it's foolproof, I'm okay with that.
• margaritas--okay, I know it's not a food, but margaritas naturally follow a discussion of quesadillas or other Mexican cuisine, right?

I look up to see Lindsi licking her fingers. I guess that means Ricardo excelled at breakfast.

Favorite foods:

• chocolate caramel latte--a pick-me-up that comforts me and energizes me. Okay, I can't really tell that it gives me energy, but that's the excuse I give myself for paying five bucks for coffee
• tiramasu--I just realized I have NO idea how to spell that. Oh well.

Favorite food moments:

• making boiled cookies with Grandmother
• going fishing in Grandma and Grandpa's pond with partly thawed chicken livers
• eating breakfast casserole and gorilla bread on Christmas morning after opening presents with Wes's side of the family
• eating lunch at Aunt Carolyn's house Christmas Day, particularly when she makes her twenty-one layer chocolate cake, which is pretty much every Christmas
• eating boiled peanuts around a bonfire in high school--in a small town there's not much to do on weekends, no restaurants, no movie theatre, no bowling alley

Okay, my cell phone vibrated LOUDLY. That was distracting, but it was my aunt, the one who has been helping with my other aunt who just lost her husband, so I felt like I had to take it. I'm glad I did. Everything's fine, but I'm going to visit them tomorrow to see for myself.

It's hard to get my train of thought back now. Only eight people remain in the room writing. More people are starting to scatter for freewriting. I'm not sure why, but I like that. I like that people are figuring out what works for them as writers: writing online or by hand, writing in a classroom or a scenic spot, writing in a crowd or writing alone. Those are important issues to resolve for writers.

I want to be funny and thoughtful and brilliant, but today I guess I'm just here, following the discipline of putting words on the page, listening to the gossip in the next room, watching Nick type as I imagine an old-school journalism does on a manual typewriter, spying Lindsi eating pigs in a blanket, watching Cindy Kay's hand move across the page, amazed at how much longer she writes now than she did at the first PreInstitute. We're a week into the ISI, and I think about the progress: memoirs written and revised and many already posted, book reviews written and shared and revised and some posted, responses to the E-Anthology posted (including some excellent, challenging responses), teachers stretching themselves as writers and perhaps some beginning to see themselves as writers. Nick speeds up typing, his thoughts perhaps flowing more freely now. Tammy's fingers fly across her keyboard, except for when she pauses for a grape. Dottie looks troubled. I hope she doesn't have a headache today as she did yesterday.

Speaking of food, what does it mean that only Tammy and Ricardo wanted to spend lunch with us? All the other folks who usually leave for lunch stayed once they realized we were leaving. Hmmm. If I were paranoid, I would wonder about that.

Nick laughs at what he's writing, and Renee and I share in his laughter, just smiling at his excitement.

Lori sits between Renee and Dottie, but I don't have a clear shot at her. She looks impassive, unreadable.

Hmm, favorite foods, I keep drifting far from the topic, but that's okay. My mind shifts to the next hour, to what should be creative writing, but to what we're pre-empting for professional writing groups, moving creative writing groups to the afternoon, just for today.