Picture This!

Even though I'm one of the few women who is not addicted to The Golden Girls, every time I hear, "Picture this," I think of Estelle Getty from The Golden Girls. And then I expect to hear a weird, random story.

Wes is a storyteller too. He doesn't have a catch phrase, but he likes to tell stories, embellishing them of course as storytellers do. Thus, I don't want any Fellows to believe any stories he tells about me because they probably aren't true--or at least, only the core of the story is true; then it grew beyond its borders to create a better frame, better characters, more tension.

So Picture This . . . .what are the stories that we tell (or better yet, don't tell)?

• the tree frog story--that's a don't tell. Wes will receive injuries if he tells that one.
• the Jernigan's bathroom story--that one only gets told and shared among the family members who were there. I still remember every detail, and yet I still married him.
• getting stuck in the deer stand--I seriously wanted Wes to go get my brother, the fire chief, to get me down. Wes was there for that, and he still married me.
• Bite My Butt!--that's Wes's story, one he tells to our nieces and nephews. He can still inhabit the mind of the impatient kid he was at that time. He still gets annoyed as he tells that story about waiting for his family to go to the beach.
• Keeper of the Crabs--that story we actually wrote up, and Wes illustrated it. We gave it to all the nieces and nephews as a Christmas present one year. My niece Chelsea took it to show and tell and read it to her classmates, and my nephew Will memorized it for oral interpretation. Stupidly, we didn't keep a copy for ourselves. It would have been nice to have one for our kids.

We have a lot of stories that we tell when we get together. I love to listen to people's stories, particularly when told by a good storyteller. Well, that's not quite true. I like to listen to funny stories or stories that show drama, but I don't particularly enjoy stories with heavy morals or stories designed to tug at heartstrings. I don't understand people's desire to cry. Crying sucks. Why would anyone engage in such behavior intentionally?

Okay, back to today's topic: Picture Day. Several people are wearing black today: Patti, Ashley, Rebecca, Sarah. I didn't get the memo, but I'm not sure it would have mattered since my clothing options are limited to pregnancy clothes and I wore a black dress yesterday for the Rotary Club Board Meeting and dinner last night. (Yep, there it is. The ever-present pregnancy reference.)

I did bring a brush, but that will be the extent of my attempts to pretty up before the picture. I can always ask Wes to do a head shot for me on another day if needed, but I don't think I'll be liking any pictures for several more months.

Hmm, Picture Day . . . last year the BWP folks were a Subway commercial on Picture Day. We literally broke one of Wes's benches. That's never a good sign. Maybe we should start doing Picture Day the first week of the ISI before people gain weight? I should follow up with last year's Fellows to see if people lost their ISI weight.

Okay, I'm wondering what to write now. I'm kind of running out of steam.

I look around for inspiration, but no ideas arrive. I watch people's writing processes, but have nothing to say.

Time stretches before me, time that must elapse before I can quit this writing. And yet here I sit, my fingers fumbling over the keyboard, not racing frantically, my mind grasping for ideas, for content, for thoughtfulness. I've given up on style, on wittiness, on deep thoughts, settling for words loosely connected to others. Maybe I'll get coffee this morning. Even decaffeinated coffee has a bit of caffeine, perhaps enough to jump start the synapses, make them fire, make myself seem smarter, funnier. Heck, I'd even settle for making myself believe that I'm smarter or funnier--even if no one else finds me to be so. Today seems like a day I can fool myself and be happy about it.

On another random note, um, yeah, apparently so random that I forgot what I was going to write. That can't be good. Um, I should probably stop putting my brain spasms on display. Later.