Feeding Literary Urges

I tend to have the urge to write at the most inopportune times, and it seems that I could never find myself in a position to actually put pen to paper, as they say, until this whole blog sensation began.   I would either be running, driving, building a rocket, climbing up the Eiffel Tower, serving meals to the hungry or hang gliding.  When I finally did have time (and utensils), it would be gone…the urge was like the elusive quark.  I wish my urges for Ben and Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch would follow suit…but I digress.  Thanks to great advances in technology, I have finally found a medium that meshes with my highly active, somewhat exaggerated lifestyle.  Between my Blackberry mobile phone and my laptop, I can immediately gratify literary urges practically anytime.

Practically…I still have to jot down key words the old fashioned way at times, just to capture my thoughts before they fly out of my head.  Recently I had the urge to write  a “reminder” word as I was illegally parked in front of my son’s elementary school.  BACKGROUND:  A car in FRONT of the school is a huge No No between the times of 7:30 and 8:00 am*.  It was 7:58.  We were late, as usual, and my child has enough on his plate (you know, with him being dyslexic AND me being his mom), than to be tardy…again.  Might I say at this point…I hate labels, even if they do provide verbal shortcuts.

I gently encouraged my son Wesley to expeditiously exit the vehicle, run up the stairs, and sprint into the school by screaming, “Go, Go, Go!” As he disappeared behind the double glass doors, I looked around cautiously to see if anyone saw me breaking the rules.  What was I going to write down?  I breathed a sign of relief, discovering no one around as I eased the car to the other end of the school.  In stressful situations, I sometimes find myself reverting to Jean Piaget’s sensorimotor stage of cognitive development, when object permanence has not developed.  If no one sees me…I don’t exist...therefore, I am not really parked in front of the school…therefore, I am not really breaking the rules...therefore, I am not emulating bad behavior for my child…therefore, I am a great mom.  Whatever it takes. 

I will undoubtedly write more about my parental role-modeling skills at a later juncture if this quarky literary urge continues to resurface.  Appropriately parked,  I then found my paper and pen, but not my word!  Damn, gone again!  Defeated, I look at the notes I had already made on the bottom of the three-week-old grocery list (who says I am not doing my part to save the planet), I find “rose-colored glasses,” “Skinny Girl Margarita,” and “zumba.”  Wow, this list is not very helpful.

*Not as huge as bringing a weapon to school, but eerily close.

A. Ballerina