You May Have Noticed

that my writing has slowed down a little lately.

I was losing my inspiration. I was tired of Bloggy Land and all the nonsense that goes with it. On top of that the entire family (dog included) managed to catch the flu. Add the financial crunch that everyone is finding themselves in these days and I just could not shake the funk.

So I took a day off. I went out after church and did some dream shopping for a laptop/netbook at Best Buy and priced the oh so necessary external hard drive. Not that the entire family who was all trying to look at the same box slammed right up against the shelf even noticed me on my tip toes trying to see price tags and sizes over their heads.

Then I headed over to JoAnn's to see if I could find a pattern for a skirt for Easter (only a month away! Eeek!) and ended up talking to my parents from the pattern counter (weird) and walking out with nothing.

So then it was to Target to get the famous clippers (or they will be when the post goes up at The Zoo). And then I looked at the clock. I've only been out of the house for an hour and a half?! I can't surrender yet! I hate shopping and the mall makes me break out in hives so where will I go next? How will I make this brief recess last? I refuse to go to the grocery store. That's not recess.

And there it was. Beautiful B & N. Resist the urge to go snag a caramel machiatto. I was struck with some inspiration as I wandered through the stacks of books. There was a child laughing in the children's section and I thought, "I could use a good laugh!"

Tucked back in a corner there was the humor section. Entirely too small and not nearly enough copies of any one book for my tastes but at least it was still there. Smashed in behind the religious fiction and wedged in front of the "teach yourself to play the oboe" book.

So I started to scan the titles. An entire section of the shelf was dedicated to bathroom humor. You would think from the title of this blog I would be more appreciative but a whole rack of books about bathroom humor? I kept scanning. Now we come across Lewis Black and Dennis Leary and their cohorts railing against all things political. Here are two full racks of comic strips. I will not speak against them. My faves were there. Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, Baby Blues, Fox Trot and of course the Classic Peanuts. Bless you Mr. Schultz.

But just general musing about life humor was scarce. And then I saw them. Down on the bottom shelf in small pocket size paperback form were the four titles I was looking for. There was my muse for seven dollars a piece. Erma Bombeck. I picked up a copy and started to read and while I was not laughing out loud there was a poingnacy in her writing that made me smile. A real connection that just made me feel at home. A quiet humor that did not speak of bathrooms, or politics, or naked bodies (unless you count feet). It was not angry. It was not laced with foul language or explicit suggestions.

Call me old fashioned. Call me a prude. I'll wear both ideas with pride. Life is weird. It's strange and it's funny and when you really look at the nonsense that happens every day you have to laugh. You HAVE to. If you don't laugh about it your only other options are to get angry, give up, or cry. I picked one of the four titles out for myself and brought it home with me. Every time I pick it up I only allow myself to read one short chapter at a time. Like I'm savoring a bag of Lindor truffles one small bite at a time.

I have been inspired again. I have decided that how many posts I get out to you is not the critical part. I have to make sure that I make you laugh or at the very least, smile. I have to make people see that anger and vulgarity aren't necessary in life. There is enough ugliness in the world. It's time to laugh at just the general strangeness of it all.

You HAVE to laugh. You have to laugh because when you can laugh and you can share that laughter with other people, they get to laugh. Life is just too weird not to laugh and share the laughter.

Two Cents Tuesday: Inspiration!

For a minute I forgot that Two Cents was coming up and I posted that great blog peeves rant. Phooey! Well at least you can still scroll down and read it if you want. In the meantime I'll get back to this week's topic - Inspiration.

Who wants to sing with me? You're the meaning in my life. You're the inspiration! You bring feeling to my life. (Everybody!) You're the inspiration! Something tells me this is NOT what TuTu had in mind when she picked this topic. But I bet she's singing it now! Tee hee!

Now where do I get my inspiration? I'm a pretty random person so my inspiration literally comes from everywhere. You know that you have entered blogger life when you can mentally blog about the freakish birds that keep launching themselves out of the bushes and into the side of the minivan while you are sitting in the carpool lane. Or what about the dog food issue? There was a whole blog drafted in my head about my husband, his work hours, the fact that we were out of dog food and the inevitable end to the whole drama.

And let's not forget that I am a mom. Holy blog fodder Batman! Every day there are funny things they say, hysterical reactions to things they do, dramatic melt downs over an elephant animal cracker whose nose was just bitten off by a spiteful little brother just as you were about to do the exact same thing.

Then of course you have the daily barrage from the media. I don't watch the evening news. I can't listen to people actually say the words that depict some new moronic action, heinous event, or cockamamie scheme someone has pulled. I prefer to read my news. Then I can cling to the tiniest hope that tomorrow I will come back to that same story and there will be a retraction in its place. But the ridiculousness around me is pretty inspiring.

Of course I am starting to get people emailing me absurd things to blog about too. Ok it's just my sister and she's a rabid fan (love ya!) and has bitten a few of her friends (love you guys too! now go bite more people!). But just the same, stories come to me that cry out for mocking and satire. I haven't blogged it yet but last week I was sent a story about a pair of guys who tried to used thongs as masks for a robbery. How can you NOT be inspired by that?

To tweak Forrest Gump a little. "Inspiration is like the school cafeteria. You never know what you're gonna get."