"Without work all life goes rotten"

So said Albert Camus.

I couldn't agree more. When I found I had time on my hands during the day, I took a chance and emailed a local paper asking if I could write for them.

I crafted my query letter carefully and sent it off, thinking I'd never hear from them.

Next day, the editor wrote back, saying he had an assignment for me, do I take photographs.

Sure, I wrote back.

That meant I had to master taking photos with my quirky Kodak.

Made a trip to my son's house so he could help me.

All went well when I interviewed Lynne Whitsel.

Because I needed to squeeze article-writing time into my schedule, I was more efficient than usual. Our brains are wired to work. My brain likes to work at least 10 hours a day, with naps in between.

So, I began working on my novel at a more ferocious pace -- popcorn sustains me, when I write -- and I finished the first revision on Monday before midnight.

What a relief. I actually like the novel. When I don't like what I read, I say, How can I make this more interesting to myself? My teacher puts check-marks on parts she likes. I've excised whole sections that I don't like.

I sent my teacher a note on Facebook - it seems less intrusive than sending her an email - and I told her my progress and that she was right about the need to flesh in my Quito-born character who I'm terribly in love with.

I wandered senselessly all around town last nite searching for Angel Guerrero. What's a lovesick author to do?

The Many Uses of a Kitchen Timer

I have four of them. I left one of them in the Abington Library at my last breadmaking class.

Newest use is to set it for 30 minutes and only THEN can I check my emails since I'm hard at work on my novel. I've got 28 minutes before I can see if my daughter wrote me back.

Other uses:

Tonite I'm gonna watch a Kurasawa film on Turner Classic Films, in honor of his 100th birthday. Gee, he's even older than Walter, tho Akira is moldering in his grave. At 7 pm I'll set my timer so I don't forget to watch it at 8.

Breadmaking is the chief way I use the timer. Bing! Time to punch it down, time to let it rise. Sounds like boxing. Or wife-beating.

I set it for all cooking I do. That's why I don't burn things like MaMA does. Ya can't teach old ma's new tricks.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference. - Reinhold Niebuhr

No, I did not watch the Academy Awards. My timer was not set.

I also use it when I ride my stationery bike, setting the timer for 20 excruciating minutes, the most boring exercise ever invented.

I know, I know. Do something you like Ruthie! Does talking burn calories?

22 minutes left. I'm making great progress on my novel. I get up frequently from my desk, not only so I can see the beautiful world beyond my windows, but to give my neck a rest. Can you see me massaging my poor ole wrinkly neck now?

I love my neck and didn't mean to disparage it. It's taken me on a fantastic 64-year journey and I ain't dead yet.

Researching my novel

I'm halfway thru the second revision of my first novel. My teacher told me, correctly, I should flesh out one of my characters, Angel Guerrero, who hails from Ecuador. He's one of those self-made Americans who comes up with an idea and thru hard work and innate business sense does well. His job? He owns his own line-striping company.

What, you may ask, is that? Well, my Scottie, long before he worked at SEPTA owned his own such business. A hard worker with an innate business sense, he went broke and it took a couple years to pay off his debts. His partner's wife embezzled the company funds and used them to buy drugs.

I went online to see what line-striping machines look like. Scott still has the machines in his garage. But good ole Dan Zurcher of American Line Striping tells us that for an initial investment of two to four-thousand dollars we, too, can make a living by line-striping. Thanks for the great idea, Dan. I think I'll pass.

Because I can do anything I want in my novel, within reason, I have Irv Kravitz, psychiatrist, give my main character a signed copy of Alice Miller's Drama of a Gifted Child. Irv had the great pleasure of meeting Alice, who's now 91, at a conference in Zurich.

You can make these outrageous claims in a novel and get away with them.

I Dream of Xena

After my painting class last nite, I stopped by my son Dan's house. Nicole was asleep.

"She's gonna get an ultrasound later this month," he said.

"Oh, you'll find out the gender of the baby."

"Yep," said Dan.

We went in the living room where his two cats were prowling around. I took my digital camera out of the bag so he could unload my photos onto Facebook, the only way we could make them visible to me. I had a writing assignment with photos the next day so needed all the space on the camera.

"Wanna watch the movie with me?"

Dan relaxes by watching TV at nite. He was watching an ultra-violent film on the 5-year-reign of terror by the German terrorist organization Baader-Meinhof. Every two seconds someone was pulling out a revolver or a machine gun and shooting someone.

"The director," I said, "is obviously a fan of Quentin Tarantino."

"Yeah," laffed Dan.

He said Tarantino's latest, Inglorious Basterds was a good film.

"So I guess the penis will be showing," I said.

"What's that?" he said.

"When Nicole gets the ultrasound. I guess they tell what sex the baby is, if they can see a penis."

"Yeah, I spose so."

The black cat, green-eyed Chaz, came to sit on my lap. Then the tabby cat, Nudge, came over.

"Mom," said Dan, "he wants you to pet him."

"Oh," I said, and began petting him.

When I got up to leave, Nudge made this amazing sound. Dan had told me about Nudge's sounds.

"That was Nudge, right? I thought it was my stomach growling."

That night I dreamt about Xena, Dan's beloved dead cat whose ashes repose on his dining room shelf.

In the dream, I was lying on the floor of an unknown room. Xena was on my chest, the same black and white Xena with the heartbreakingly beautiful face, the Helen of Troy of cats, with her fur that was decidedly not smooth, but rather, a stiff kind of fur.

Into the room came a rat. I saw it and thought at first it was a mouse.

No, I said to myself, it's a rat. Look at that long tail. But it's not a hideous looking rat, even tho it's a rat. Still, I think Xena should go after it.

I turned Xena around so she'd go chase the rat away, or, eat it, she was a true mouser who'd often shown Dan, when he lived with her in Brooklyn, her dead trophies.

Xena refused.

Well, this is certainly unpleasant, I said to myself in the dream. Here I am in a situation I don't like, I'm dreaming about it, and I do have the power to wake myself up and get out of this bad dream.

I then attempted to wake myself out of the dream.

Nothing happened.

Try harder, I said.

I tried harder to wake up.

Still, nothing happened.

Ruth, I ordered myself, you will open your eyes right now.

I thought I opened them up and looked around the room. It seemed so real.

I don't know how I got out of that situation but I'm fairly sure I'm awake now and writing. Then again, this could certainly all be a dream. I could be a small part of God's dream.

The tug of too much information

I am an excitable girl.

It was a nite of good television viewing. Watched the Frontline documentary on Assisted Suicide which I unequivably believe in, in fact, that's what my novel-in-progress is all about.

Mr. Ewart, who decided to drink the poison concoction, after being diagnosed with the shut-down-my-body-but-let-my mind-absorb-it-all, silently, was diagnosed with ALS. I remember writing a newspaper article about Ralph Nelms, wood carver, who was diagnosed with this condition, a year after I wrote the article on his wood carving.

He invited me over his house - he lived nearby on Silver Avenue - where his workshop was in his basement. As a farewell-to-life gift, he gave me a hand-carved mother stork and baby. It's sitting on my coffee table, along with a bowl of seashells, a clock that stopped ticking, a plaster impression of house and sun by little Sarah, and a music box from La Pedrera in Barcelona. Plus Kleenex for therapy clients.

My eyes never strayed from the Frontline program. Riveting. Dignitas was the chosen suicide facility in Zurich. Sodium pentobarbitol the chosen method to kill Mr. Ewert, who was required to drink it down himself. It was videotaped by law. If interested, you can watch it online.

Afterward, re-runs of the great Ken Burns' series on our National Parks came on. It's a leisurely done program and my mind was drawn to my laptop, sitting on the floor. I could actually feel my body tilting toward the laptop on the floor.

You know the drill: check my emails, check the NY Times, check the new Jonah Lehrer blog to see if anyone responded to my comment, see what Bill Hess is up to in Alaska.

Those are the things that flooded my mind as I watched the beauties of Yellowstone National Park in the background.

Finally, I gave myself orders.

Ruth, there is nothing urgent. You will not open the laptop tonite. Do you hear me? You can do it, sweetheart, I know you can.

Oh, all right, I said to myself. I will NOT look at the laptop. It's a cute little bugger. Black, with my nametag on it in case I lose it somewhere.

It took about five minutes until my brain caught up with my resolution, but gradually the pull and the tilt ended and I watched the TV in silence.

Except for one thing.

I'd just checked out two books from the library. Now I was tilting the other way. I opened the Wallace Stegner book, Angle of Repose. How I wanted to read it! Perhaps I could just read a few snippets while watching the Parks show.

It's true when they say you can only concentrate on one thing at a time. I closed the book. Two minutes later, Wallace Stegner is mentioned as an environmental activist.

I laughed. Figures. Does this ever happen to you? And, please, what's this called. Sure, I know the word synchronicity, but I want a deeper meaning than that. Tell me if you know.

Good morning, officer!

I'm in line at my bank. This is the only time I've ever had to wait in line, but there's only one teller. I'm depositing the receipts of last nite's support group meeting. I've stuffed the money in my backpack.

I'm fourth in line. A police officer stands behind me.

Funny, I said to him, I just pulled into a Handicapped Zone and said to myself, I doubt if a police officer is gonna come by.

You never know, said the handsome officer in full regalia, patch on his chest, gun at his side.

I dumped the money on the high table next to me, while waiting, and began to sort the bills. Seemed like a decent amount.

The police officer joked with someone he knew who was finished with his banking business.

They have a special TV you can watch while waiting. It's silent. Some news came on about about Blockbuster reorganizing. Netflix is killing them, I thought, but didn't say it to the officer even tho I wanted to. I didn't want him to think I was some nutcase with bipolar disorder who'd at one time ended up riding in the back of a cop car to Norristown State Hospital.

So I kept my mouth shut.

When I left I looked for the officer's police car.

There it was, a powerful-looking white Ford with shiny hubcaps. Unmarked.

Before the day begins

I am listening to a bird
chirp at dawn in my still-
dark room while reading about
Jerry - that would be Salinger -
on my laptop on the floor.

Thanks for sending me the article, Marce. Thoughtful. My readers can read it here, from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

When I awoke at 6, after a marvelous catch-up night's sleep, a strong smell of skunk penetrated the blue bedroom. Thother nite a group of us insomniacs were emailing back and forth. Scott was blissfully asleep. One of the insomniacs asked me to listen to an audio he sent me.

I can't, I said, Scott will wake up and yell at me. When he's not REMming, he can hear the slightest click from my noisy-keyed laptop.