Hey, look at me trying to write at least once a month over here...

To be honest, I have been wanting to write a lot lately. Craving it, really. The thing is though...I haven't had any opportunities. People in my house have been sick for what seems like 743 months consecutively. I have been voiceless myself for the past week, even needing to call in sub for work because there is no way the hint of a voice I currently have is going to do battle with a room full of drunk people and bad acoustics.

What I have been doing a lot of, though, is reading. Reading. Reading. Reading.

Partially because of the book club I started, trying to pre-screen books for that group, see if they will be a good fit. I feel extraordinarily responsible for what I am asking people to spend their time on, so I want to make sure that I make good picks. The reality of that means that for every one book that makes the list, I am probably reading at least 6.

It's a good thing I am a fast reader, I suppose.

The main reason that I am reading, aside from the fact that I can do it with an ornery sick three year old, is that I need the escape. I've been spending more and more time in other people's worlds because of reading, and right now, that's got some therapeutic value in my life.

There have been so many shitty things this year, you guys. I wouldn't even know where to begin, not that I am beginning to tell you anything about them because I am not, but still, if I was, I wouldn't know where to start. It is literally one thing after another, and nearly none of them are small inconsequential things. When the least of my worries is the fact that my oldest kid just took the SAT for college yesterday and will be applying in a few months, it's reached epic levels.

But hey, the three year old just got his full-leg cast off today, so baby steps. Awkward, tense, weird baby steps.

One of the books that I just read this week was about death. Well, two of them actually were, but one was fictional and one was a non-fiction memoir-ish style, akin to the the book that I will eventually actually publish of my own. Except mine won't just be about death...but I know now that it will have a whole lot more death in it than I was planning to include for a few reasons, not the least of which is the fact that both of my parents are dead and when both of your parents are dead, it tends to dictate how you walk through the rest of your life.

Like, I have friends who are still hanging on to grandparents....

What the?

I got ripped off.

Anyway. I will be including more death, and more about death and taking care of sick parents and mental illness and weird anecdotes and warnings and advice because the thing about the death book that I read this week is that a lot of the stuff in there, and a lot of the stuff I learned along the way would have been REALLY FUCKING USEFUL to know back when I was in it. Except that our society doesn't talk much about getting old or sick or dead, and so then you don't really have any idea what you are in for until your parents are there and you're trying to take care of them and by then none of the books would have helped you anyway because you didn't read them yet.

And they're not going to do much good after the fact.

So, yeah, I'm going to talk about death more, but in a sneaky way so that people don't realize they are reading about what it is like to deal with privacy rights in a mentally ill aging parent when they really think they are reading a story about my dog.

SURPRISE!

One of these days, I will get back to writing the actual content of the book instead of just adding more and more and more chapters to the list. I have a few written, but I just keep coming up with more stuff to write about. And then I go to the library and check out 14 more books and don't actually write anything.

I need to just start leaving my notebook in the car again. That actually worked.

Anyhow, I hope that my two readers are doing well. I think about you all the time. And I promise I am working on big gigantic things, and I promise that they're going to be amazing when I actually finish them. But until then, you'll have to accept this pathetic gesture of a blog post. xo