On the road again...

This time on my way back to the city, much against my desire or wishes but yielding to the plea of my beloved granddaughter for our annual road-trip. I think I will head back in a matter of a month or so to the fair land I've left behind.

Some random observations:

(1) I have a book offer from a publisher, very, very thrilling. A collection of my short stories. However, I am currently suspended in a form of writer's amber. Paralyzed. Numb. Frightened. The realization of a dream is the running up against myself. Now what? My babies toddling off by themselves into the real world with real critics. Lash of noodle on self. Get to it girl, stop the dithering. Stop the distraction of the day-job now. Screw the money. Let go of the fear. Stay in your bliss, in your life-long dream!

(2) A RANT: Why, in this twenty-first century of ours, hasn't some genius perfected the design of the toilet roll holder? With what dread do I enter every single stall of every ferry, every restaurant, every hotel room, to be greeted by kicked in huge plastic containers that hurt someone's fingers one time too many as they scrabbled for a hold on a skinny sheet underneath its deadly saw-edges. Yes, they finally cracked up, whimpered, and took off the stilletto shoe and beat the thing to death, leaving its huge rolls floating on the wet floor. And for variety, the gaping jaws of long empty containers greet me after I have urgently done my business so I am left perched and waiting for a kind soul to enter and pass me something, anything, an old Kleenex from their purse, under the door. The crammed single sheet metal box dispenser that doesn't, is another challenge. The tightly jammed paper will not yield to any type of pressure and is often a victim of a nervous breakdown, beaten to a pulp by an irate user, its contents thrown into an over-flowing toilet. We've come up with the automatic toilet flusher, ditto soap and water dispensers and hand dryers, even automatic paper towel dispensers and we cannot come to grips with a design for a functioning fool-proof dispensing toilet roll??? Come on!!!!

(3) MUSIC: We have a long ride, 3000 klicks, the grandgirl and I. We take turns with the music selections. Some, I'm pleased to report, we agree on (Abba, Beatles, John Denver (John Denver!!!!)Joni Mitchell, Elvis (Long live the King!!)) but I'm up against my own creeping decrepitude on some of her choices. Isn't this the way of the world, though. But yay Nora Jones and Motor Five, not bad, not bad at all.....

(4) SIDEBAR: My beloved niece tells me she has found me a lovely man who is very keen to meet me. This will have to wait as he is a Newfoundlander but has all the criteria that appeals to an ideal me in an ideal world.

More from the road later.