Happy Pre-Valentine’s Friday.

Happy Valentines Day

On Valentine’s Day, my parents are flying to Chile. Not to celebrate the holiday. Not to be romantic. They’re leaving on Saturday because of some precise combination of flight prices and work schedules. (Did I forget to mention my dad hates to travel?)

Growing up, I didn’t witness much kissing, or even hand holding, between my parents. And sometimes, I thought that was weird. And then one day junior year of high school, I witnessed my boyfriend kiss his mom. Smack. On. The. Lips. And I thought that was weird then too.

So moral is, go out. Today. On Valentine’s Day. The day after. Kiss or hold hands, or don’t. With your boyfriend or your mom, or your Golden Labradoodle. Or, as my six-month-old son prefers, grab someone’s face with a bit of force and then open-mouth slobber whatever protruding part–nose, ear, chin–is closest. It’s weird too. And I love it.

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Happy French Friday…

…from the trunk of my rental car to yours.

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Happy French Friday.

To a weekend of writing and wine and brie the size of your head.

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Happy French Friday.

Epernay, France

Epernay, France

Pouring champagne into a plastic bathroom cup on the nightstand…this weekend’s writing, at the French Open.

Happy Friday.

Here’s to finding a remote-controlled racecar on every public park bench this weekend.

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Happy Friday.

Sometimes, by the end of the week, everything sits just right. But sometimes it’s Friday morning and I do this. Really.

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Happy Friday, to me anyway.

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I love rain. Cold rain. Hot rain. Just right rain. Rain that spits or soaks or wakes you up in the middle of the night as it slashes sideways against your window. And the forecast in ‘s-Hertogenosch, Nederland this weekend is nothing but, you guessed it, regen.

I love running in the rain, biking in the rain, and, most importantly, writing in the rain. Or, more accurately, writing indoors next to a big bay window and not just watching it rain but knowing, with every punch of the keyboard, that it, most certainly, is. I love day darkness and monochromatic clouds and everything gloomy that comes with the package.

I love precariously walking my laptop in some kind of plastic grocery bag to the nearest café and commandeering a window seat to write stories about the woman in the perfectly-belted beige trench coach and Gucci umbrella, the little kid decked in one-size-too-small purple slicker, the man who didn’t notice the chasm of intersection puddle that soaked his mesh tennies and white gym socks. And, if, today or tomorrow or next year, I’m the one unknowingly prancing through the puddle, I’d love it if you wrote about me too.

Oh, rain, I love it all. Head to toe. Tip to tail. Rock to rump roast. Happy Friday. Happy raining, blowing, storming, writing weekend.

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Happy Friday.

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I don’t usually post photos of my bosom. Grammar tank tops are now the exception.

On Fridays I Steal Things

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On Fridays, my brain is nearly finished with me. And so, on Fridays, I steal things. I write only what shows up in front of me. Words the three Turkish children yell as they run up the sidewalk. Songs the construction workers sing between beats  of hammers as they make patio doors for our New Zealand neighbors. Sometimes I write the ambulance sirens. Sometimes the church bells. The meows of the impatient cat who likes to sit on the hood of a matte black BMW outside my office window. This Friday, I stole words already eaten. The dictionary page I had opened to yesterday, still wide-eyed on the dining room table, gobbled by a small still-green Asparagus Fern.

Page 571: Something that Looks like Asparagus Fern but Isn’t

Verb: To beget.

Born upon the surface,

especially the upper,

as fungi on leaves that no one can reach.

Noun: A poet from the earth,

growing closer to the ground.

Relating to the epiglottis,

Something always upon the tongue,

the upper mandible,

as a parrot, a gull,

a piece of something that

hangs from the page.

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