Christmas in July

This morning I woke up dreaming that I had written a story about a lounge singer/local celebrity in her mid-fifties. The story focused on her intense grief over a long ago divorce and her inability to make a Christmas album in July. In my dream, I felt it was a really good story, the kind of thing I don't normally write, something that has nothing to do with my life. I cannot sing, cannot entertain unless you count the one dance routine I did for a dementia clinic audience which was a mercifully distracted crew wearing paper crowns from Burger King (times were hard and props had to be obtained for free) to witness my Zelda Fitzgerald moment and despite my penchant for saying, One more time for the cheap seats, I'm not a dramatic person.

But in my dream, I felt what she felt, the acute grief, the exhaustion of performing all the time, the sadness of someone who did not feel as if the show could go on. Once a friend of mine told me, I'm sick of washing my hair. So I stopped. I felt that this was an unfortunate turn of events given the oil slick her head become in a mere week and told her that she or I could pay someone to wash it for her for the time being until she felt better. But it just goes on and on. And someone has to touch you when you have your head under all that water. She shuddered. I hadn't lived long enough to understand the burden of perpetual care, how bored you could become. But my character kept getting stuck on the line, Repeat the sounding joy in "Joy to the World." For years, it's been my favorite Christmas carol. But in the dream, it became something ominous, a warning, but of what, who can tell? It's not anywhere near Christmas.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"People around here are starting to get sick of my bullshit." David Gates

Cocktail Hour

Drinking novel suggestion: Jernigan David Gates

Benedictions and Maledictions

To start, the writer always gets the worst of it in The Sopranos, one of the many reasons I love the show. And speaking of writing, congratulations to Charles at Razored Zen (www.charlesgramlich.blogspot.com) on the publication of his new book! Check it out, dear readers! And last but not least, go Pistons, the hardest working team in the NBA. They are on a streak and now face Chicago again. It's too sad to see Big Ben in that evil Bulls get-up, but the rest is fine, hell, more than fine. Happy Monday!