I just got a call from a young friend (10) who used to live in our neighborhood. The family moved to another state. We were great friends when he lived just a few houses down. He came to visit often and played bingo on my computer.
Well, he called me on his parent’s cell phone from his front porch in the new state, where he was hanging out with his friends who are having a four day weekend in honor of veterans day. Now that seems like a nice thing for him to do.
But what ended up happening is… he said after barely starting the conversation,“Just a minute, here comes my wanna be girlfriend, I am going around the side of the house.” (sound of running on gravel) muffled voices and shouting. Then he said, “Are you there?” “Yes, I’m here…(a bit annoyed). “So how are you doin’?” He wants to know. “I’m fine, how is school going?” “ I got an A on my math test last week.” “Great!”
Then off he went back out to the front yard and was hollering something to his little friends and left me on the line for a solid minute and a half. While he ran this way and that trying to hide from the "wanna be girlfriend".
I kept saying his name, hoping he would hear me. Finally, I lost patience and hung up.
Now I sat on the stool by my phone and tried REALLY hard to imagine me calling up Mrs. Wright our next door neighbor in the year 1963 and keeping her on “hold” while I ran around playing hide and seek with my friends. I could not conjure up this outlandish behavior on my part.
What is it about children these days? (I know, the perennial question of people over 50 ever since Socrates) But in his little mind, this was perfectly normal. Let’s call up so and so and waste her time. . .
I am speechless…. (but not, as you see, wordless)
Kids!
The good news of the day is that I got caught up on my word count. Now I just have to write 8000 words this week. And I will still be on track. 2000 words a day. It’s not as hard as it sounds I am finding out. If all goes as planned, I will be half way there. (www.nanowrimo.com . . . check it out).
AND I finally wrote a paragraph that I actually LIKE!! I even re-read it and decided it wasn’t half bad! Seems like the rest of the draft is kinda crappy, but this one scene is almost worth reading! So there is hope for my literary skills yet. Now if I can just smear some of that okayness onto the rest of the story, I might have something.
Maybe.
Possibly.