April 2, 2006
We Can't All Be Cleopatra
(or Lady Margaret Faulford-Gleecks)
Half of you are hating me, right about now. The first time *FootNotes* registers a pulse in nearly six months, and it turns out to be an elaborate April Fool's Joke?
(Show of hands: how many of you really bought it?)
There is no "Fleeta," of course. I'd like to think that my crackpot detector is more finely-tuned than that: otherwise, I would be sending money to deposed Nigerian military leaders and buying antihistamines from Mexican pharmacies online. I googled most of the photos and paintings. David and I pulled "reactualization" out of a thesaurus. And while there is more than a *molecule* of truth behind yesterday's lunacy -- there really IS an Applebee's photo, and I really AM semi-obsessed with it, and I really DO tell people that I think I might be the woman standing off to one side, with the long braid running down the back of her bathing costume -- the rest of it is as phony as Great Aunt Edna's eyebrows. Statistically speaking, it's pretty darned unlikely that I could have lived in Pompeii at the time of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, AND in the court of King Henry VIII, AND twenty miles from Gettysburg during the height of the Civil War. Don't you think? If there were previous incarnations -- and here I must tell you that I'm not at all convinced there weren't -- I'm sure I probably lived more mundane existences, far removed from the spotlight of history: emptying chamber pots during the Middle Ages, for instance, or grinding corn in a mud hut in Peru.
It's like the song says: We can't all be Cleopatra.
Still ... I've gotta tell you that it was great fun to write. I came up with the idea on Thursday morning, and 48 feverish hours later it was ready to roll. (I used to write all of my term papers at the eleventh hour, too.) Writing it stretched creative muscles that had grown flabby from lack of use. And it certainly got YOUR attention: I received messages from people I haven't heard from in ages. (Hiya, Laura! Howdy, Feef! How's it hangin, Mr. Bacon??) Even family members took notice. I posted the entry at 8 a.m. Saturday morning; by 8:11, my phone was ringing.
"I know what day this is," Daughter #1 deadpanned. "But I just wanted to make sure."
Writing the goofy thing has also reminded me how much I used to enjoy writing *FootNotes,* and how much I used to enjoy the contact with friends and readers. Lately, other projects and commitments have been eating up most of my 'fun-writing' time ... the job, the family, the much-ballyhooed book project (currently stalled/still plugging away at it), must-see Sunday night television ... but if the past few days have convinced me of anything, they've convinced me that if I really put my mind to it, I absolutely can find time to write the fun stuff. Which makes me think it may be time to stretch those flabby creativity muscles for real, and to regale you once again with semi-regular tales of menopause and marriage and uncomfortable footwear.
The half of you that are still speaking to me, that is.
Have a great rest-of-the-weekend, everybody!
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