Longing for the Yellow Bus

This happens to me every summer, just as July moves into August. A longing comes over me. Sometimes it feels like falling in love. I see the yellow buses move through the neighborhood and I feel giddy and warm inside. No, school hasn't resumed yet; these little trips by the buses are only precursory ones to the garage for maintenance checks or perhaps a dry run before school starts. But he promise is there, and it is all I need. Don't get me wrong, I love my sons. Absolutely adore them. Even on days when they test my patience (which is limited) and my wits (which are even more limited), they are the best thing that have happened to me. And yet, I relish my quiet time. Children are notoriously noisy. When the boys were younger, there were sounds of Thomas the Train and that ridiculous yellow sponge-child hybrid noted for his square pants and ability to make crabby patties. Now, there are arguments over who forgot to flush the toilet; sounds of my youngest son strumming away on his electric guitar (he has just informed me that he wants a drum set for Christmas--tell me it ain't so.); my oldest son's cell phone constantly ringing (the telephone rings so many times in my house that my African Gray parrot now mimics the sound. You don't want to know how many times I've almost picked up the bird and said hello). During summer months, the noise level peaks. It is like hurricane season--every year you know it is coming, but other than buy a few bottles of water and some tuna, what can you really do about it? You wait it out, that's what you do. That's what I'm doing now, stealing moments to write when I find them, and waiting for the yellow bus to return like a beacon on the asphalt sea to show me the way back to the empty pages, the cups of Starbucks, and the hours of quiet solitude where there is nothing except that ringing bird (and her cohorts) to interrupt my train of thought.

On Blogging and Technology

This is my first attempt at blogging. I don't have a clue how to go about it from a technical standpoint. I'm convinced that those For Dummies and Idiot Guides were written just after someone saw me lighting candles and chanting desperate pleas at my computer screen. I just don't have a knack for anything high tech. I don't understand how mechanical things work and electronics--well, just forget it. When I bought my new Dell, the transition from Apple to Microsoft left me irritable and sleepless for days. Thankfully, I had a team of people to help me with this process: my teen sons who are more tech savvy than I will ever be; the cable man who connected me to Broadband, and a computer tech guy who so impressed me with all he knew of my computer, I came close to proposing to him. So far so good. Every day, I wake to my AOL greeting, telling me I have mail. I point and click and take in new worlds. Amazing. Thank you, Al Gore. Incidentally, I still proudly display a Gore bumper sticker, and would have voted for him even if he hadn't created the Internet where I now live, work, and play. That is a mark of a writer, I think--the willingness to jump into the unknown and unpredictable; the tendency to swim into water over our heads, simply because it is there and we are curious.
Dorothy Parker once said that the cure for boredom was curiosity, and that there was no cure for curiosity. I live by those words, and try to write by them, too.

Okay, now where is the damn spellchecker on this thing?

Jayne