Dear Readers,

My gosh but it’s been so looooooong!   Where have you been all these weeks?  Scaling the Alps?  Running with the bulls?  Devouring raw oysters down on the Bayou?  Discovering the cure for duck itch? (Please, someone, do this.)  Or, like me, have you been waking with the sun and consistently if not constantly plotting a way to make writing a way to support your life?  I’m kidding.  The sun is up way before I.

I’ve got gobs of things to tell you.  I haven’t forgotten you for a second – I’ve been making lists of ideas for you, taking seemingly detailed notes of our summer adventures- that, unfortunately, I can’t actually read (what does slide soft and also trains mean?  It seems important.  And yet…it could be the ramblings of a woman gone a little cuckoo…) and compiling photographs for the moment I felt like blogging away again.

Looks like that time has arrived!

I’m sorry I lied to you awhile back about writing two blog entries per week.  I mean, crikey, what was I thinking?

You should know though, I didn’t know I was lying, or, if I did, I meant to only lie to myself, thinking it would motivate me to do that amount of writing.  Turns out, my brain is the least of disciplined creatures, particularly when the lake is calling.

I’m telling you this because it’s getting to be time for me to go back to work.  (Workwork, like, teaching work) and as certain as melting icecaps, that means I suddenly feel the need to not do that, but to write instead.

Sigh.  Is this the creative process I’m going to have to explain when Vanity Fair comes calling?  Yes, lady from Vanity Fair, that’s correct.  I like to completely not write until I’m supposed to be doing something fairly necessary and imminent, at which time, I wholeheartedly ignore that which I must do and, instead, do what I most love to do. That’s just how I roll. And then I’ll take a big ol’ swig of my water with lime, to show I’m suave.  To which, the Vanity Fair writer will laugh because she’s in on the joke, and then stop suddenly, because it’s just not funny.

I’ll say this.  There’s no forcing it.  I can’t write when I’ve got nothing to say.  Upswing?  I’ll never be accused of verbosity.  Wait.  That’s not actually an insult.  It might not even be a word.

Ah.  Whatever.  Keep checking in.  I’ve got a lot to say and not a lot of time in which to say it.  23 days to be exact.  Huh.  My own little private Alp.  Sounds like a great challenge to me.  In the words of some dingdong on reality tv:  Bring It.