More Rejected Post Topics

Late in the evening of a fruitful day. I wish I could be so productive all the time. I went to the gym and did the grocery shopping, paid the bills, sort of, cleaned the house and did the laundry, worked at my awful dissertation, wrote half a chapter of my book, made the dinner, and knit an entire arm of Hedgie's sky blue sweater...

I would think I was all coked up, except that I wasn't.

But now I'm strangely wired from my own industry, and not ready yet to shut it down. If I could only wring one more thing from this busy day. So here I am, back at my computer. I would love to write a post, but can only think of unsuitably bizarre, dull, morbid, random topics.

Here's a sample--more rejected topics from my oddly amped-up brainpan:

1. Bizarre: My hamster's icy refusal of a proffered bit of hazelnut biscotti.

2. Random: Hedgie has a particular individual quirk of speech that causes people to ask, at least several times a week, whether she is British. I have taken to answering this stupid question with the following: "why yes, I found her on the streets of London, and she was so adorable that I just had to import her back to Brooklyn!" Hedgie just rolls her eyes, long-suffering.

3. Dull: My knitting. I do a lot of it, I buy a great deal of yarn, and I have a baker's dozen (read: more than 20) projects going, all stuffed into various tote bags around the house.

4. Random/Dull: Flowers. As part of my effort at sunny good cheer, my house has flowers in every room now--carnations in the bathrooms, lilies on the dining table, branches of peach blossom by the fireplace, daffodils in Hedgie's room, and something tenacious and pink, whose name is hard to recall, residing in the front hall...that's too many flowers.

5. Dull: My quest for a name for the hero of my novel. The heroine has a name, quite a good one, but the hero is so far nameless. Sarge and Hedgie were on the case this evening, Hedgie shouting names of Roman emperors and Greek gods from the tub, and Sarge armed with a pile of history books. Still no luck. His stand-in appellation is ridiculous. I'm finding it hard to take him seriously.

6. Bizarre: The incredible scavenging possibilities on the streets of my rich neighborhood. People throw away the most extraordinary things. Just this morning, on my way from market, I picked up a little book of portraits of Native Americans, a Smithsonian reprint. Recently, someone around the corner put out a little pile of lovely purses. And last year, my next-door neighbors threw out, and I retrieved in great excitement, a brand-new, still-in-the-box Fulla doll. Who throws out a perfectly good Fulla doll?

7. Dull, very very dull: The weather. It's spring, but it's chilly.

8. Dull, and bizarre, to everyone but me: more Severus. Two back to back posts about my special friend are probably one, maybe two, too many.

9. Morbid/Random/Dull/Bizarre: Pippin's ashes are ready and waiting at the vet's office for me to pick up. Yes, I paid a small fortune for his cremated remains, God only knows why, I don't think I was entirely in my right mind the night he died. I haven't been able to bring myself to walk the ten blocks to pick them up, for what are probably obvious reasons. If you haven't experienced the joy of what "they" refer to as "cremains," well then, you wouldn't know what "they"don't warn you about: there are bone fragments, some of them sizable, in that there heap o' ashes. I know this because I also have a box of dad hanging around the house...

I know for sure that you're thanking me for this last little item...

But I think I've thoroughly worn out my day, as well as my welcome, and I'll close up now.

Just be glad I didn't post about any of these...