Dishwasher to Command Center... Do you copy?

It's 10 in the evening and, as usually, I've accomplished nothing that I planned to do: My vacuum is still resting in the coat closet and a pile of gifts and suitcases lay haphazardly in the dinning room waiting to be unpacked from their travels. Thank goodness I don't own a dinning table or there'd be no room to wiggle into the kitchen, which, in the last three hours, has become the command center for my new KitchenAid mixer. So far, she has produced both a bowl of milky ice cream base and a batch of meringue cookies that are still cooling in the oven. With the results of the taste tests yet to come in, creating a sink full of measuring cups and prep bowls and splattering milk and flour all over my apple green mixer was still rather satisfying. I've never been much of a cook, settling myself into the idea that I could cook well enough to feed myself, but no others. I hold firm to this idea; although, my passion for tinkering in the kitchen has been reawaken with the christening of my stand mixer. While at the super market today, I informed the cashier that if I couldn't mix it, I wouldn't be making it. At this she smiled oddly at me, mostly like wondering why I felt the need to share this bit of information with her. She's jealous of Pearl, that's all. Yes, that's right, I've named my mixer, if people can name cars, there is no reason that I cannot name my apple green KitchenAid mixer Pearl, she is my new roommate after all.

Roommates are a tricky bit of business. One is always cleaner than the other, one always louder, busier, sleepier, etc. I for one am opposed at the idea of having one that is not electrical, feline, canine or scaled. I am prone to killing plants and roommates are, inevitably, prone to killing friendships; therefore, I stay away from both situations whenever possible. I like my space and my space likes me. I don't like to vacuum, I have to sleep with a light on, and frequently like to lounge about wrapped in a bath towel for hours at a time. These are all things that, unfortunately, could be viewed as inconsiderate by a roommate. Yes, I suppose I could wear a robe, and yes if I had to I could vacuum on a regular basis, and yes I suspect that under extreme circumstances I could sleep with all the lights out, but I simply do not want to!

What I want to do is motivate myself to write. Yes, I know I'm writing right now, but that's not exactly what I mean. For the last four years I have been slowly working on a novel (or so) and then a few years ago, bored with the first, the plot running thin and the dialogue dry, I started another. Several months after the second story had barely begun, I had an ingenious idea for a third and now suddenly a fourth. Sadly, the fear of doing them badly, doing injustice to stories far superior to my own writing abilities I have stopped. Ignoring every inkling in my body to write, I silently scold myself for sitting on my hands. Thinking, but never doing. This is my start. I must start prior to the new year, a time when promises will assuredly be broken. This is not a resolution. This is a change.

I will learn to embrace my mediocre cooking skills in the search for the perfect mixer recipe, I will learn to tolerate the lifestyles of others in hopes that one day I will be able to bare living in the presence of those of the human variety, and finally, I will start writing again in an attempt to finish something I've started. So obviously, I do not have time to vacuum...