Maybe I'll Write It While My Cousin Fran Is Sneezing

I don't seem to have begun cleaning my apartment yet, in honor of the upcoming visit of my Cousin Fran Who's Allergic To Cats. In fact, the apartment seems to get messier and messier, as opposed to neater and neater, let alone cleaner and cleaner.

I'm going with Not My Fault for the messier part. I got a new clock radio and a new telephone and a new heating pad and probably some other new stuff I've already forgotten about, and everything comes in boxes with lots of packaging, and even though I've put the clock radio and telephone and heating pad and probably some other stuff where they belong, I still have all the boxes and cardboard to dispose of.

Also I seem to have stopped reading the newspapers again, so they're piling up.

I did buy a new cordless vacuum cleaner which claims it's pet perfect, but since taking it out of its box would be a commitment to actually cleaning, it remains untouched on the kitchen counter. On top of it are the empty boxes for the clock radio and heating pad and telephone, etc.

I am pleased to report that my royalty check for Life As We Knew It, The Dead And The Gone, and This World We Live In came today and I can afford everything I bought. I can even afford a new box of tissues for Fran, who'll be sneezing up a storm at Thanksgiving if I don't start cleaning.

Did you know sneezing is an excellent weight loss system? I didn't either, until I made it up just now. I hope Fran believes me though, since it's the best excuse I've come up with for why I haven't started dusting and vacuuming yet.

What I have been doing the past few days is working on that book idea I came up with Monday when I was exercycling. It's been so much fun to plot that that's what I've been doing pretty much every quiet moment. I have the end worked out (it's a book where you have to have the end worked out before you even think about writing it) and a hefty amount of the middle and the beginning isn't that much of a concern for me, since the idea is to get to the middle as fast as possible. The truth of the matter is (is that one of those easily italicized cliches like LOL- TTOTMI?), if Fran weren't coming on Wednesday, I might even start writing it on Monday; that's how quickly it's developed itself

But Fran is coming on Wednesday, and for all I know, by a week from Monday, I might have forgotten all about the book idea. It's going to be a very distracting visit, what with Thanksgiving dinner with my mother and Fran and Marci and her husband Bill at my mother's assisted living facility and then on Friday a trip to the Bethel Woods Museum (devoted to the 1960s) and then dinner for Fran, Marci, Bill and my friends Cynthia and Joel (I'm looking at vegetable curry recipes). Saturday, I take Fran to the airport and don't do anything again for the next four months (aka winter). Or maybe I'll write the book.

But first, I suppose, I should take the pet perfect handheld vacuum cleaner out of its box, and see if I can vacuum up Scooter!