Instead Of Thinking About Writing I'll Write About Thinking

Every morning Scooter offers me the option of lying in bed for half an hour and thinking about a sample story for The Shade Of The Moon The Short Story Version. This is very generous of him, since what he really wants is for me to get out of bed and feed him (a message he communicates by a great deal of purring and head butting and stroking and clawing and biting).

But I'm finding it hard to concentrate on stories. At least not my own stories. I'm reading constantly these days. I read nothing all summer long, and now all I want to do is read.

It's not like I'm reading great literature (although I did reread USA by John Dos Passos, which is my intellectual achievement of the past 3 years give or take a decade or two). In the last month or so, I've read memoirs of Paul Henreid, Dorothy Hamill, and Mel Blanc, and (how I wish Blogspot would let me underline- that and really deserves special emphasis)a biography of DeForest Kelley.

Sadly, these all get kind of smooshed in my brain. I seem to remember Bugs Bunny skating pairs with Ingrid Bergman on the Starship Enterprise (you'd be astounded how far those throw triple axels go in a gravity free environment).

When I'm not reading, I'm obsessing over raincoats with removable linings. To be honest, this obsession is roughly 24 hours old, but it's really taken over what little remains of my brain. As you know, in a week I'll be flying over the Atlantic (and I'm delighted to report not only will they feed me dinner, but something resembling a breakfast, and how I wish I drank coffee, because I'll sure need caffeine to keep me awake when my body is yelling, Hey it's 2 AM!). Given that it's an 8 hour flight (I thought it was 6 because I subtracted wrong), I'll definitely want to sleep, which is close to impossible when you fly 99% Class. But rumor has it airlines no longer offer blankets and pillows, since they figure 2 meals and not crashing is sufficient to satisfy us lowly folk.

So I figured that if I got a raincoat with a removable lining, I could use the raincoat as a blanket and (another and worthy of underlining) remove the removable lining and use it as a pillow.

Is that not the cleverest thing ever?

Today I went to Burlington Coat Factory to examine their raincoats with removable linings and while they had a few, none of them fit me. There was one that was super big on me (I call those Dondi coats), and if I can't find one that fits, I guess I can buy that one. These are essential decisions, because I bought a new pocketbook to take to Germany, and while it's more than big enough under ordinary circumstances, I'm not sure it can hold a sweater to use as a pillow, which is why the removable raincoat lining is such a darn brilliant idea.

Let's hope Kohls/Marshalls/Sears/Penney/Macy's has one that fits.

Ooh. If I can fit a pillowcase in my pocketbook, I can stuff it with the raincoat lining on the flight over, and then I can put the pillowcase in my suitcase and shove my dirty clothes in it.

I'm so smart it scares me. Well, I scare easily.

I also have yet to figure out what clothes to take with me, although I did discover I owned a black blazer, which has been hiding in my closet for at least 7 years.

The thing is I have to look presentable Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and that's asking a lot of a wardrobe that generally doesn't have to look presentable for more than two days in a row. And while the temperature in Buxtehude should be about what it is here (without, I trust, mid-autumn snowstorms), I don't know if the buildings will be well heated or moderately heated or not heated at all. So I have no idea what I should wear under that black blazer.

Then there's figure skating season to focus on and excitement that one of the Presidential debates is going to be held in Hempstead, Long Island (a mere 8 miles from Woodmere, where I grew up), and trying to analyze why it is I'll believe that anyone on death row is innocent while any Republican accused of anything is guilty, guilty, guilty.

This is actually quite a lot to preoccupy me, and it doesn't even include making a list of all my passwords so if the plane crashes and I have to swim across the Atlantic Ocean in my raincoat without lining, someone I love and trust will be able to answer my emails as I do the backstroke to Greenland.

Well, at least there's one thing I can cross off my list. I don't have to decide what to send Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries as a wedding present!