A Little Headbanging

Here we are, kittens. The 27th of November is sliding down the hill, taking my four-day weekend with it.

Sigh.

Wasn't it lovely? And don't look now but my dodgy math skills tell me there are just 34 days left in the year. It was a good year, 2011. The entire world of publishing is changing all around us, but in the center, midst all the noise, we writers and readers are still here.

We can bang our heads all we like, trying to figure out delivery systems and income streams and things like that, but at the heart of it all are the people looking for a good book to read and the people working to write them.

And thank goodness.

On another note, my granddaughter, CR, lives all the way in Oregon. None of us has as much vacation time as we'd like to stay connected, but we have Skype, and it's a miracle. It's almost like living in the world of the Jetsons, isn't it? Those flying cars should be coming off the assembly line any time now.

When my daughter and her family were here in Maryland at the end of the summer, CR was a year old and fast on her feet. At one point, she slid on the wood floor and ended up banging her head. Not bad, or not that bad, at any rate, because all of us, including my granddaughter, laughed it off. But then, because we were laughing, she did it again, on purpose. Which of course made us all laugh more. So she moved to one of the throw rugs and did it again. Smart kid, right? I mean, I know I'm biased, but still. Same comic effect, now with less pain.

But for some strange reason, everybody blamed me for her new trick.  Which I thought was unreasonable--I mean, we all laughed, didn't we?  Until after they went back to Oregon and we connected again on Skype and when CR saw me on the laptop screen, she bent down and banged her head on the floor.

She still does this every time I see her and it still makes me laugh.

Sometimes, banging your head can be fun.

It's good to remember that, when all around you the world seems to be going cRaZy and you feel like banging your head.

I say, turn the bass up and go for it . . . just make sure you're on the carpet.