I love Anne Lamott

I don't care who in the world knows! I love Anne Lamott.

I'm listening to one of her autobiograpical books on CD in the car right now. Well, not right now, but this week. The bummer of it is I'm almost done with this one, but the good thing is she has others on CD.

All the way up to Wheeling this morning, on my trek to the North Suburban Library System headquarters for a class in workplace communications (Zzzzzzzz), I was listening to her talk about faith, grace and her fat thighs. I can't so much identify with her on the faith (because her God hath reameth me too many times), I sort of understand the concept of grace, but it's the fat thighs where we really connect. That I'm all over.

The downside of my Anne Lamott love came to me on the drive back home. As I slid in that last CD for this particular book it hit me. Goddamn, life's a lot of work. It's a lot of work, and it's likely one of these days you'll come down with a terminal disease, then you'll die. If you don't do that you'll either get hit by a bus or drown or something. Oh, and good news! Along the way you'll lose your looks, get grey hair, and your boobs will sag down to your ankles.

What fun!

Then I got to thinking, is that really what I want to do? And I wished I'd upped my meds again.

I have to remember I'm probably 15 - 20 years or even more younger than Anne Lamott, though that sounds really mean and bitchy to say. But what I mean is, I'm just starting to show those annoying signs of age. Some days I have lines on my forehead. Some days I don't. It depends how well-hydrated I am or something, but some days I can pass for being significantly younger than I am. Other days, though, boy scouts offer to help me across the street, calling me ma'am.

Fucking boy scouts.

I'm in a funk today, even though I know I do love Anne Lamott, which should cheer me. And yeah, sometimes that helps a little. She's a cool person with a huge, huge heart, and she makes me laugh so hard I'm afraid my bladder will fail (because having had three kids the bladder will never again be what it used to be). But some days even Anne Lamott and her gracious love isn't enough.

So, I had a great idea for a book, related to all this depression about life and crap. I don't want to give it away, though, so that makes me quite the book tease. I don't want to give it away because it's not a bad idea, if I say so myself, but there's a chance someone more talented will take it and run off with it, leaving me no chance to put it off for another three years and then start writing it, only to abandon it again when another shiny object gets my attention. Then I'll see MY BOOK on bookstore shelves, because someone else will have written MY GREAT IDEA.

So forget that.

Better for you to just know I have this great idea, the kind of idea that would make my friends, husband and doctors a little nervous, considering the subject matter, but a very fine idea nonetheless. Maybe I'll get off my ass and write it, or maybe I'll sit on it. The idea AND my ass.

Only time will tell.

But Anne Lamott. She's great Very inspirational in the way of being a real person, not a self help nutbag. Maybe the both of us can turn lesbian and get married, and I could live off the earnings of her writing. Then, when she's gone, she can will me all her money and her talent, and I'll take over. Because she loved me so, and she'd want it that way.

Or, maybe I should just go eat some chocolate, get over myself, and shut up. I think I will.