I Wish & I Fish

I've come to think of summer as a sort of standing-in-line for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, with Mr. Toad's Wild Ride being—of course—school. Here are some things I wish:

I wish I could, in good conscience, let my kids eat their school's hot lunch offerings, but since I cannot, I wish someone would invent a Rube Goldberg-inspired sandwich-making machine.

I wish the powers-that-be would stop hatch-hatch-hatcheting the education budget, but since they will not, me and my fellow parents will keep giving, raising, giving, raising, and giving money.

I wish I had not promised to make Aranzi Aronzo felt appliques for the girls' lunchboxes, but since I did, I will have to follow through. So far, I've completed a ram (a ram?!) for Lea's. It will be monkey for Ri and a fox for Vi.

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There's been a little lull in my writing. I'm not a prolific writer in the first place, so I'm used to these fallow periods when I just collect stuff in my head—images, people, situations, etc.—without committing anything to paper/screen. It's been awhile, though, and still nothing is truly bubbling up, so I'm starting do to the antsy-pantsy dance (it's a dance that leaves much to be desired, complete with deeply pained facial expressions and much unattractive twisting and turning of the body). I was fishing around for a push when I saw Dan Chaon's guest post over at Well-Read Donkey. I love the way he has actual photographs of the places his characters live. Such a simple but smart thing to do, and so easy in this age of camera phones.

And then there's the Significant Objects Project, which is k-i-l-l-i-n-g me. The project bought various items from thrift stores and garage sales for a total of about $48 thus far. They then commissioned writers to create stories about the items, with the idea being that the stories will up the value of the items. To prove their hypothesis, they put the objects up for sale on eBay and included the story in the item description. And so far they've made more than $1,000. I love this.

Finally, my cousin Luj linked to yet another inspiring project called Mysterious Letters, in which two friends write one-of-a-kind handwritten letters—467 of them—to everyone who lives in a particular Irish village. Swoon.