Unforgivable Combinations

Do I love kids and fitness? DO. I. EVER. Take children, for example: they are truly God's great miracle. And exercise--why, exercise is what gets our blood pumping every day! Yep, kids and fitness are right up there on my list of Top Five Things To Ignore I Love Unconditionally.

The truth: I love the opposite of kids and fitness, which I suppose would be no kids and no fitness; I'd rather be barren and obese. The first time I saw the post, I mistook the title to say, 'DO YOU LOVE KIDS AND FINANCE?' It really made me take a step back and think about my answer, and my answer was this: no, I really don't. I don't love kids and finance. Or rather, I love kids and finance about as much as I love kids and fitness. Quite frankly, I don't believe kids and anything should be paired together, unless it's Aqua Dots.

And just for the record, I don't enjoy fitness or finance, either. There's only one F-word in my life, and I'm sticking with it. It's been my companion through thick and thin, so I can't just set it free. We need each other. We're like family.

Story Time:

I had a client today, someone I would consider a VIP. She was a freelance writer and had written for one of my favorite magazines, The New Yorker, for a long stretch in the eighties. Even though it had been years ago, I was still impressed. We talked about writing and my Bread Loaf application; she gave me some really good advice on submitting things, and a few book recommendations. All in all, it was an awesome meeting. It would have been the perfect meeting had these three humiliating things not happened:

1. In response to her talking about rejection as a writer:

*uncomfortable laugh*

"Um, I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles, heh."

2. In response to her talking about death in her family:

*coughcough*

"It is what it is."

3. In response to her inquiring about my favorite authors:

*silence*

What. Have. I. Done. Any fear I've had over how cool I could stay under pressure has been completely realized. And I call myself a writer? My nine-year old could come up with better cliches than that while engaging in wittier repartee. It was embarrassing. I totally lost my shit. It was like I had never met a human before. She was most likely unimpressed and I was mortified; I wondered if I had lost all of my creative abilities at once, or if I had just conveniently arrested the ones that were most important to me in that exact fucking moment. And what writers can't remember which BOOKS they like to read?! I must have looked like an illiterate, NASCAR-loving hillbilly! 'Brav-O,' I thought to myself. 'Next time, I'll just drool all over my shirt and eat a dictionary with plastic utensils in the corner, like an undiscovered idiot savant. If that doesn't convince her that I'm a good writer, nothing will.' Note to self: QUIT SAYING YOUR THOUGHTS OUT LOUD, FULL STOP.