bjrnmed

While sitting at the computer, hands on the keyboard, trying to decide what to write, I sometimes have to reach deep down into the metaphorical soup pot of ideas and stir it up a bit.  I have, on occasion, scraped against the bottom to come up with an idea or two.  Do not worry though.  I have not run out of "idea soup" as it were.  In fact there are those who would say that I am full of it!  A lot of people, actually.  Curious.  Perhaps I should re-evaluate my personal relationship screening process.

In reality, my phone has become my storehouse of blog ideas.  It has a note writing application (can't bring myself to just say 'app'), it is simple to use, it is smarter than me, and I usually have it with me.  Except this morning.  Admittedly when I look at my phone later and see the things that I put in, I am often faced with wondering why on Earth I would have written, "plastic animal tube" or "the sermon about the fish."  Whenever there isn't something happening in the house that is begging to be written about, I look in the phone.  Today would have been one of those days.

Well this morning I walked out of the bedroom without taking my cell phone from the charger.  It seems that the dog had an urgent need that I really didn't want to ignore.  Walking back in to the bedroom would have meant waking Sylvia before she wanted to get up.  Of course that would have been an automatic blog idea, I mean who wouldn't want me to write about German swear words!  Just kidding.  Sylvia isn't a swearer...she is more likely to throw flaming knives.  Kidding again.  She has a trained attack cat and an Indiana Jones souvenir whip...no seriously this time.  But I digress.

Actually, I just wanted Sylvia to get some extra snooze time, feed the puppy dog, and write a little, so out I came...without my phone.  I sat at the computer, checked in on my friend's baby Scarlett and her brain tumor surgery (awesome by the way) and stared at a blank screen.  cursor...cursor...cursor....cursor...(the little blinking line that says where the writing starts...not my beautiful German wife)  And then it came to me.  We used to do an exercise in my writing classes where we would just be given a random word or phrase and then write about it for a period of time.  I had the idea, but not the word or phrase.  What to do, what to do...?

I considered reaching next to me and grabbing a book off the shelf, opening it to a random page, and then using the first word or sentence as my starter.  But that would have involved, reaching, and then reading, and then I'd have to put the book away.  It was all just too much to think about this early in the morning.  I thought about using the punch line from a tired old limerick and moving on from that point.  But, I really don't know all that much about people from Nantucket.  I thought about using an ingredient from a package of German cookies that someone had left on the computer desk..."sugar nuts" didn't have the right ring to it.  Again, what to do, what to do? 

I know, I'll type in a word into google and then write about the first thing that came up.  I typed in a few words of things I see on the desk:  Binder, Christmas Story leg lamp, catalogue...I could hear the snores coming back to me from your computers from all the way over here.  Slovenian people everywhere would wonder what on earth I was doing and start a call to arms to take away my license to write a blog.  Those ideas just wouldn't work. 

I know!  I will just close my eyes and type on the Google search bar and see what happens.  Sylvia had gotten into a bit of trouble with this looking for images of water pitchers but writing in "jugs" but I was confident.  Whatever comes up is what I get.  That is what I will write about no matter what.  I needed to get going.  It was almost time for church and I needed to get changed out of my tuxedo and into my church clothes (as you know I only write wearing a tux) or I wasn't going to make it.  Close my eyes....  Hands on the keyboard...  Random typing!  I hit enter after I typed, seeing that I had written "bjrnmed " I looked, afraid of what I might see only to find...and horror of horrors I saw.

Welcome to IKEA 

Oh man, I hope Sylvia doesn't read this post...I hate shopping there.