Let Them Eat Cake

Went to my writing workshop tonight and had to turn in a short story.

Despite being told I couldn’t do it, I went ahead and turned in my blog anyway. Not this one, because my instructor has seen this one. I turned in the stuff even y’all haven’t seen. I grabbed a bunch of old posts, strung them together to form a story arc, and voilà, instant short story. Forty-seven pages worth. I only needed forty for the semester. So, I’m done.

I’m either the laziest person in the world or the smartest…


Had, like, a super long conversation with my email buddy, Eric, today. We usually start the email chain at about eight-thirty and go back-and-forth, off-and-on to the end of the workday. I can’t figure out why I never get that much done, what with all the “LOL” and “I know, right?” replies and sends. We have the coolest conversations, though. We’ll start talking about something completely superficial, like, what each of us did the night before, and we end up on this level waaaay out there by the end of the day.

Me: “Yeah, I was supposed to go meet these people out, but I’m still kind of sick and I’ve got all this writing to do. So I told them I didn't feel up to it and went and got my nails done instead.”

Him: “LOL. How do the nails look?”

Forty emails later.

Me: “So, I think that what Nietzsche was really saying is that it is only through the death of the concept of religion that man can fully explore the meaning of life as it relates to his place in the world.”

Well, it’s kind of like that. We definitely talked about my nails at one point.

And, P.S., they look really good.


Lily came over tonight. I’d given her my short blog story to read, and she called me laughing about what I’d written about her trip to Kansas being an example of how she’s so cool that she’d have fun in a paper bag.

“I’ve been to Kansas,” I tell her, “and ‘paper bag’ pretty much sums up the state.”

We sat on my back porch and talked for an hour or so, and then we walked over to her place so she could feed me some of her pre-birthday cake as a pre-birthday celebration for both of us. Hers is on Wednesday, and mine is on Saturday. (Yes, Valentine’s Day. The single worst day for a girl baby to be born.)

Lily’s mother surprised her with this birthday cake from Let Them Eat Cake, and it’s this amazing concoction of three different chocolates - chocolate cake layered with chocolate frosting and covered with chocolate ganache. The cake even came with a little raspberry-filled, heart shaped chocolate box with her name stenciled in gold on the chocolate lid.

I'm not at all hungry, but that's never stopped Lily from making me eat before. So we sit on barstools at her kitchen counter and make a meal of the chocolate cake and some sea salt bagel chips. As I'm leaving, we promise each other that soon, we’ll do something fun together, like go kayaking or to dinner, to celebrate properly.

But, honestly, I think this is our something fun. This is what we do. We talk, and she feeds me. I bounce ideas off of her, and she gives me advice or helps me to look at the world differently. I hope I do that for her, too. And it’s important to have friends like that.

They let you just be you.